There has been a controversy brewing over allegations that several bloggers at the liberal Center for American Progress have used anti-Semitic rhetoric when criticizing Israel and its American Supporters. Critics have particularly focused on these bloggers’ use of the term “Israel-firster.”
I haven’t paid all that much attention to the controversy, but today I came across a piece by Jamie Kirchik in which he alleges that the term “Israel-firster” was first popularized by Willis Carto’s anti-Semitic The Spotlight, and that the term gradually migrated from the anti-Semitic far right to the “Progressive” left.
So I decided to do some research. I couldn’t find any online archives of The Spotlight, but here is what I did find.
The “Israel-firster” slur was not used in “mainstream” discourse until the last few years.
Before that, you can find it occasionally in the early 1980s and 1990s in sources such as Wilmot Robertson’s anti-Semitic Instauration journal, a 1988 anti-Semitic book called “The F.O.J. [Fear of Jews] Syndrome, and a 1998 anti-Semitic book “Rise of AntiChrist.” I also found a couple of references to “Israel-firsters” in the extremist anti-Israel publication, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and from writers associated with this journal.
By the early 2000s, one can find “Israel-firster” being used by a variety of anti-Semitic “right-wing” sources like DavidDuke.com and the Vanguard News Network. As the decade wore on, the phrase occasionally pops up in far left anti-Israel sites that have ties to the anti-Semitic far-right or are known for playing footsie with anti-Semitism, like Antiwar.com, Norman Finkelstein’s website, and Indymedia.
Finally, over the last few years the term has become increasingly used on the anti-Israel far left, especially by blogger M. J. Rosenberg of Media Matters, who Kirchik calls the “worst offender.”
Obviously, the phrase “Israel-firster” should be expunged from reasoned discourse, regardless of its origins–it amounts, as Kirchik points out, to name calling as opposed to argument. And it certainly questions the patriotism of Jewish Americans to whom the moniker is applied, which at best potentially plays to anti-Semitic sentiment.
But is the phrase clearly anti-Semitic, even if used by those who have no anti-Semitic intent? I don’t think we need to reach that issue. Some of the “Progressive” bloggers who have used the phrase may not have been aware of its origins in the depths of unhinged neo-Nazi land.
So the question is, does your average Progressive recoil at the use of terminology that migrated recent from the far-right racist kook fringe to refer to members of minority groups? They sure do. Should they recoil less if the terminology is aimed at Jews, as opposed to other minority groups? They sure shouldn’t–unless they are themselves prejudiced against Jews.
Therefore, regardless of what cockamamie post hoc excuses they come up with (Rosenberg, for example, claims that when he talks about “Israel-firsters”, he only means “Netanyahu firsters” [in the sense they always think Netanyahu is right--if Rosenberg meant the latter, then he was being intentionally provocative, and not in a good way), if bloggers want to claim status as Progressives who are not anti-Semitic, they should treat the phrase "Israel firster" the same disdain as any other phrase that recently emerged from the sewers of racism.
UPDATE: The following passage from Kirchik's piece is relevant: "While CAP publicly denied that its employees were trafficking in anti-Semitism, an e-mail from the organization's vice president, obtained by The Jerusalem Post, deemed 'Israel-firster,' to be 'terrible, anti-Semitic language.'" That's further then I'd go, in the absence of proof of intent. But the point, once again, is that self-styled "Progressives," as a rule, bend over backwards to be politically correct and hypersensitive on linguistic usage as pertains to members of minority groups. They wouldn't deign to use the equivalent of Israel-firsters to refer to other minority groups (indeed, they'd likely be attacking "conservatives" for using such language), and if they did, they would surely take some care to examine the origins and implications of the phrase. But when it comes to using borderline anti-Semitic language, not only does sensitivity go by the wayside for certain Progressives, but they delude themselves into thinking that by ignoring Jewish sensitivities, they are "speaking truth to power."
So I'm neither claiming that the bloggers in question are anti-Semitic, or had anti-Semitic intent, or that, in general, writers should engage in self-censorship on matters related to Israel. What I am arguing is that there is a double standard, in which standards that are applied to other groups are not applied to Jews. (I made a related point here.) [Here, for example, is Glenn Greenwald, who has prominently defended his use of "Israel Firster," attacking John McCain for racism for engaging in rhetoric "blatantly designed to stoke raw racial resentments," for such statements as "the usual rules do not apply" to Obama,
and questioning why Obama "refused to disclose the people who are funding his campaign."]
Indeed, I’ve occasionally seen this justified explicitly by “anti-Zionist” leftists on the grounds that Jews, unlike other minority groups, are “powerful.” Just sixty-six years after the end of World War II, and with calls for the annihilation of Jews still emanating from a variety of rather significant sources (Hamas, Hezbollah, various radical Islamist groups, etc.), and still rather high levels of anti-Jewish prejudice even in the most enlightened countries, I think it’s rather early to proclaim that anti-Semitism is no longer a matter of significant concern for “Progressives.”
FURTHER UPDATE: “Fanatically pro-Israel” or “pro-Israel fanatic” would (and often does) serve the same rhetorical function, without either the imputation of foreign loyalties or the neo-Nazi origins.
Hugh says:
Fair enough. Now how about we do the same with “blame America first”–a smear deeply beloved on the American right.
January 13, 2012, 7:59 pmOwen H. says:
“Israel first” is anti-Semitic? Are you finally admitting that you call criticism of the government of the country of Israel automatically is anti-Semitism?
January 13, 2012, 8:06 pmElemenope says:
This seems an awfully baroque analysis for what is ostensibly a very straightforward rhetorical phrase, regardless of its actual provenance. This is especially the case because the construction itself is an obvious approach to label the concept being described, with similar constructions applying in an identical way in other contexts.
It would be like complaining about the word “capitalist” because it was popularized as a term by Marx and Engels, even though it suitably and obviously encapsulates the idea: “private person who owns capital”. Certainly socialists used and use the word pejoratively. We all intuitively understand that, despite this origin and means of being popularized, when it is spoken by everyone except socialists its intent is likely not pejorative.
Now, if a person uses a phrase with the explicit intent of importing some dogwhistle notes from whatever sordid origin it does happen to hail from, that is a different problem. Of course, that clearly isn’t the case here.
January 13, 2012, 8:12 pmHugh says:
Er, no:
I don’t think the phrase is anti-semitic (as you say, it’s about loyalty to the nation, not ethnic identity), but it clearly calls the loyalty of those it’s used against into question in ways that are offensive and unfounded (it’s analogous to calling President Kennedy a “minion of Rome” or what have you). Of course, it’s pretty funny hearing anyone on the Right getting outraged at calling people’s loyalty into question when that has been the American Right’s bread and butter since McCarthy, but perhaps this can be a learning moment?
January 13, 2012, 8:13 pmleo marvin says:
The problem is in the term’s primary and secondary meanings, not its provenance. As Hugh explains, “Israel first” impugns loyalty. That in turn has historic antisemitic dog-whistle implications.
January 13, 2012, 8:26 pmanon says:
Doesn’t the word “anti-semitic” come from notorious anti-semite Wilhelm Marr? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Marr
How does the right feel about using a word that comes from anti-semitic jackasses?
January 13, 2012, 8:28 pmleo marvin says:
Why did you abandon the House pic?
January 13, 2012, 8:30 pmElliott says:
Examples?
Aren’t Greater Israel evangelicals also called “Israel-firsters?” Given that a lot of people accused of being “Israel-firsters” aren’t Jewish, and that the “slur” carries the actual meaning the users intend (i.e., people intend the phrase to mean that someone is more loyal to Israel than the US), I’m skeptical that there are any really analogous terms.
This seems like much ado about nothing.
January 13, 2012, 8:37 pmElemenope says:
The problem is in the term’s primary and secondary meanings, not its provenance.
If this is the case, then Professor Bernstein’s rather detailed investigation of the provenance of the term is rather off the point, isn’t it?
As Hugh explains, “Israel first” impugns loyalty…
No kidding. Like I said, the phrase rather trivially and quite accurately indicates the concept that is attempting to be conveyed.
…which in turn has historic antisemitic dog-whistle implications.
It is *really* hard to take seriously the notion that the Think Progress folks mean the phrase in any way remotely resembling what the David Duke folks meant by it. That’s kinda my point; the provenance is a red herring because any usage in that context is going to severely distort the resulting analysis of what it means when used by others. The professor himself rather deftly points out that the likelihood that these progressive bloggers know the provenance of the term they use is fairly low–and I’d suggest their prospective audience is, on balance, far less likely than the bloggers are to know it–so the chances that any dog whistling is going on is practically non-existent.
January 13, 2012, 8:38 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Again, your average “Progressive” wouldn’t be caught dead using a phrase that migrated from the neo-nazi right within the last decade to refer to blacks, Arabs, Hispanics, etc., regardless of how descriptive they found it. So the relevant question is why should it would nevertheless be okay to use such a phrase when referring to Jews.
January 13, 2012, 8:40 pmElemenope says:
Why did you abandon the House pic?
At the other blog that I regularly comment on (and help manage), there was a gentle push for folks to use a gravatar of themselves. I figured, why not? It was time for a change anyway.
January 13, 2012, 8:40 pmyankee says:
A rare case where Bernstein and I are in complete agreement.
January 13, 2012, 8:43 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I have never heard the term “Israel-firster” before. I can not imagine a circumstance in which a reasonable person would consider it more objectionable than “blame America first.”
January 13, 2012, 8:43 pmElemenope says:
Again, your average “Progressive” wouldn’t be caught dead using a phrase that migrated from the neo-nazi right within the last decade to refer to blacks, Arabs, Hispanics, etc., regardless of how descriptive they found it. So the relevant question is why should it would nevertheless be okay to use such a phrase when referring to Jews.
Is it being used to refer to Jews, or being used to refer to people (Jew and gentile) who adopt a specific outlook regarding the nation of Israel? I don’t know, since you really didn’t link to any in-the-wild examples. Would, say, the sentence “Rick Perry is an Israel-firster” due to his foreign policy comments in the campaign and debates be anti-Semitic?
As for people borrowing rhetoric from sources they personally find abhorrent, well, that happens everywhere, and is engaged in by pretty much everybody. The complaint “they’re using words that bad people invented!” strikes me as just short of completely silly. A substantive complaint would be one that demonstrated a desire to use the baggage that would come with the words if the people using them knew their provenance and were either deliberately heedless of it or actively used it for their own ends. From wetbacks to welfare queens, rhetoric from unsavory sources seeps into the Overton window from all directions.
“Progressive”
If you’re going to complain about how others use language to label, perhaps obnoxious scare quote should be right out?
January 13, 2012, 8:55 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Yes, and if this was the 1880s, and the phrase was still closely associated with the likes of Wilhelm, I’d wager that liberals of the day wouldn’t be using it.
January 13, 2012, 8:59 pmInformant says:
I’ll join the chorus of those find this whole thing overwrought. The term “America-Firster” has been used for many decades to mean someone who puts the United States’ interests ahead of other nations. My immediate reaction to the substantively identical phrase “Israel-Firster” is that it carries the identical meaning, merely substituting “Israel” for “[the United States of] America.” This post is rather obviously just another attempt to equate all criticism of Israel supporters as being anti-Semitic.
January 13, 2012, 9:07 pmHm. says:
Israel-firster doesn’t sound offensive to me. If it was racially charged, wouldn’t it be ‘Jew-firster?’ I find the notion absurd that any blogger at CAP uses Israel-firster to mean anything other than its nominal meaning: placing the interests of Israel, a state, above our own state.
I think the problem here is that the left views Israel as any other state. People like Bernstein view Israel first and foremost as an ethnic identity. As somebody on the left, I find no difference in meaning between Israel-firster and France-firster, or Germany-firster or China-firster, etc.
January 13, 2012, 9:08 pmMaryG says:
Word police…
January 13, 2012, 9:08 pmEh.
leo marvin says:
It’s not a competition. They’re both obnoxious.
January 13, 2012, 9:09 pmOwen H. says:
Objection, assuming facts not in evidence.
January 13, 2012, 9:09 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
Grasping at straws much?
Of course it impugns loyalty – but that’s obvious and also obviously not *necessarily* anti-Semitic. (Of course, it would be anti-Semitic to call someone an “Israel-firster” based on the fact that they’re Jewish.)
I’m unconvinced that the term “should be expunged from reasoned discourse” because it’s “name calling as opposed to argument.” It may be name calling, but that doesn’t mean it’s invalid in reasoned discourse. Name calling is only inappropriate where it is used to distract from real issues. Here, at least, it seems like it’s being used to refer to arguably true characterizations that are relevant to the claim being made (presumably, that someone is more loyal to Israel than to the United States.) I also don’t see how it falls into the “name calling and not argument” category more than, say, “anti-Semitic,” “known for playing footsie with anti-Semitism,” “unhinged neo-Nazi,” “far-right racist kook fringe,” “cockamamie post hoc excuses,” “the sewers of racism,” or “a kooky fringe anti-Semite.” Glass houses and stones and all that.
The whole hypocrisy argument, while at least facially relevant, is pretty unconvincing without some specific comparable examples.
January 13, 2012, 9:09 pmMaryG says:
What if you are honestly ignorant of the word’s background. Still as guilty? I don’t know David, seems like a hard convince to me. Better to tackle the root of your issue — the substance of the accusation, and nevermind already about label wordchoice?
January 13, 2012, 9:10 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
For the record, I would agree that the word should be banned henceforth from the English language, even if only for the fact that it’s just extremely ugly.
January 13, 2012, 9:11 pmOwen H. says:
Are you trying to win some competition on how big a Straw Man you can build?
January 13, 2012, 9:12 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Has David Duke ever called anyone a “France-firster” or a “Germany-firster?”
January 13, 2012, 9:14 pmMaryG says:
or, Your Hypersensitivity is Showing.
January 13, 2012, 9:14 pmMaryG says:
Sometimes I think you just need a hug… It’s ok. Gonna be ok now.
January 13, 2012, 9:16 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
Guilt by association is a pretty weak tactic. Guilt by “they use the same words” is…I’m not sure what word I can safely use to describe this. Can someone get me a transcript of all of David Duke’s public utterances so I can double check?
January 13, 2012, 9:16 pmSteve says:
Can the calls for Michelle Malkin and her ilk to lay off questioning the loyalties of Mexican-Americans be far behind? Yes, yes, they can, actually.
The premise of this post is kind of cute. Even though nobody suggests (of course they don’t!) that the left-wingers who use this term had any anti-semitic intentions, now that David Bernstein has made this blog post they are henceforth ON NOTICE and everyone can freely question why they would be so awful as to use a term that has so conclusively been established to derive from far-right hate sources.
January 13, 2012, 9:17 pmDavid Bernstein says:
“America First” was an isolationist movement of Americans who tried to impugn the integrity of those who wanted to take a more aggressive line vis a vis what became the axis powers by suggesting that their ideological had the interests of others (the British, the Jews, munitions companies, etc.) in mind instead of the interest of their own country. “Israel firster” has similar origins, except the slur wasn’t implicit–it was primarily neo-nazis explicitly arguing that Jews who support Israel are disloyal to the U.S., not because they are loyal to another state, per se, but because they are loyal to international Jewry.
January 13, 2012, 9:18 pmDiogenes the Cynic says:
If you have a problem with the word, take it up with the Editor/Owner of the The America Free Press formerly known as The Spotlight.
Photo below.
http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/photo.php?display=large&oid=131
January 13, 2012, 9:19 pmElemenope says:
Has David Duke ever called anyone a “France-firster” or a “Germany-firster?”
Probably not. But I think the real question is why on Earth do you think that, if he had, it would change or mean anything?
January 13, 2012, 9:19 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Are you being intentionally daft, or just pretending to be to annoy me? The context is that Duke and his neo-Nazi allies INVENTED and POPULARIZED the phrase with specific anti-Semitic intent, not that he happened to use the word.
January 13, 2012, 9:20 pmsailor says:
Ban the ugly words!!!!!!!!!!!!
January 13, 2012, 9:22 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
Do you honestly think that guilt by “he uses a word that this bad guy invented” is a stronger argument?
January 13, 2012, 9:23 pmOwen H. says:
Oh my goodness! Anyone that uses the phrase, “Jim Crow laws”, is a racist because the origin of “Jim Crow” is racist!
January 13, 2012, 9:30 pmDiogenes the Cynic says:
Has David Duke ever called anyone a “France-firster” or a “Germany-firster
No, but I think Woody Guthrie called Charles Lindbergh and “Socialist” Norman Thomas Germany-Firsters?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_F48oaOskI
January 13, 2012, 9:31 pmSteve says:
“Popularized” is a strange word to use in connection with people who are the farthest thing from popular. Do you seriously think M.J. Rosenberg unconsciously picked the word up from reading far-right hate sites? We’re talking about a word whose coinage is fairly obvious, and which could easily be invented completely independently of other users.
January 13, 2012, 9:32 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
Especially given all of the other parallels people have been mentioning to other -firster terms.
I’m still curious as to what comparable anti-Muslim/black/Mexican/etc terms Bernstein was thinking of when he made the hypocrisy claim. Sometime tells me they either don’t exist or they’re not very comparable. Of course, it’d be a lot easier to tell if he just backed up his claims a little bit.
January 13, 2012, 9:35 pmleo marvin says:
Accurately? Based on what?The accusation that someone’s first loyalty is to a country other than his own is a damning one that should be made only when supported by compelling proof.
Let me say this again, however it does or doesn’t relate to David Bernstein’s argument: As far as I’m concerned the issue isn’t the term’s provenance, it’s the facial implication of disloyalty, which implication has a long, ignominious place in the catalog of antisemitic canards.
January 13, 2012, 9:37 pmleo marvin says:
What difference does it make? He knows, or certainly ought to, that he’s casually accusing people of disloyalty. How is it any better than when Ann Coulter does it to liberals? I fail to see the difference. They’re both obnoxious and wrong.
January 13, 2012, 9:42 pmDavid Bernstein says:
No, he likely picked it up from the likes of antiwar.com and normanfinkelstein.com, who in turn picked it up from “right-wing hate sites.” You only need to look at the Mondoweiss site (both the rhetoric of Weiss himself, at least last time I looked, and the comments section) to see the cross-fertilization between the anti-Semitic far right and the “anti-Zionist” left. Or the way neo-Nazi Gilad Atzmon has been defended by some on the far left.
January 13, 2012, 9:44 pmDavid Bernstein says:
So if a right-wing writer in, say, the early 1950s, referred to Jews who supported Israel as “rootless cosmopolitans,” it would be wrong to criticize him both for using a phrase with anti-Semitic implications, and one that he undoubtedly, even if unconsciously, absorbed from overtly anti-Semitic Communist propaganda? Even if the same individual professed to be extremely sensitive to the concerns of other minority groups?
January 13, 2012, 9:48 pmJncc says:
Okay, so according to David Bernstein’s Polite Conversation and Warm Crumpet Society, what may one call someone who puts Israel’s interests ahead of those of the United States?
January 13, 2012, 9:49 pmDavid Bernstein says:
It’s hard to come up with a good example because it’s so hard to imagine bloggers on the Progressive left adopting a similarly right-wing, chauvinistic trope that applies to another group than Jews. It would be like Progressive bloggers referring to mainstream African American political activists and writers as “welfare queens” or “primitives”.
January 13, 2012, 9:51 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
I’m a bit more hesitant to address that phrase, because (unlike “Israel-firster”) it’s meaning and relevance to those who support Israel isn’t immediately clear to me. (I feel like I vaguely remember a term like that being discussed in some anti-Semitic Marx writing, but I don’t recall exactly.)
Would it be wrong to criticize him for using the phrase if it had (legitimate) anti-Semitic implications? No. Would it be wrong to criticize him for using the term *solely* because it originally came from anti-Semitic writing? Yes, though I wouldn’t use the word “wrong,” since that implies I’m assigning some sort of moral badness to such criticism. I’m not really saying that, I’m just saying the criticism is ridiculous and unconvincing.
Most language can be used for many purposes. The fact that Very Bad Racist People ™ came up with a word that usefully, clearly and concisely conveys a specific non-racist meaning — even the fact that those Very Bad Racist People ™ then used that word, in conjunction with other words, to make a racist claim — doesn’t mean that the word is then inherently bad. Vocabulary (in all but the most extreme cases) is effectively neutral, at least to thoughtful readers.
January 13, 2012, 9:58 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Well, you can just call them Israelis, because that’s what they will almost always be. “Israel-firster” is meant as a slur, not a description. As noted, when the controversy came to light, the prime offender, MJ Rosenberg, claimed that “putting ‘Israel’s interests ahead of the U.S.” is NOT what he meant, because he knew he couldn’t defend the slur w/r/t the many people he slurred.
That said, I assume that sensitive, politically correct individual of the Progressive persuasion could find a way to criticize any such people who do exist without borrowing a phrase from neo-nazis, and would also take care to point out the specific evidence they have that this individual really does put the interests of Israel first, and would not paint with a broad brush that might imply that all friends of Israel are that way. Too sensitive for you? Again, we’re talking about the side that invented “political correctness.”
January 13, 2012, 10:00 pmManju says:
Right…since Bush was called a chimp, its OK to call Obama one too. Fair is fair. It’s all even-steven.
Context doesn’t matter.
January 13, 2012, 10:01 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
This is why I think it’s important to include examples. If this is how you see the use of the term “Israel-firster,” then I really just don’t understand where you’re coming from. “Israel-firster” conveys, as I said above, a clear concept in a concise way. It is objectionable only, if at all, because it was invented by Very Bad Racist People. (Setting aside, of course, those cases where its use *in context* is racist.)
Both “welfare queens” and “primitives” convey no such useful idea. They’re bad on their own merit, not because of who invented them.
To make the distinction clear, if I expand out “Israel-firster” into “someone who puts the interests of Israel ahead of those in the United States” it presumably loses the objectionability you’re ascribing to it. If I expand out “welfare queens” to “someone who collects excess welfare checks through fraud” it’s at most only slightly less objectionable.
Is it possible to use “Israel-firster” in a racist way? Of course. But the idea that its users automatically inherit the racism of its inventors is ridiculous.
January 13, 2012, 10:04 pmDavid Bernstein says:
So tell me what words and phrases of very recent racist origin that you think are properly applied to blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, etc. because they are descriptive? Specific examples, please? And do you think your average Progressive blogger would agree that this is okay?
January 13, 2012, 10:06 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
Does that mean you’ll be accompanying all your uses of “neo-Nazi” with specific evidence that the person espouses a political world-view substantially similar to that of the Nazi party?
January 13, 2012, 10:06 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
You’re the one who both spends your time looking into the racist origin of words and made the claim about Progressives. I’m confused as to why you think this attempted turn-around is relevant.
January 13, 2012, 10:07 pmDavid Bernstein says:
And by the way, if you don’t understand how you
You really don’t understand how the word “primitives” conveys a useful idea? The idea that the people you are calling “primitives” are “primitive”/backward? This was, in fact, once a pretty standard argument in the U.S. as to why blacks shouldn’t get full citizenship rights, be allowed to vote, etc. And the word isn’t bad in and of itself. “I went camping last year and lived in primitive conditions.”
January 13, 2012, 10:10 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Because you wrote: “The fact that Very Bad Racist People ™ came up with a word that usefully, clearly and concisely conveys a specific non-racist meaning — even the fact that those Very Bad Racist People ™ then used that word, in conjunction with other words, to make a racist claim — doesn’t mean that the word is then inherently bad.”
So I’m looking for an example of a word made up by very bad racist people for racist purposes that also conveys a non-racist meaning that you think is proper to apply to blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc. Oh, and the word has to have been limited to use almost exclusively by very bad racist people until pretty recently, not words whose context has been lost in history.
You can’t do it, because you know that it would be horribly politically incorrect to name any such word. A disadvantage to commenting under your own name.
January 13, 2012, 10:14 pmElemenope says:
Accurately? Based on what?The accusation that someone’s first loyalty is to a country other than his own is a damning one that should be made only when supported by compelling proof.
You misunderstand my meaning. I don’t mean that the term, when applied, is an accurate description of those it is applied to. What I mean, simply, is that the meaning of the phrase is easily deducible from its choice of form.
“Capitalist” is a good word for “person who owns capital” because “capital” is right there in the word as a signpost. Hence, claiming that a person is an “Israel-firster” is claiming that they place Israel first. There is high fidelity of correspondence between the notion being conveyed and the phrase used to describe it. Probably I would better describe the correspondence as “precise” or “exacting” rather than “accurate” if you like, to avoid the implication you erroneously detected.
As far as I’m concerned the issue isn’t the term’s provenance, it’s the facial implication of disloyalty, which implication has a long, ignominious place in the catalog of antisemitic canards.
Implications of disloyalty have a long and storied past in the history of political rhetoric; certainly neither Jews nor anyone else have a monopoly on jingoism being directed their way. It is simply the result of people, generally, having a hard time not imputing ill-intent to others who disagree with them on subjects of great importance to them both.
January 13, 2012, 10:14 pmJncc says:
No really what is an acceptable term. You know that Israeli doesn’t on eh the same thing. And you might want to dial back your aspersions of political correctness since you are as hypersensitive as any 400 pound black lesbian
January 13, 2012, 10:14 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Well, sure, if you thrown in what you assume to be an inherently hypersensitive obese black lesbian for no particular reason, I can understand why “Israel-firster” isn’t going to raise your hackles. But thanks for making my point: it’s the kind of people who throw out such references who you wouldn’t expect to be sensitive to language, not “Progressive” bloggers.
January 13, 2012, 10:21 pmobi juan says:
Ok. So what’s the polite term that should be used instead to describe people who put the interests of Israel first?
January 13, 2012, 10:23 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
You restricted your example to a specific context, and my analysis followed that restriction, even if I did not state so explicitly.
Are you really not familiar with the basic philosophical principle that affirmation of a principle does not require actual knowledge of an example of that principle in the real world?
Unlike you, who made specific factual claims about words, I (where I was ignorant of specific examples) restricted my attention to general principles.
Your logic seems to be this: Make a claim about example. When someone asks you to support it, demand they disprove it instead. Interesting, coming from a law prof.
(By the way, I’m not afraid of discussing – as opposed to using – racist terms. I simply cannot think of any (probably due to my relative lack of interest in obscure linguistic trivia) that match the criteria you’re specifying.)
January 13, 2012, 10:26 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
“Other people were hyper-sensitive first! (not that I’m able to come up with any examples of it).”
January 13, 2012, 10:30 pmjncc says:
And thank you for proving (one of) my point(s): that obsessing over perceived slights and focusing on silly word choices isn’t solely a characteristic of “progressives.”
January 13, 2012, 10:35 pmleo marvin says:
Fair enough. My mistake.
“Disloyal,” “lazy,” “pervert,” “hysterical,” and “drunkard” are all epithets people use indiscriminately for rhetorical advantage. But if I say “women,” “gays,” “Irish,” “blacks” and “Jews,” I doubt you’ll have any difficulty matching the group to the stereotype that’s been used repeatedly over time to persecute that particular group.
January 13, 2012, 10:37 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Calling someone an Israel-firster is analogous to calling someone a liberal a “pinko” or a conservative a “fascist”–it reflects more on the accuser’s unnuanced view of his ideological opponents than on the accused (with the additional factor of the anti-Semitic origins of Israel-firster). Among those accused of being pinkos or fascists over the years are undoubtedly a small few who actually deserved that moniker. So if you could somehow limit the use of “fascist” to the small group real American fascists, that would be fine. If you could limit “Israel firster” to those to whom it literally applies, that would be fine. But even our friend MJ Rosenberg has admitted that he can’t defend the phrase literally, and indeed it’s used against all sorts of individuals without any evidence that it applies to them. And of course it was (and is) used by the neo-Nazis to apply to any Jewish person who expresses an opinion on Israel, given that to them Jews are inherently part of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. So given that it’s been used as almost exclusively a slur and not descriptively in any objective sense, it’s a phrase that’s best retired.
January 13, 2012, 10:40 pmDavid Bernstein says:
How about, in a “Progressive” article decrying the effects of immigration on low-income workers, use of the phrase “unassimilable Mexican immigrants?” Kosher for Progressives? Conveys information, right?
January 13, 2012, 10:42 pmElemenope says:
“Disloyal,” “lazy,” “pervert,” “hysterical,” and “drunkard” are all epithets people use indiscriminately for rhetorical advantage. But if I say “women,” “gays,” “Irish,” “blacks” and “Jews,” I doubt you’ll have any difficulty matching the group to the stereotype that’s been used repeatedly over time to persecute that particular group.
Which goes back to one of my unanswered questions upthread. Let’s say there was a GOP candidate in the 2012 presidential race who committed to the following position:
“I will support Israel in launching a pre-emptive war against Iran with the might of the US.”
It’s not that far out of the realm of possibility; some GOP candidates have come damn close to saying precisely that. Now, let’s say I’m a person who believes that there are a great many circumstances under which the US joining Israel in a pre-emptive war against Iran would be counter to US interests.
Would saying, about that candidate, that they had an “Israel-first” approach–or given that it is campaign season, just saying that the candidate himself was an “Israel-firster”–be anti-Semitic? Why or why not?
January 13, 2012, 10:50 pmOrenWithAnE says:
You’re far too generous to our opponents. Hamas and Hezbollah are capable of such minor bloodshed as to be incapable of comparison to annhilation.
That’s not to say they can’t kill some Jews, but there’s a huge space between murder of hundreds or even thousands on the one hand and annihilation of millions of Jews on the other.
January 13, 2012, 10:55 pmleo marvin says:
Obviously it wouldn’t be antisemitic to call Rick Santorum an “Israel-firster,” though it might unfairly disparage his patriotism. Neither would it be racist to call Santorum “lazy and dumb.” That doesn’t mean “lazy and dumb” wouldn’t be racist if used to describe Herman Cain. Same reasoning for “Israel-firster.”
January 13, 2012, 11:01 pmVictor X says:
The leftists don’t care where the grenade came from. They just pull the pin and throw it.
January 13, 2012, 11:13 pmDavid Bernstein says:
The point is not that Hamas or Hizbollah have the capacity to annihilate the Jews, but that anti-Semitism is alive and well and has real-world consequences.
January 13, 2012, 11:15 pmcaptcrisis says:
If a term has an ugly history and offends people, it should not be used, even though it sounds objective on its face.
You can deride this as “political correctness” — until it hits you personally, as it has DB.
January 13, 2012, 11:27 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
I obviously can’t speak for scare-quote-Progressives, but yes – absent other evidence of racism, I don’t think that phrase would be cause for criticizing them as a racist. (Does it have overtly racist roots?)
Now, if (in context) the claim that Mexicans were “unassimilable” wasn’t at all relevant to the claim, there could perhaps be a reasonable inference that it was intended only to call up racist, jingoistic feelings. Do you understand the distinction?
January 13, 2012, 11:30 pmjncc says:
So what’s the polite term that should be used instead to describe people who put the interests of Israel first?
January 13, 2012, 11:32 pmOwen H. says:
No, it isn’t. And again you simply assume the anti-Semiitic meaning.
January 13, 2012, 11:33 pmTurkey Vulture says:
What is the proper term for someone who seemingly places the interests of Israel first, regardless of their racial/ethnic/religious identity?
January 13, 2012, 11:36 pmAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
So we’re going with “it’s only racist if you say it about Jews” now? What if someone writes a list of people and identifies them as “Israel-firsters”. If 50% of the people on the list happen to be Jewish, would that make the person a racist? What about 75%? 90%?
Conservatives like to whine about “political correctness,” but when it comes to Israel some elements of the right demand more “political correctness” than I’ve ever seen coming from the left.
There are certainly prudential and ethical arguments for being sensitive to people’s feelings, even when it comes to useful terms. Where equally useful, non-offensive terms can operate, it’s usually better to use those.
But that’s a long way from saying that it’s appropriate to denounce those who use those words anyways. The idea that Bernstein is going to sit here and declare that bloggers cannot use a word if they want to be seen as not anti-Semitic is absurd.
Too many people seem to have learned rules such as “don’t say this” when they were children, and then somehow turned that into “call everyone who *does* say this a racist.”
I don’t doubt that at all. Focusing on issues of actual anti-Semitism rather than trying to go with guilt-by-word-association would be a much better response.
January 13, 2012, 11:41 pmDavid Bernstein says:
I’m not “offended” by the phrase, any more than I’m “offended” when a leftist calls a libertarian a “fascist.” I find it puerile, not offensive, at least when used by those for whom I have no evidence of anti-Semitic intent.
January 13, 2012, 11:42 pmWhat does trouble me is that some individuals who claim to be Progressive and would never use questionable language that emanated from racist sources to describe other groups are not hesitant, and indeed are in some cases proud to use such language vis a vis Jews (or at least pro-Israel Jews). E.g., if Rosenberg only meant, as he claimed, “Netanyahu firsters” in the sense of “always think Netanyahu is right,” and not “Israel firsters”, which implies “loyal to Israel and not the U.S.,” why use the latter phrase?
Andrew MacKie-Mason says:
I know this wasn’t directed at me, but just to be clear: I’m not considering, nor do I really intend to look into, the cases you bring up about specific people. I’m addressing only your broader claims about the word per se.
By the way, since I presume you’re using this as your evidence of the alleged hypocrisy, has there been any widespread outrage at this term among Progressives?
January 13, 2012, 11:46 pmcaptcrisis says:
DB,
I think you’re offended. They’re making an argument you don’t agree with, fair enough, but are apparently deliberately using a term that has anti-Semitic origins. I’d be offended too.
January 13, 2012, 11:53 pmJSA says:
Seconded. I had never heard of the term prior to this post, and I would have assumed (prior to Mr. Bernstein’s long diatribe) that it referred to people who put Israel first. In modern-day context, I would be quick to attribute the term to American Jews who would support Israel over the United States, say, in a war against Iran.
January 14, 2012, 12:22 amleo marvin says:
Context always matters. I shouldn’t have to explain why a caricature of Bill Clinton eating a piece of watermelon wouldn’t be racist, while a caricature of Barack Obama doing it would. Blur the lines and it becomes a judgment call. And a comment or description being bigoted doesn’t mean the person who made it is necessarily a bigot. In short, there are no hard and fast rules. The Golden Rule is about as close as it gets.
FWIW, I’m from the left.
January 14, 2012, 12:29 amcurle says:
All the while mainstream publications have no problem labeling any number of people who discuss or highlight real and demonstrable distinctions between groups of people or organizations ‘bigots’ if the subject is race, culture or religion. Apparently mainstream Christians are not permitted to highlight that they do not consider Mormons to be co-religionists without being labeled bigots for doing so. I guess it offends the ‘everyone is entitled to define themselves without objection or contradiction’ crowd. By the way, I’m the King of England.
January 14, 2012, 12:39 amAndrew MacKie-Mason says:
That’s fair enough. I guess I’m just trying to get the goal posts right. Some people (Bernstein) seem to be saying the term is per se racist because racist people started using it. Other people are being more discriminating.
But on the issue of substantive racism, I still don’t see it. In general, when it comes to anti-Semitism, those who often point to it seem to think that if they analogize a criticism of a particular Jew or Jews to historically racist attacks against Jews in general. But that proves too much. As a historically persecuted group, racists have attacked Jews in countless ways throughout the past. That doesn’t (or shouldn’t) mean that modern-day individual Jews should be insulated from any otherwise legitimate criticism just because it’s in some way potentially similar to that past racism.
If people are calling supporters of Israel “Israel-firsters” without good cause, by all means go after them for that. But I don’t see the justification for automatically labeling it racism.
In some cases this distinction is reasonable, though it needs to be made with care, since a significant part of bigotry is indeed intent. And anyways, Bernstein’s post is a great exemplar of exactly what not to do if you think someone was being unintentionally bigoted and are honestly just trying to inform them.
Sorry for lumping you in.
January 14, 2012, 12:39 amjoe says:
this has nothing to do with criticism of israel. it is about criticism of american jews. the phrase calls into question their loyalty to america. i imagine most jews who are labled “israel firsters” are loyal american like everyone else. thats why it is anti-semitic.
January 14, 2012, 1:26 amNM Kerr says:
What do you cal the US citizens who think the same way, Israel First is a much more polite phrase than “Disloyal SOB”. I find the phenomenon quite common among evangelicals, esprcaill the ones hoping the world ends soon.
January 14, 2012, 1:37 amNM Kerr says:
Regrettably so does the idea that Israel has a right to all of Palestine, But that doesn’t make all Zionists evil either
January 14, 2012, 1:48 amOrenWithAnE says:
Whatever those consequences are, they have little to do with “calls for the annihilation of Jews” emanating from marginal non-State actors.
January 14, 2012, 2:19 amSteverino says:
Us Fenian bastards got your zionist six.
Saints be praised.
January 14, 2012, 3:49 amRoger says:
It seems hard to say anything about Jews or Israel without someone saying that it is anti-Semitic. In this case the term seems to be neutral and descriptive. Some of the most pro-Israel Americans are not even Jewish. Are there some terms that I can use that are not alleged to be anti-Semitic?
January 14, 2012, 4:40 amTJ says:
One of the many problems with political correctness is that reality is frequently politically incorrect.
People can use whatever terms they want to, but I think when the owner of Israel HaYom is financing the campaign of a candidate for US President for defending the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians — there is a problem.
January 14, 2012, 6:36 amRandolph says:
You’re really going to throw around accusations of “hyper” sensitivity after that?
Anyway, I’m looking forward to all kinds of fun with this logic of “if a bad person invented a word or phrase, by using the word or phrase you endorse the bad person’s general ideology.” I’m sure it’s only anti-Israel lefties that are going to get burned by that…
January 14, 2012, 7:38 ampublic_defender says:
Professor.
What expression do you think is appropriate to describe Americans who put Israel’s interests above American interests (or, to the same effect, define American interests as whatever is in Israel’s interests)?
In modern politics, the biggest group for which the label would be appropriate would be evangelical Christian Americans.
But I concede, far too much criticism of Israel is based in Antisemitism.
January 14, 2012, 7:51 amDavid Bernstein says:
Then you should reread the post, because it never says that “the word per se” is anti-Semitic, and it doesn’t even say that it’s inherently anti-Semitic just because it was apparently invented by neo-Nazis with anti-Semitic intent. So you are arguing against a straw man.
January 14, 2012, 8:01 amDavid Bernstein says:
And just happens to have been used almost exclusively by neo-Nazis until about five years ago. And “neutral” it certainly is not; it’s only used as a pejorative.
January 14, 2012, 8:05 amKane says:
I’ve never heard of the term “Israel-firster” until I read this post, and kind of in a process of digesting it. Obviously you don’t have to be a jew to be an Israel-firster, so there is a clear distinction between that and some other racial slurs that have been exampled. Indeed, I could imagine plenty of non-jewish Israel-firster if that term is loosely understood.
But in the end I would rather err on the side of caution. Maybe there is a better way to describe an instance where some folks put Israel’s interest ahead of the U.S.’ than “Israel-firster.” And it sounds juvenile an ugly. (linguistically)
January 14, 2012, 8:12 amloki13 says:
leo,
While I hesitate to jump in on this thread, I think the disagreement can boil down to the following-
1. Liberals/progressives usually acknowledge that there are such things as “code words” and “dog whistles.”
2. Conservative usually deny these things. (Please note I am dealing with generalities here). This is why, for example, we get so many posts on this site talking about why it is such a coincidence Reagan had that state’s passage in his speech in Mississippi, and the GOP had no southern strategy. Except, of course, when they don’t. :)
3. Recently, there have been a lot of efforts by the GOP to paint the Democratic party as anti-semitic. Heck, there may even be some emails to that effect.
4. For those reasons, people are taking a little umbrage to this post.
This is an area fraught with land mines. There is a history of criticizing Israel as a proxy for anti-semitism. But you should be able to criticize Israel’s policies without being called anti-semitic, as it is a state. Given the standards conservatives often like to announce, why should you always parse your words carefully to make sure you’re not stepping on some random landmine you don’t know about?
I happen to agree with you. I think some care should be taken when speaking about the subject, and I note that few people talk about other allies in this way (Canada-firsters? UK-firsters?). I am, however, a little concerned about the tarring of any and all criticism of Israel’s policies as “anti-semitic” in certain circles. Good friends support each other, but also point out when they’re about to hook up with batshit crazy girl at the bar who’s a Yankees fan.
January 14, 2012, 8:21 amDaveP. says:
The other thing to note is how frequently and how uncritically the Left identifies itself with causes and spokesmen who call for the destruction not jsut of Israel but of Jews as a people.
January 14, 2012, 8:28 amDiogenes the Cynic says:
Bernie~
Do you find the word “pushy” anti-semitic?
January 14, 2012, 8:32 amOwen H. says:
“Gay” and “queer” were both originally applied to homosexuals as pejoratives.
On the other hand, while Mr. Bernstein frequently (obsessively) uses the term “progressive” as a pejorative (and often incorrectly anyway), it is a word that is both descriptive and accurate in describing particular policies. That does not alter the fact that Mr. Bernstein uses it as an insult, nor does that mean the word is automatically offensive.
January 14, 2012, 8:34 amagathis says:
Bernstein’s point doesn’t seem to be that hard to grasp. Some progressives haven’t shown the same care that they would when dealing rhetorically with Jews as they would with other minority groups, otherwise they would think twice about using the “Israel-firster” slur. That seems right to me, given the term’s origins. I’m familiar enough with it, partly because I used to see copies of “The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs” when I worked in DC (they send copies to *everybody*, it’s so damned annoying).
The fact that they *don’t* show equal care with terms directed at Jews shows if not outright bigotry, a disturbing softness toward anti-semitism that Bernstein is right in pointing out they wouldn’t show toward bigotry or racism of other types. And given what I’ve seen often enough at leftist anti-war rallies, etc., I can’t help but think Bernstein’s concern is justified.
Whether or not one thinks the term is inherently anti-semitic is not really the point. If progressives suddenly found out that the word “teacups” was once used by neo-nazis to describe, say, homosexuals, they would jump through hoops to expunge the word from their vocabulary, no doubt even going so far as to expunge even non-biased uses of the word (see controversies over words like “niggardly” as a similar example). The lack of care seems to be the point, and it’s a valid one.
January 14, 2012, 8:35 amDiogenes the Cynic says:
If liberty is ever to have any real meaning, it must be the freedom to tell people things that they don’t want to hear.~George Orwell
David Irving uses the term “the traditional enemies of free speech” to refer to those that use violence to disrupt his speeches.
Is that term anti-semitic, too?
January 14, 2012, 8:40 amMDJD from NY says:
Say this candidate believed that such an approach were best for the United States. Say he believed that Iran’s nuclear program had to be brought under control, and he wanted to use Israel as an Amercian cat’s paw. It would be inaccurate to say the candidate was an “Israel-firster.” We aren’t antisemitic yet.
However, such a statement likely would be made in the context of a strain of discourse that asserts that a powerful Israel lobby led by influential Jews places Israel’s interests above American interests. In alluding to this, whether explicitly or tacitly, the statement crosses the line, or at least straddles it.
Anti-Jewish statements made during a campaign are just as anti-Jewish.
January 14, 2012, 8:52 amKane says:
Oh geez. I just read the linked article @HuffingtonPost, and I have to say Mr. Rosenberg’s piece didn’t come close to being anti-semitic. There was some defensiveness for sure, but what/whom he writes about is completely accurate. Maybe Mr. Rosenberg should apologize and/or stop using the word “Israel Firster”. But characters like Jennifer Rubin or Max Boot should be fired and disappear. I wonder what Mr. Bernstein thinks of THEIR writings.
January 14, 2012, 9:05 amMDJD from NY says:
This statement is either uninformed or disingenuous, in that it takes the accusation out of the context in which it was made.
First, the term asserts that the target values Israel’s weal above America’s. Support of Israel does not imply that one places Israel’s interests above Americas. If you say that this is the case, then the disingenuous label applies to your statement. Believe it or not, many people believe that Israel’s and America’s interests are aligned.
Second, it implies either (if the target is Jewish) that the target is a fifth columnist or (if the target is not Jewish) that the target is a dupe or agent of the former. The question of motivation has been raised by people like Mearsheimer and Pat Buchanan sufficiently often that calling someone an “Israel-firster” is part of that narrative.
And it generally is not being used with regard to fundamentalists whose warmth toward Israel stems from their religion. It is applied to mainstream politicians, intellectuals, etc.
January 14, 2012, 9:09 amMDJD from NY says:
One of these “marginal non-State actors,” Hezbollah, is the most powerful political force in Lebanon and controls southern Lebanon de facto. The other, Hamas, controls the Gaza Strip, and operates it as though it were a nation. We aren’t talking about the Liberty Lobby here. We’re talking about two groups that control substantial populations and muster a significant military apparatus.
January 14, 2012, 9:19 amSeamus says:
There is no polite term to describe such persons, because what’s good for Israel is good for the United States and vice versa. Suggesting otherwise is an anti-semitic slur.
January 14, 2012, 9:19 amSeamus says:
How about, in a “Progressive” article decrying the effects of immigration on low-income workers, use of the phrase “unassimilable Mexican immigrants?” Kosher for Progressives? Conveys information, right?
Yes, it does. And people who use such terms should be answered by arguments as to why the terms are or are not accurate, not by shrieks that the very terms are offensive. The same applies to “Israel-firster”: argue that Rick Santorum or whoever *doesn’t* put the interests of Israel ahead of those of the United States, not that the very suggestion is off the table.
January 14, 2012, 9:25 amSeamus says:
I can’t believe that Winston Churchill went to Westminster and talked about the “iron curtain,” a term that “just happen[ned] to have been used almost exclusively by
January 14, 2012, 9:36 amneo-Nazis until aboutfive years ago[one year previously].”Number 2 says:
As reluctant as I am to join this battle:
1. Since when is “name calling” considered out of bounds in American political discourse? To the contrary, it is standard operating procedure for all parts of the political spectrum. Indeed, the terms “right wing” and “left wing” are themselves a form of “name calling.” We have all used name calling and have all been subject to name calling. We deal with it.
(Side note to Hugh: I’ll ban “blame America first” when you ban “one percenter,” “tea bagger,” “robber baron,” “Wall Street,” “corporate greed,” “warmonger,” “climate change denier” … Shall I go on?)
2. I also had never heard the term “Israel-Firster” until I read this post. But given the number of conservatives and Evangelicals who now staunchly defend Israel, I do not consider the term to necessarily and directly reference Jewish persons.
January 14, 2012, 9:56 amMr. Whiskas says:
Bernstein’s argument seems to be: “Israel-firster was first and recently used by anti-Semitic nazis, therefore anyone who uses that term is anti-Semitic” or worse “therefore the term itself is inherently anti-Semitic?” That seems like a terrible argument.
It increasingly seems like those promoting the “New Anti-Semitism” are becoming eerily similar to the PC police of the left.
January 14, 2012, 10:03 amChuck Pelto says:
TO: All
RE: Okay….
….if slurs they want. Slurs they get.
Anyone who hates Israel is a satanist.
How so?
Only people who hate God would hate Israel and the Hebrews.
As He said, so long ago, to Abraham about he and his descendants….
Those who bless you I shall bless. And those who curse you, I shall curse.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
January 14, 2012, 10:20 am[It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the angry God.]
Owen H. says:
Seriously? We hear over and over complaints about people being PC, but now the complaint is that people that are “PC” shouldn’t say it because it isn’t PC?
As for the rest, I am reminded of a case here in Philly, where a student yelled out of room window at a bunch of loud sorority sisters in the quad for them to be quiet so he could study. What he said was, “water buffalo”, translating into English a Yiddish term meaning “a noisy, oafish person”. Well, charges of racism were leveled at him, as the group was black. Even when it was explained what it meant, he was told that it didn’t matter what he meant, only how they took it. And since they took it as racist, it was.
Somehow, I’m not seeing Mr. Bernstein agreeing with the school.
January 14, 2012, 10:21 amMr. Whiskas says:
“It’s hard to come up with a good example because it’s so hard to imagine bloggers on the Progressive left adopting a similarly right-wing, chauvinistic trope that applies to another group than Jews.”
But that’s part of the problem, the term itself doesn’t seem to apply simply to Jews. The word “welfare queen” was, iirc, criticized because the examples that were trotted out with its use were of black women. In contrast stand many of the examples used here of current use of “Israel-Firster” by leftist critics of Israel: such as Jewish critics of Israel (Finkelstein, Rosenberg) calling non-Jewish supporters of Israel “Israel-Firsters.” When a Jewish person is called anti-Semitic for criticizing a non-Jewish person for their support of the state of Israel we’ve gone down the Rabbit Hole here…Imagine calling a black person a racist (against blacks) because they criticize a white person’s support of African states…
January 14, 2012, 10:28 amGiant Frog says:
FWIW, http://books.google.com/ngrams shows zero occurrences of the phrase, hyphenated or not, from 1800 to 2008.
And it certainly questions the patriotism of Jewish Americans to whom the moniker is applied, which at best potentially plays to anti-Semitic sentiment.
Non-Jewish Americans don’t count?
http://www.israelfirsters.com/ “apply the moniker” to “11 of the 13 freshmen GOP senators” and “65 of the 87 GOP freshmen in the House of Representatives”, and calls them all traitors.
January 14, 2012, 10:30 amMr. Whiskas says:
From what I remember, the word “welfare queen”, which has been offered up as analogous, was usually criticized because it was often offered with specific examples that were black women. But even many of the examples pointed out here of “Israel-Firster” strike me as different, involving Jewish critics of Israel calling non-Jewish supporters of Israel the name. In other words, however the nazi originators of the term used the word, it seems the users DB is criticizing are using it to describe a stance towards a particular state or government that they oppose, not an ethnic charge.
January 14, 2012, 10:38 amHm. says:
Contrary to the claims in the OP, I think calling anybody a ‘fanatic’ is insulting and an attempt to discredit them as a serious human being. Orly Taitz and Pamela Geller are fanatics. I don’t think CAP would downgrade all people who place Israel’s interests above our own to fanatic status.
January 14, 2012, 10:43 am~aardvark says:
This actually gets closer to the point, but there is still some background missing. The word “and” has undoubtedly been used in antisemitic propaganda, but, equally undoubtedly, no one would try to argue that the word itself carries with it antisemitic connotations. The issue is not whether a particular group, sharing common undesirable characteristics, has been using the phrase, but whether they’ve been using it exclusively. Although this is essentially the allegation, Bernstein’s analysis clearly falls short on this front. There are two parts here–coinage and provenance–and Bernstein has not established either one, although he has some evidence for the latter.
Having said all this, I do concur with the general conclusion, but for entirely different reasons. Yes, there is a particular antisemitic dog-whistle quality in the phrase. But, more importantly, it resonates much like “Likudnik” in reference to Americans, particularly American Jews. “Likudnik” does not appear to have the provenance similar to “Israel-firster”–quite to the contrary, it seems to have originated on the Left from the beginning. But I find it equally reprehensible, except when referring to Israeli members and supporters of Likud. It doesn’t matter if the term did not arise among the hordes that most of us finds distasteful–it has exactly the same antisemitic ring in Progressive circles that “Papist” has among Evangelical anti-Catholics or “Talmudist” or “Cosmopolitan” had among Soviet prosecutors who were sharpening their knives to go after Jews shortly before Stalin conveniently kicked the bucket. The issue is not that these words have a completely transparent, non-bigoted meaning. Rather, the issue is in how these terms are being used. It is the taint of allegiance to the Other that is being evoked and it should have no place in reasoned discourse.
And it’s not just “blame-America-first crowd” that falls in the same category. Romney’s campaign has been using “Apology tour” and “apologizing for America” in reference to Obama. Romney repeated this in virtually every stump speech despite having been repeatedly debunked in the press–neither a word in any way resembling “apology” nor any actions that would suggest such an apology have been used by Obama. And it is something that is repeatedly used on the Right–and only on the Right–in reference to the President. Again, we have exactly the same evocation of allegiance to the Other or, at the very least, divided loyalties. I, for one, would like to see Bernstein reject this as well.
Similarly, there has been much hubbub on the Right with suggestions that Obama has “bowed” to foreign leaders–with absolutely no evidence that anything that Obama has done has been anything other than simple diplomatic protocol or has in any way exceeded the efforts of past Presidents. Another complaint from the Right against Obama is that he does not embrace “American exceptionalism” sufficiently to their liking. Once again, this claim is a complete fabrication without foundation. I don’t recall ever seeing Bernstein or other VCers publicly rejecting these assertions–often coming from the mouths of politicians they openly support. If all that evil needs to prevail is for good people to say nothing, I’d like to see a public rebuke of their idols from Bernstein, Volokh and the rest of the VCers. It is all too easy to criticize your opponents, but one has to criticize his allies for similar violations in order not to be complicit in them. The reason why we have so much insanity in American politics today is largely because supporters of each side are all too willing to ignore such violations. If you think something is wrong, you should come out and say it, irrespectively of which side you’re on. [Don't forget what happened to Diane Ravitch with the Bush campaign when she dared to criticize one approach--where were the VCers then?]
January 14, 2012, 10:43 am~aardvark says:
Orly Taitz is an idiot, not a fanatic.
January 14, 2012, 10:45 amMr. Whiskas says:
DB argues against what he calls a “strawman” interpretation of his argument @ 8:01 by saying his argument “never says that “the word per se” is anti-Semitic, and it doesn’t even say that it’s inherently anti-Semitic just because it was apparently invented by neo-Nazis with anti-Semitic intent.” Then directly below that post DB re-condemns the term because it “just happens to have been used almost exclusively by neo-Nazis until about five years ago.” Am I the only one who sees something wrong there?
January 14, 2012, 11:02 amPhiladelphia says:
The big difficulty for 21st century mankind is picking our way through a world disjointed by cultures who want to form all of society according to directives that they receive directly from god. The proper standard is which of these are the least destructive to others? Zionism is as stupid as Arab islamism but between the two, one has to say that zionism resulted in an economically prosperous and relatively free society in the middle east, while Arab islamism has destroyed a Beirut that was once a prosperous beautiful city and now maintains Gaza as a cesspool of poverty and violence. As between (a) an orthodox Jew who abandons his car in the middle of traffic the moment the sabbath begins and (b) an Arab muslim who blows himself up in traffic to kill those around him, I choose the Jew as the less destructive, though they are both following instructions from god to the inconvenience of their fellow man.
That being said, criticism of zionism during 1950-70 made sense as it was sticking its finger in the eye of the Arabs. Nevertheless, today one need not approve of zionism to ask why the Arabs and Iranians can not see the example of Israel as a preferable model to the social bankruptcy of what they have now and what they aspire to with the world-wide caliphate and the hidden imam.
An American can disapprove of the likes of Pollard and others who promote Israel over the US, but in the world of today–this instant–regard Israel as a bulwark against the rabid islamism that would destroy western culture. The problem will not go away with the destruction of Israel any more than Chamberlain brought peace to Europe. And WW II could not have been avoided by wishing away the mistakes of Versailles.
Finally, I would observe that the term “anti-Semitic” is not strictly accurate in the context of this discussion since both the islamic and jewish cultures are Semitic. What David is addressing is “anti-Jew.” But that term can not be used as a pejorative against prejudice because the word, “Jew,” was itself an expression of hate and contempt by the extremists of–what? the right or the left? Who cares?
January 14, 2012, 11:11 amSarcastro's Little Brother says:
Yeah, cuz Democrats were so civil when describing George W. Bush during his term — and are paragons of civility when describing
January 14, 2012, 11:12 amteabaggersfasciststheir opponents.Giant Frog says:
Although not really responsive, one of my Mexican, oops, Hispanic, friends calls himself a “chilango spic”.
Why should anyone care what the pillow-biting bedwetters claim to
January 14, 2012, 11:14 amthinkfeel? If you’re trying to show that the average progressive blogger is a hypocrite, you’ll have to get in line.Joseph Slater says:
Just popping in to note my approval of Prof. Bernstein properly identifying David Duke, Nazis, and their ilk as part of the far-right side of the political spectrum. Glad he doesn’t fall for that J. Goldberg “liberal fascism” junk.
Beyond that, I’m pretty much with Leo Marvin on this issue, as I usually am.
January 14, 2012, 11:54 amOwen H. says:
Again, seriously? You’re getting to sound like those spreading the meme that the word “picnic” is racist.
I think you know very well that the vast majority that have ever used the phrase are not doing so from anti-Semitic reasons (although as often as you accuse critics of the Israeli government…), and in fact no one would have known had you not been so eager (yet again) to smear said critics.
January 14, 2012, 12:25 pmWhen the mainstream left embraces the rhetoric of the far right | The Warped Mirror says:
[...] the now defunct far-right publication “Spotlight;” in a related post, David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy adds some additional publications from the far-right fringes and traces the adoption of the [...]
January 14, 2012, 12:34 pmjosh says:
what are you talking about?!!! If the US was as deeply engaged and affected in a conflict in Mexico or Africa, and Mexican Americans or African Americans routinely sided with the interests of their home country over US interests, what would be the issue?
Meh. What a nothing issue. I am a Jew with a significant number of American Jewish friends who openly and honestly and without shame proclaim that the state of Israel is more important to them than the US. Has something to do with a certain historical event in the late 30s and 40s.
Seems to me that the context and speaker are what matters. Is it fair to point out that someone may put their “homeland” before the US? Sure. Is it, in an of itself, anti-semitic or otherwise racially/ethnically pejorative? Not necessarily.
January 14, 2012, 12:52 pmAnonymous says:
I agree that “tea bagger” should be retired. It is juvenile and offensive. But you are really grasping at straws with the other ones. I can’t even begin to guess how “Wall Street” could be offensive.
January 14, 2012, 12:55 pmjosh says:
This type of thoughtful nuance has no place on this thread.
January 14, 2012, 1:02 pmDavid Bernstein says:
I didn’t say it wasn’t insulting, and indeed agree that it’s insulting. But it doesn’t have either the neo-nazi baggage or the disloyalty implications of “Israel-firster,” so if one wanted to insult the same folks one is calling Israel-firsters, there’s an alternative way to do it that would be very unlikely to lead to anyone accusing you of using an anti-Semitic phrase.
January 14, 2012, 1:05 pmDebrah says:
The most intelligent people on the planet!
January 14, 2012, 1:08 pmDavid Bernstein says:
I can easily imagine a black person being called a racist for criticizing a white person for supporting Clarence Thomas, if they use racist language (e.g., “Uncle Tom”) in doing so. In fact, it’s happened.
January 14, 2012, 1:10 pmDavid Bernstein says:
But it’s the Progressive types who are the shriekers in that context, and then they get all defensive when they become the shriekees.
January 14, 2012, 1:11 pmDissentus says:
Why? I don’t have any trouble at all with the notion the people at “Think” Progress are engaging in bigotry.
Fixed.
January 14, 2012, 1:12 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Well, you’ve certainly and perhaps inadvertently identified a problem with many of the left-leaning commenters here. Even though many of us bloggers don’t consider ourselves conservatives, and certainly don’t feel any particular ties to or love for the Republican Party, and certainly none of us are professional political activists charged with distributing talking points, commenters will nevertheless fail to respond directly to a post in question, and instead claim that the blogger in question is hypocritical because he is not following some alleged “right wing/conservative/Republican” party line on some particular issue.
January 14, 2012, 1:15 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Check your reading comprehension. The point is that “fanatically pro-Israel” is NOT an anti-Semitic phrase.
January 14, 2012, 1:18 pmDavid Bernstein says:
You are assuming facts not in evidence, that Jews “routinely side with the interest of Israel” over the interests of the U.S. And given that most people think that being on the right side morally is an important U.S. foreign policy interest, you are going to have a heckuva time finding people who support Israel who don’t think Israel is worthy of support for EITHER moral or strategic reasons (or both).
Meanwhile, it’s the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel activists today who are broadly taking a position that conflicts with that of their government. Does that make them “Palestinian-firsters?”
And most relevantly, MJ Rosenberg, as responsible as anyone for the spread of the term, now acknowledges that he can’t defend a literal interpretation of his “Israel firster” slurs.
January 14, 2012, 1:32 pmJohann Amadeus Metesky says:
Actually, I prefer to call a Jew-hater a Jew-hater. Marr’s intent was to make Jew-hatred more palatable.
How does the left feel about lefties defacing the same monuments that Nazis vandalized?
http://www.carsindepth.com/?p=5927
January 14, 2012, 1:44 pmGiant Frog says:
There has been a controversy brewing over allegations that several bloggers at the liberal Center for American Progress have used anti-Semitic rhetoric when criticizing Israel and its American Supporters. Critics have particularly focused on these bloggers’ use of the term “Israel-firster.”
According to google [site:americanprogress.org "israel-firster"] and the site itself that term – or even just “firster” – doesn’t occur at americanprogress.org. Hence allegations rather than examples.
January 14, 2012, 2:17 pmHm. says:
I can respect how both are offensive. Using cutesy phrases to call doubt onto one’s loyalties isn’t the epitome of reasoned political debate. But as somebody who considers themselves liberal — though not, admittedly, progressive — I would dismiss a blogger who opted for the phrase ‘pro-Israel fanatic’ over ‘Israel-firster.’
Ideally, we would simply provide evidence and simply say, “This person puts the interests of Israel over that of the United States.” But if we have to live in a discourse where descriptors mimic the media’s obsession with soundbites, ‘Israel-firster’ would seem far more preferable to me. And I’m the targeted audience, most of the time. CAP isn’t exactly trying to convince conservatives to embrace the sweet arms of liberalism or progressivism.
January 14, 2012, 2:24 pmNick056 says:
Wait, did Bernstein say that we don’t need to reach the issue of whether “Israel-firster” is clearly anti-semitic language, even if used by those without anti-semitic intent, and then separately turn around and compare its use to calling black people “primitive?”
Although Bernstein admitted it was hard to come up with a good example, that comparison is a REALLY terrible choice in light of his own position, unless he doesn’t think we’ve reached the issue of whether calling black people “primitives” is clearly racist language, even when used by those without racist intent. (We have; it is.)
And that’s the whole problem with Bernstein’s argument. There is a double standard in that we’ve agreed that calling a black person “primitive” is pretty clearly racist, and people who use such language “without racist intent” would have to produce amazing evidence to demonstrate their lack of racist intent. However, the “Israel first” question is clearly not settled along the same lines — even Bernstein says he doesn’t think we need to reach it. So it’s less a double standard than two actually separate standards. I think it should be settled along the same lines and treated as a slur, but here I’m pointing out Bernstein’s bizarre logic. Does he actually think he could get away with calling a black person “primitive” without being told he just used a “clearly racist” phrase?
January 14, 2012, 2:36 pmDoc Rampage says:
Which is why it is a valid criticism of liberals/progressives when they violate their own alleged standards. What this instance demonstrates (yet again) is that the Left doesn’t follow the standards that they impose on everyone else. If a politician innocently uses a word like “macaca” that turns out to have racist origins that he was unaware of, well, just using that word by accident makes him unfit for office –if he’s a Republican. If a politician refers to the advantages of a black politician by saying that he’s “clean”, and if the politician is a Republican, that would be the end of his career. It’s CODE for “negros are all stupid and dirty people”! But if he’s a Democrat it’s just a bump on the road to the vice presidency. No code words here. Just an unfortunate phrasing.
Examples could be multiplied endlessly. The whole Bill Clinton impeachment –if he had been a Republican, this would have been all about the habitual sexual exploitation of subordinate women by a powerful man. Since Clinton was a Democrat, it was “just about sex, move on”.
PC is nothing but a political strategy of the Left. They have no genuine loyalty for the principles behind it, only for its effectiveness in helping to put Leftists in power. And I think it’s worthwhile to keep pointing that out, if for no other reason than to weaken the strategy.
January 14, 2012, 2:52 pmChuck Pelto says:
TO: All
RE: Heh
Most of the discussion I’ve seen on this thread reminds me of arguments used so long ago about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
January 14, 2012, 2:53 pmP.S. Keep up the linguistically bun fight…..
Chuck Pelto says:
P.P.S. Albeit this particular topic seems to be more volatile than angels and pin-heads….
….I recall that the wars of the reformation took a LOT of lives.
The central point remains: You either love or hate Israel. The rationale means little.
January 14, 2012, 2:56 pmMr. Whiskas says:
“I can easily imagine a black person being called a racist for criticizing a white person for supporting Clarence Thomas, if they use racist language (e.g., “Uncle Tom”) in doing so. In fact, it’s happened.”
The black person would be calling the white person an Uncle Tom because the white person supported Clarence Thomas? That’s pretty muddled, and I submit is so because you’re trying to push an analogy where it won’t fit…Not to mention different than my example where the person criticizes not a black person but an African state; a critical thing that proponents of the “New Anti-Semitism” seem to miss [willfully ignore?] is that Israel is a particular state and does not = “Jews.” It seems the people who constantly conflate the two are not critics of Israel, but actual anti-Semites and “very, very, very strong supporters of Israel” (I hope that term is OK).
January 14, 2012, 3:08 pmrilkefan says:
This is obvious how?
FWIW, I think the phrase is obviously anti-Semitic when applied to American Jews or to Gentiles strongly associated with American Jews (e.g. a non-Jewish neo-con), and kinda stupid applied to other Americans.
I wonder if Vatican-firster was ever applied to e.g. JFK.
January 14, 2012, 3:11 pmNick056 says:
Heh.
January 14, 2012, 3:18 pmClark says:
Not so Heh when you add in to “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia” and the appreciative laughter and support from the crowd.
January 14, 2012, 3:24 pmOwen H. says:
“Fanatically pro-Israel” is also not the phrase I was talking about, speaking of comprehension.
January 14, 2012, 3:28 pmOwen H. says:
And it is “obviously” anti-Semitic, how? When I hear the phrase, I think of people that seem to think that supporting the Israeli government at all costs no matter what they do is critical to US security, and in some way see Israel as the US’s proxy in the region.
January 14, 2012, 3:41 pmloki13 says:
Prof. Bernstein,
It wasn’t inadvertent. As I wrote, I was agreeing with leo marvin, who often makes good points despite having to overcome the near-overwhelming brain damage he suffers as a Yankees fan.
Just pointing out that there’s some natural defensiveness for a few good reasons. While there are those who seek to criticize all jews under the rubric of being against the policies of Israel (which is certainly deplorable and anti-semitic), there are also those who seek to tar all people who disagree with specific Israeli policies as anti-semitic (which is fairly terrible for a number of reasons, not only because it desensitizes people to actual anti-semitism).
January 14, 2012, 3:47 pmOrenWithAnE says:
And, between them, in a concerted effort that would absolutely ruin them both, they might (at the high end) kill 1000 Jews. That’s nothing to joke about but it’s also not even in the same league as annihilation.
Treating everything as if it rises to the significance of genocide ultimately diminishes its atrocity. There has to be some moral distinction between the immoral act of wantonly firing rockets at innocents and killing them by the millions.
Is this axiomatic or contingent?
January 14, 2012, 3:48 pmOrenWithAnE says:
The more I hear a political argument devolve into accusations over motives (as this one has from both sides in equally disgusting measure), the more I believe both sides richly deserve each other.
January 14, 2012, 3:52 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I neither love nor hate Israel. For an American, loving Israel (to the point that generates reflexive support, especially at the expense of American interests or general morality) or hating Israel (to the point that generates reflexive opposition, especially at the expense of American interests or general morality) seems a strange, perhaps even warped, position.
January 14, 2012, 4:36 pmrilkefan says:
Well, I can see http://volokh.com/2012/01/13/israel-firster/comment-page-3/#comment-1365338 but can’t get there directly. Sounds like a db is overfull…
January 14, 2012, 4:37 pmOren Reich says:
David Bernstein,
Using the term “Israel-firster” does not imply that all Jews routinely side with Israel. It implies that those specifically labeled as “Israel-firster” routinely side with Israel. Hence, the need to use the term “Israel-firster” and not just “Jew.”
There are, in reality, Jews and non-Jews who routinely side with Israel, either based on a prioritization of Israeli interests over our own, or a belief that our interests are aligned. I know them, I talk to them everyday. They’re perfectly good people.
January 14, 2012, 4:39 pmOren Reich says:
I can’t believe that you wrote this entire piece to criticize name-calling. Meanwhile,if we use the term ‘Israel-firster,’ we’re anti-Semites. I’m really confused here. Is there a way to be non-interventionist, and a Jewish and Israeli citizen (which I am), while not being anti-Semetic. I mean, I think war is bad, and that supporting a nation that the entire middle east hates is against our interests, but I just can’t help but transform into a Nazi as I think about it. OMG! Please, someone explain how to reconcile my identity!
January 14, 2012, 4:45 pmrilkefan says:
It’s a stronger restatement of the classical (in that it started with the Romans) anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty. If it’s not anti-Semitic when applied to diaspora Jews, pretty much nothing is.
January 14, 2012, 4:49 pmJosh says:
If you want to see a hateful term that has spread all over the internet, regardless of how bleeding-heart a sites community is thought to be, see “sperger,” “sperglord,” and “Aspie,” (used in a derogatory way) to express frustration against people with autism all across the internet.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/09/26/905375/-Top-10-Jobs-in-Libertarian-Paradise
“for those who have very little or no touch of Autism and who struggle to match the full blown blank emotionlessness of the master practitioner. Rocking and wailing are options for the full initiate.
Many are called, but few are chosen, in “Libertarian Paradise.” (making fun of libertarians as being on the autism spectrum is increasingly common on leftist sites)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/08/11/235724/-Prsident-Bush-Has-Aspergers-Syndrome,-w-Pictures
A whole article making fun of Bush/associating him with autism
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emily-bracken/aspergers-syndrome-as-or_b_208869.html
A “comedy” article: Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) Or Typical Male Behavior (TMB)?
In conclusion, not to play Discrimination Olympics or anything, but even on sites associated with a leftist bent, hateful speech/discrimination is absorbed/used against minority groups even when it’s not specifically anti-Semitic. They may be more sensitive to the concerns of GBLT people, folks of African descent, etc. but when they do decide to be offensive, their rhetoric doesn’t just stop at “Jews.”
January 14, 2012, 4:49 pmOren Reich says:
David Bernstein,
With all due respect, I really don’t think you understand the sensitivity of labeling people anti-Semites. There is nothing hateful about being called an ‘Israel-firster.’ I know tons of Israel-firsters, I’m related to them, they’re fine people. And I’m not an anti-Semite. There really isn’t any amount of foul language I could throw at you right now that would exceed the offense I take at being labeled an anti-Semite. You really need to rethink your position here.
January 14, 2012, 4:50 pmMDJD from NY says:
In fact, some prominent Protestant ministers at the time questioned whether he would be taking his orders from the Pope. These included Norman Vinentc Peale, prominent Baptist leaders, and the Southern Baptist Convention. (I’m not sure of the accuracy of the contents of the last link.) Same implication as “Israel-firster.”
January 14, 2012, 4:57 pmrilkefan says:
It’s a stronger restatement of the classical (in that it started with the Romans) anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty. If it’s not anti-Semitic when applied to diaspora Jews, pretty much nothing is.
… and was this submitted or not?
January 14, 2012, 5:04 pmleo marvin says:
Yankee bait all you want. In a week when Brian Cashman’s inexplicably made two good moves in a row, the last thing I’ll do is tempt fate by arguing.
January 14, 2012, 5:12 pmMDJD from NY says:
This statement is incredible. It is at the same time likely false, morally obtuse, and wilfully blind as to the intent.
Possibly false in that they may acquire access to better weapons. Past failure to achieve mass killing is no guarantee of future incompetence.
Morally obtuse in that it minimizes the moral impact of killing. Easy to do if you are sitting in your den in Minneapolis or wherever you live and contemplating the loss of life thousands of miles away. I recall the impact of the loss of 3000 lives here in New York about 10 years ago. No, it wasn’t as bad as Auschwitz.
Willfully blind as to intent in that Hamas and Hizbollah have a proclaimed goal of annihilating the Israeli Jewish population. If they kill a thousand Jewish Israelis or so (give or take– it’s “not even in the same league as annihilation”), they would regard it as a down payment on annihilation. Not as terrorism of the sort represented by 9/11. You ignore that distinction.
You placed this in block quotes without attribution lower down in your post, thereby implicitly attributing it to me. The author of the quote seems to have meant it sarcastically. I did not say it, either earnestly or ironically. Please be careful with your plack quotes and use the quote feature each time you are inserting a block qupte into your posts.
January 14, 2012, 5:14 pmMDJD from NY says:
But you’d like them better if thy were in West Texas, right?
January 14, 2012, 5:15 pmTJ says:
A momentary break from PC World:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/13/false_flag
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/16/us-iran-bomb-idUSTRE66E58N20100716
And why is Newt Gingrich very publicly calling for “covert” actions against Iran?
January 14, 2012, 5:52 pmAndyK says:
How about “America Seconder” or “advocates for Israeli rights over that of Americans?”. Honestly it’s like “anti choice”… Just a phrase.
January 14, 2012, 5:54 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Would I prefer to see innocent, threatened people have an opportunity to choose a safe situation over a dangerous condition in which their safety relies on unsustainable circumstances? Yes. This is probably because I find it objectionable to expose others (including children) to jeopardy for the purpose of attempting to advance partisan positions (as right-wingers appear eager to do) or to vindicate fantasies (as adherents of various religions seem eager to do). I understand that for some people the confluence of right-wing ideology and religious fantasy creates a motivation powerful enough to override just about any other consideration, but that should be their problem, not innocents’.
January 14, 2012, 6:05 pmNM Kerr says:
If they are Israeli’s yes, If they are Americans the term is traitor
January 14, 2012, 6:13 pmNM Kerr says:
Especially not when there are are no non-racists reasons to use that word.
January 14, 2012, 6:20 pmTom Rigid says:
Mr. Bernstein, when you use the word “liberal” to describe those who oppose your positions are you referring to the liberalism of Adam Smith, FDR, or Hugh Hefner?
A word or phrase means what we take it to mean. I see no reason why the phrase “Israel-first,” used by a Jewish writer (say, M.J. Rosenberg for example) to call out a right-wing member of the AIPAC crowd (Mort Zuckerman?) for their uncritical support of Likud policies on settlements and other issues of critical concern to the US, should be taken to be anti-Semitic.
That you have labored to produce such a charge suggests to me that you are sensitive to it. I appreciate that you feel comfortable airing your conflicted internal dialogue on a public blog, and I hope the feedback here helps to improve your policy preferences.
January 14, 2012, 6:43 pmrumpelstiltskin says:
So the progressives just need to keep using “Israel-firster” enough and you’ll stop being offended.
January 14, 2012, 6:51 pmMDJD from NY says:
So the solution is to move them thousands of miles to a place where they will have to start their lives over again, build homes again, and lose their culture and be a religious and ethnic minority. How noble of you.
And, BTW, you aren’t the first person to have the idea of moving Jews a long way to a disgusting physical environment to save them from their enemies and divert them from their traditional homeland. Jews frequently have had friends like you.
January 14, 2012, 6:52 pmYehuda says:
I’m a little confused as to how people think it isn’t offensive to suggest that people with pro-Israel viewpoints are 5th-columnists/traitors. That seems to be the entire context in which the term ‘Israel-first’ is used as well as ‘Likudnik’ when applied to non-Israelis, who obviously aren’t members of the Likud. While certainly not anti-semitic per se, it takes a certain measure of willful blindness to not understand how charging Jews with disloyalty might rub some the wrong way. This is especially so given that this particular charge has been utilized by various kooks since before the modern state of Israel was a glint in Ben-Gurion’s eye.
The entire point of the article seems to be that the use of these terms by persons associated with a certain ideological camp is rather rich given that camp’s previous indignation/accusations regarding ‘code-words’ and ‘dog-whistles’.
January 14, 2012, 7:11 pmNick056 says:
Clark –
To clarify, that “heh” was about Doc Rampage’s unbelievable interpretation. Allen called a dark-skinned Indian-American by a name white people used to insult dark-skinned natives. He did so twice. And then he tried to pretend he didn’t know what the word meant, that he never even meant to say that word, that he meant to say “mohawk” in reference to the guy’s haircut (which wasn’t a mohawk), and then that he just meant to call the guy “caca.” Twice, I guess. And it just came out wrong — twice. Then his defenders went out and talked about how it means “clown” in Italian, because, um … He slipped into Italian. (Something he never claimed.)
That is all the opposite of innocent. It showcased a guy who pretty straightforwardly called an Indian by a racist name two times, and a bunch of embattled partisans unwilling to admit that truth because winning was more important. He sunk his own ship.
January 14, 2012, 7:26 pmNick056 says:
Tom Rigid –
The word has the stench of calling somebody disloyal, and referring to Jews as loyal primarily to other Jews is a classic slur.
January 14, 2012, 7:33 pmOrenWithAnE says:
What does intent matter? Isn’t it morally obtuse to conflate the immorality of killing an individual and annihilating an entire ethnicity?
Based on the facts as they exist now, there is no reason to believe that either Hamas or Hezbollah have or will be able to acquire such weapons in the near future. I’m open to reassessing that conclusion based on available evidence.
Indeed. You do seem to understand that there are gradations of immoral acts.
I don’t much credit actors whose goals are quite this wildly out of proportion with their ability.
January 14, 2012, 7:56 pmDavid Bernstein says:
I didn’t label anyone an anti-Semite, except Neo-Nazis. And surely we can call them anti-Semites.
January 14, 2012, 7:58 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Mr. Whiskas“The black person would be calling the white person an Uncle Tom because the white person supported Clarence Thomas?”
No, the black person would be calling the white person a racist for supporting an “Uncle Tom.”
January 14, 2012, 8:00 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Do you even bother to read the posts you comment on? To wit, “So I’m neither claiming that the bloggers in question are anti-Semitic, or had anti-Semitic intent,”
January 14, 2012, 8:05 pmOrenWithAnE says:
A safe situation in which they are denied their fundamental right to sovereign self-government under such terms as they see fit.
Isn’t that like purchasing life at the price of chains?
January 14, 2012, 8:05 pmSteverino says:
Sarcasto’s Little Brother, Froma Harrop, the president of the National Council of Editorial Writers, and the head of the NCEW’s Civility Project, would like you and the rest of the tea-bagging fascist terrorists to elevate the d****d discourse!
Incivility, like hypocrisy, is what those subhumans who don’t vote Democrat do. Everything they say and do is uncivil and hypocritical. Take Rick Santorum. All his anti-abortion talk is just a bunch of racist “dog whistle” code-words for wanting to punish Barack Obama’s daughters with babies. But he wouldn’t punish his own wife with a baby. The kind, caring, empathetic left has figured out that the “raging hypocrite” procured an abortion that killed Gabriel. Then, according to Alan Colmes, he desecrated the remains by taking it home to the rest of the kids so they all could “play” with it.
Apparently, Alan Colmes had inside information that Rick Santorum suddenly remembered he promised to join the kids for a game of frisbee golf that day. But being so busy hypocritically procuring one of those abortions that due to his inherent racism he would deny to minorities in order to punish them, he forgot where he put the frisbee. So…
The kind, empathetic left on the other hand loves children. They prove this when they make up and laugh at jokes about Trig Palin, or Willow getting raped by Derek Jeter.
Speaking of the repulsive Palin kids who are fair game for everything including having some perv rent the house next door so he could peek into their bedrooms and write a tell-all book about the demented clan, the stupid hick snowbilly sow who birthed that litter (or maybe not; Andrew Sullivan remains on the case spelunking in the depths of every vagina with a Palin attached to it searching for the answer to that question) also got Gabby Giffords shot. We know this because the media crowd that put the “Firing Line” on TV for over 30 years put their heads together with the deep thinkers at the DNC whose website regularly featured bullseyes on Congressional districts that they targeted, and decided when the dumb broad put crosshairs on her website and engaged in reckless talk about targeting Congressional districts she included Gabby Gifford’s.
Let’s face it; the evil right and it’s sick, twisted philosophy is the source of all evil. That’s so obvious that, when the media jumps to the conclusion that the DC sniper is an “angry white male,” or Mayor Bloomberg’s initial take on the bomb in Times Square is that it must be the work of some right-wing nut angered over ObamaCare. We all know what those “bitter clingers” are like.
They’re so twisted, they even indulge in vulgar stereotypes that Mayor Bloomberg and the media would never indulge in. For instance, we all know that Faisal Shahzad planted the Times Square bomb because he was traumatized by foreclosure. Major Hassan’s motives for shooting up Fort Hood are even murkier. The Army’s final report could draw no definite conclusions as to what could have motivated the good Major to go on his killing spree. The DoD was forced finally throw up its collective hands and chalk it up to just general work-place violence. Fortunately it is facing the issue head on and conducting training so that our service members can learn possible indicators and thus head off further outbreaks of generic, inexplicable, no-clue-as-to-why-it-happens work-place violence.
That wasn’t good enough for you tea-bagging terrorists, was it? You just had to politicize these acts. How much lower can the right sink than to politicize a shooting? The left would never do that.
What’s worse, the tea-bagging terrorists indulged in blatantly racist Islamophobic hate speech. By taking note and inconsiderately repeating the words that Major Hasan was yelling as he was shooting, or what Faisal Shahzad told the judge.
The left has been forced to take notice of how the right has coarsened the national language. Even to the point of directly causing political violence. Who can blame them when they say enough of your righ-wing hate speech.
As that internationally renowned expert on decorum and civil discourse Jimmy Hoffa so tactfully put it when introducing our noble, but besieged only due to his race, President at a campaign event:
You Bible-thumpin’ Palin-lovin’ cousin-humpin’ christo-fascists bitterly clinging to your xenophobia, islamophobia, and all your various other phobias (some of which haven’t even been invented yet) had been put on notice by the loving, empathetic left as kindly and as gently, but clearly, as possible. Quit spewing your hate! It’s bad enough that you drove the economy into a ditch. Now you can’t just shut up and drink your slurpee while Barack fixes the economy by stiffing the tow truck driver, flooding the engine with sodium silicate so it’ll seize, then giving the junkman 180 days to find a buyer for the starter and hubcaps before destroying what’s left of the economy entirely. With the occasional well-deserved break in Hawaii to shut down and drive closer to bankruptcy a large chunk of the tourist industry, ensure his secret service agents and other staff members can’t get together with family and friends for Christmas like they could if he just went to Camp David, and enjoy a few drinks with friends, along with the latest joke about Willow Palin getting gang-raped in the Yankees locker-room.
So get your act together you right-wing racist haters! If the left has to warn you again, they’ll be forced to leave some more “solid” reminders in your yard, on your car, and if these gentle hints don’t work Jimmy Hoffa will send one of his parliamentarians to give you a lesson on proper political etiquette you’ll never forget.
January 14, 2012, 8:14 pmAsher says:
Odd. The vast majority of individuals in history have lived without such “rights”, so, I find it difficult to see how “fundamental” such “rights” might be. Also, I can think of all shorts of people who’d claim they are denied “fundamental rights” that you would probably consider laughable. What makes your posited “fundamental rights” prior to others’ notions? Where do these “rights” come from?
January 14, 2012, 8:23 pmAsher says:
@Steverino
There are three kinds of people in this world:
A) Saintly white leftists
B) Evil white rightists
C) Non-whites who are objects to be acted upon in the struggle between good and evil whites
Once the good white leftists defeat the evil white rightists the lion will lay down with the lamb and we will all sit around holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Until that time, all actions by non-whites cannot be held to any moral standard because, well, they just can’t help themselves, all their actions are caused by the interplay of good and evil whites. After the good white leftist triumph, there will be no need for moral judgement because the source of all evil, white rightists, will have been eliminated from the world.
In the leftist relgion, “racism” takes the place of “original sin”.
January 14, 2012, 8:32 pmTom Rigid says:
“Pro-Israel Fanatic” lacks the association with Lindbergh’s “America First” movement which lends the “Israel First” label a (fairly appropriate) stench of narrow, parochial, and provincial self-interest.
David, Israel’s Likud government counts among its American supporters the most rightward of the American right wing. If this is the company they keep, these are the labels they will deserve.
January 14, 2012, 8:46 pmDoc Rampage says:
You say that as if it means something. I’ve used the phrase “welcome to America” or “welcome to the real world” multiple times to white native Americans and meant no racial overtones by it. But I guess if I said it to a brown-skinned person it would show that I’m racist because I’m conservative. I could get away with it if I were a leftist, of course.
And you don’t even know if how many people in the crowd were even aware that the person he was talking to was non-white. How many could see him or bothered to turn around?
And how many thought that the word “macaca” was racist? I’d never heard it before, nor had anyone I talked to about it, nor any of the bloggers I read over the next couple of days. A few of the commenters had claimed to have heard it before, but some of them didn’t think it was racist.
George Allen claimed that he heard it from this grandmother. I heard things from my grandparents that I know are now considered racist, but I didn’t know it, even in my twenties because I never heard it anywhere else and my grandparents never said anything explicitly racist. But innocent explanations are not allowed when it’s a Republican. Only Democrats get that advantage.
And what does it prove that he scrambled to find an excuse that would stick? It doesn’t prove that his first excuse wasn’t true, just that the leftist press was ignoring it and continuing to crucify him, so he had to find other excuses.
This is exactly how PC works. Establish a narrative and ignore all evidence to the contrary thereafter. You don’t need evidence when the entire mass media is behind your narrative.
January 14, 2012, 8:56 pmArthur Kirkland says:
What causes you to conclude that it is noble to deny other people an opportunity to avoid danger? It is your devotion to discredited right-wing ideology, your reliance on childish superstition (of whatever flavor of fairy tale you prefer), or both? With friendship such as yours from the realm of fantasy, the Israelis need no enemies in the reality-based world.
January 14, 2012, 9:08 pmMr. Whiskas says:
DB
Mea culpa, I should have seen that part of your post.
So you are arguing not that the left-wing critics of Israel who use the term are anti-Semitic or that the term is inherently anti-Semitic, but rather that liberals are using a term that originated among anti-Semites and, since liberals have in the past criticized seemingly non-inherently racist terms for having bad past associations/origins, that this is odd at the least, possibly hypocritical, or at worst indicative of a less exacting standard when criticisms are aimed at Israel? It seems to me to be very likely, as you seem to concede, that the term was borrowed ignorant of its origins and equally likely that the term was simply independently reached. After all, it would seem that at the heart of much criticism of our Israel policy and many of its supporters is the idea that favoring Isreal does not serve our national interest and that therefore such a policy puts “Israel First” ahead of, and to the detriment of, our interests. Given the use/adoption of the term is likely innocent, correctly describes a key (and I hope you would agree legitimate-if-true) concern of critics of our Israel policy, and that the term is not by itself objectionable, I’m curious as to what the “big deal” is…
January 14, 2012, 9:12 pmneurodoc says:
In that “war against Iran” you postulate, who would be fighting whom, and what outcome would one of your imagined “Israel-firsters” want to see? How can those dots be connected? “In modern-day context,” what you seem to imagine (the US’s interests aligning with Iran’s as opposed to Israel’s) as a possibility is unimaginable.
January 14, 2012, 9:13 pmneurodoc says:
Yes, AKM, you are right yet again. Given the long and well-document history of Jewish persecution of racists, it is understandable that racists would react to Jews in the way they do.
January 14, 2012, 9:21 pmThe Crafty Trilobite says:
Most of us didn’t think the word was racist because we had never heard it before. We didn’t know what it meant – black, weirdo, nuisance, dude, coulda been anything. George Allen, however, even on his own account, knew at the very least that it was a slang term for a dark-skinned person. He just didn’t see any problem with using that word in a mocking way, because, hey, why should anyone take offense at that, right? For the same reason, lots of folks still don’t see why they shouldn’t use words like “nigra” or “kike.” It’s just a description, what’s the problem?
And the problem is, of course, that it’s insulting and demeaning to identify someone primarily by their race or religion except in the rare instance where that aspect of them is actually relevant to the subject, and it’s usually hostile. Avoiding this sort of thing used to be called “good manners.” Now, it’s “PC,” and “progressives” are just mean-minded types with no sense of humor for caring about it.
Yes, dear. Now go wipe your feet before you come in the house, please.
As for “Israel-first,” I hadn’t heard the phrase, leading me to wonder if this is in fact a big issue, but it sure sounds anti-Semitic if indeed it is often used merely as a pejorative for “pro-Israel.”
January 14, 2012, 9:39 pmneurodoc says:
“as this one has from both sides in equally disgusting measure” Thank you OrenWithAnE for serving up this example of “moral equivalence.”
January 14, 2012, 9:41 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Thank you for the “mea culpa.” You’ve hit a good part of the point. Another part was that I was interested in whether Kirchik was right about the origins of the phrase. A final part, which I probably should have addressed more directly, is that elements of the right that had a virtual monopoly monopoly on vitriolic anti-Israel arguments, and who often were either anti-Semitic or turned a blind eye to it, have migrated to the Left, because that’s where they find a receptive audience for their “anti-Zionism.” At the same time, lefties looking for anti-Israel arguments can find a treasure trove from said rightists. As a combined result, anti-Semitic formerly “right-wing” arguments are filtering into the Left, the members of whom may not be aware of their provenance, or familiar enough with the history of anti-Semitism to easily spot them. But when it’s pointed out to them, the proper reaction (which some have done) is not to claim that the other side is trying to shut down debate, but, when appropriate, to acknowledge their error. As noted previously, this is, at the very least, what they would do if caught repeating arguments with a recent racist provenance playing on longstanding racist tropes in just about any other context.
January 14, 2012, 9:41 pmleo marvin says:
I was going to compliment Steverino on his stamina for Manichaean rant, but I’ll defer to the endorsement from Mr. There’s No Such Thing As Bigotry Asher.
January 14, 2012, 9:49 pmElliot says:
I’ve heard the term. It means an American who always puts Israel’s interests before those of the US. It means the person lacks primary loyalty to the US, and gives primary loyalty to Israel. It means the person is disloyal to the US due to primary loyalty to Israel.
That’s what the term conveys. Is there a better term that means the same thing?
January 14, 2012, 9:51 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Which part do you need help with?
January 14, 2012, 9:52 pmYehuda says:
Those most inclined to screech about “Israel-Firsters” and other supposedly nefarious Jews do so regardless of who actually makes up the governing coalition in Israel. Anti-Zionism and Anti-Israel rhetoric on the left has absolutely nothing to do with the Likud or ‘rightist’ Israeli political parties. The left has used similar language and been similarly opposed to the idea of Israel during Kadima and Labor administrations.
January 14, 2012, 9:53 pmMDJD from NY says:
He doesn’t understand that you consider religion an unrelievedly bad thing– especially, it seems, Judaism, whose traditional beliefs connect the Jewish people to the land of Israel. He wants you to think that these religious beliefs are all that motivate Israelis, who should realize that they always will be safe in an advanced country like the United States just like their grandparents were safe in the advanced countries of Europe.
January 14, 2012, 10:20 pmNick056 says:
Since I took issue with some of Bernstein’s logic upthread, I wanted to point out that this seems correct to me. While for various reasons there is no good analogue for this kind of nasty rhetoric — “primitive” and “welfare queen” don’t work — it is still true that a really shocking number of liberals don’t know or care that, in accusing Jews of putting Israeli interests above American interests, they’re wading into ancient anti-semitism. My only guess is that, tired of hearing about how liberals blame America first (or as Clinton put the line of attack last year, are “wussy Democrats who don’t get how great this nation is”) some liberals view it as “fighting back” to accuse people on the right of disloyalty. But it’s a stupid game: as Bernstein put it, it’s a game that never served the right well, and it won’t serve progressive interests either. Reflexive tribalism usually isn’t a good way forward.
January 14, 2012, 10:26 pmDavid G. Epstein says:
The origin is irrelevant.
The question is whether it is accurate. Many American Zionists fool themselves into thinking the the interests of the US and those of Israel are identical or nearly so. There are also some who do favor Israel’s interests of those of the U.S. “Israel-firster” is a perfectly accurate term for such people.
We need robust debate, not a bunch of taboos, even if it becomes harsh.
January 14, 2012, 11:22 pmClark says:
I have no idea whether you are a racist, nor do I give a damn, but it is fairly clear that you are a sophist and an apologist when you take the statement “Look at macaca here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia” and equate that with “welcome to the real world”. And then claim that the appreciative laughter was from people who didn’t turn around. Thanks for the comedy.
January 14, 2012, 11:22 pmSteverino says:
I believe those who fall into category B are the “typical white persons” that President Obama was thinking of when he was talking down his grandmother. However, I disagree with your characterization of non-whites as mere objects to be acted upon in the struggle against the evil “typical” whites.
They definitely are the enemies he wanted Latinos to help him punish, and that he told his supporters at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner he wants to “take off your bedroom slippers” and march against.
So it appears that the good white leftists expect the non-whites to actively participate in the fight against the evil white rightists.
And, naturally it’s unthinkable for the non-whites to do anything except march in lockstep with the good white leftists.
As Harry Reid helpfully observed, you can’t be hispanic and a Republican. And, as pundits from networks such as CNN, MSNBC, to BET have observed, you can’t be black and conservative.
Hence people like Marco Rubio and or Susana Martinez aren’t really Latino while Herman Cain and Allen West are not authentically black. (Uncle Tom? That’s mild compared to a lot of what Cain and West have been called: Uncle Remus, happy house slave, stepin’ fetchit, oreo, etc. On the upside, Allen West was able to work some of the various names he’s been called by the other members of the CBC into an award winning stand-up routine.)
No joke, that.
Racism: America’s Original Sin
America’s original sin: the legacy of white racism
America’s Original Sin: Absolution & Penance
January 14, 2012, 11:25 pmRicardo says:
For what it’s worth, I googled “Glenn Beck Israel firster” and “Gary Bauer Israel firster” [both Gentiles] and came up with many hits. However, some of the first hits pointed me to a pro-Ron Paul website, not anything that could be described as “progressive.”
But I still think Bernstein is right: people should stay away from this term given its association with kooks and cranks.
January 14, 2012, 11:43 pmArthur Kirkland says:
If one’s logic leads from “inviting a person to your country to be safe” with “hates that person and his religion,” one’s affinity for right-wing positions becomes more understandable.
The idea that an Israeli is safer in Israel, a country dependent on the United States’ protection and funding, than he would be in the United States is roughly as unfounded as the most far-fetched fairy tale.
Insisting that people — other people, of course, as with warmongerers with respect to Iraq — remain in jeopardy to flatter one’s fantasies is ugly.
January 15, 2012, 1:01 amSteverino says:
Thanks for the thought. Personally I thought it was a fairly brief overview all the hate speech that flows only from the right. Those on the left aren’t capable of such hate speech.
And of course, Asher wasn’t saying there’s no such thing as bigotry. Just that only those on the right are guilty of it.
Just like those on the right are guilty of hating the poor, the elderly, and the polar bears.
That’s why a vote for a Republican is a vote to burn a black church, and a return to the days of the Jim Crowe south.
See the difference? Republicans use the inflammatory, divisive language of hate. And if they aren’t stopped they’ll drag even more black people to death behind their pickup trucks when they aren’t killing gays. And they’ll even legalize public lynchings of black people. Democrats like Sara Howard, on the other hand, bring Americans together using what Froma “it’s different when I do it” Harrop has determined to be the cool, rational, yet “colorful” language of civil discourse. I personally can’t think of anything more likely to achieve the goal of “Americans Coming Together” than a nice, tasteful picture of what a hellish existence minorities had to endure back when teabagging loons like Orval Faubus, Bull Connor, and all the rest of those Republican crazies were in total control of the south.
So, of course there’s bigotry. It’s even possible to cast a vote for bigotry. I have been guilty of voting for bigotry in the past. Fortunately, the Democrats have figured out ways to make sure I cast far more votes against bigotry in states like New York, Mississippi, and undoubtedly a few others.
January 15, 2012, 1:06 amAsher says:
@ leo marvin
Fine. Then be the first person to ever provide me a definition of “bigot” that is both coherent and in line with how the term is, generally, used.
It’s a trick challenge because it’s impossible.
See, usage is meaning. And the term “bigot” is thrown around to describe so many different things that it has become, effectively, meaningless. Words are meaningful if they define something, i.e. distinguish between things that re dissimilar and compare things that are similar. Terms like evil, bigotry, racism, fascism, n*gger, etc., mean nothing beyond “that which I oppose/dislike/hate”. So, when you call someone a “bigot” it’s just a really fancy way of saying “I hate you”.
When you call someone a “bigot” all you’re doing is saying “nya nya nya boo boo”.
Yes, calling someone a “racist”, today, is the equivalent of calling a black person a “n*gger”. You do it to avoid addressing what the person in question actually says and does. So, when you call someone a “racist” or a “bigot” you are no different from southern whites who called all black people “n*ggers”.
January 15, 2012, 1:32 amAsher says:
@ leo marvin
I don’t think you quite understand the thread of this conversation. The Left is Manichean. Steverino ws just describing your Manicheanism.
“Racism” is the Left version of “Original Sin”. You are either “antiracist”, “racist” or a no-moral agent. for leftists there are the three following types of people:
A) Saintly, moral, antiracist, white leftists
B) Evil, immoral, racist white rightists
C) Non-whites who are not moral agents and whose actions are wholly determined by the interplay of evil (racist) and saintly (nonracist) whites.
leo, you’re the Manichean bro.
January 15, 2012, 1:51 amFat Man says:
The problem here is that leftists* these days like to pretend that antisemitism (i.e. Jew hatred) is an accident, one that is alien to their essence. This is denial.
All leftist theories begin with the Aristotelian premise that man is a political animal. This means not that men engage in politics, but that they exist in Politeia** (states), and that this is an essential characteristic of their natures, just like being featherless bipeds. A man outside of his state is a like a bee outside of its hive. He is partial and not complete. Mussolini put it most succinctly: Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato (“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State”).
The contrast with liberal*** political theories is stark. In liberal theory, man precedes the state, and invents the state to serve him. As the Founders put it: “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, … That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, …”
In the liberal idea, the state is a human institution with limited powers and limited claims on its citizens. They exist in relation to their creator, to their families, and to other associations. Of course there are conflicts between these relationships, but that is life. The Constitution rightly sets a limited definition of the crime of treason.
Leftists cannot tolerate this kind of thinking. That is why they hate America and blame America first for all of the world’s ills.
Another thing that all true leftists must hate is Jews. A Jew, at least one who has a smidgen of religious conscience, must acknowledge that he is a member of Beit Yisroel, the House of Israel, Jacob’s household, and that he has a covenant with Ha-Shem****. This means that he will always be at least partially outside of the state. It is an intolerable conflict for Leftists.
When they accuse Jews of placing Israel first, they are expressing their frustration with the Jews, who will always thwart the project of creating the true leftist state. This is the source of their antisemitism and why they will always hate Israel and the Jews.
* an umbrella term for Marxists, socialists, progressives, populists, anarchists, social democrats, national socialists, and all other anti-liberal political theorists other than who do espouse return to the Ancien Regime.
** Politeia is the title of Plato’s work usually translated as the Republic. Polis is the singular nominal form. But in the work of the philosophers it is not a reference to the historic Greek city state, but to a philosophical category. The word state is a better translation.
*** The political theories of Locke, the Founders, and Mill among others.
**** The name of the unnameable. Jacob’s God. The eternal creator of the universe and all that is in it. The source of life and ground of being. Ha-Shem is a Hebrew term that means “the name”. Its use is at least a little ironic.
January 15, 2012, 1:57 amAsher says:
Are you eff’ing kidding me? Government is the gun, pure and simple. That’s all it is. Do I have the chance to opt out of the government under which I live? Of course not. Who is a “people”. Where are the boundaries determining where one people begins and another ends? What you are doing is taking boundaries on a map and declaring voila! this is the source of all political and moral legitimacy.
Hilarious.
government, of any kind and any configuration is about forcing people to do things you want them to do. Yes, this includes things as mundane as traffic safety, and is the source of libertarian critiques of left-liberalism.
The current political boundaries of lands in the muslim world are, themselves, a product of western political intervention. There is no “people”, there. The clan is the operant social unit and any interaction in muslim lands, outside of dealing with local extended families, is imposing Western order.
Yes, the United Nations is just another external imposition of order.
January 15, 2012, 2:19 amjukeboxgrad says:
steverino:
Along with Fox and a lot of other people, you are promoting an altered, fraudulent, falsified version of what Hoffa said. A correct version of what he said can be found via here.
January 15, 2012, 2:21 am~aardvark says:
Been there, done that. This argument has been repeatedly made–mostly by Arab antisemites or their mostly Progressive allies (not to say “all Progressives” because this is not the case). And it’s been rather solidly debunked. There is no discourse in English (or most other languages that use the same term) where a reference to “antisemitism” or “antisemite” can by understood as encompassing more than those who hate the Jews. The only deviations are specifically by those people who want to modify this definition. Language is a social, not a mechanical construct. Just because a word has a particular etymology does not mean that its meaning follows precisely the same derivation. And, in the case of “antisemite” and “antisemitic” this is precisely the point–the specific etymology simply does not predict the precise meaning. But the meaning is well-known, well-documented and well-accepted, except by those who want to stir the pot–usually, themselves antisemites.
The rest of Philadelphia’s argument is not much better. It’s mostly ahistorical analysis with questionable conclusions.
January 15, 2012, 2:23 amjukeboxgrad says:
The icing on this cake was when Allen said that asking him about his Jewish heritage was “making aspersions” (link). Maybe that’s another word he said without (supposedly) knowing what it means.
January 15, 2012, 2:26 amjukeboxgrad says:
rampage:
Wrong. He never claimed or admitted that. That’s a scrambled version of what happened.
It became obvious that he learned the word from his mother (link), but he never admitted this.
January 15, 2012, 2:32 am~aardvark says:
I, for one, don’s see it as a smear. Generally, words are available to everyone to use. But, if, in fact, the term was coined and most used, for a time, by by antisemitic or neo-Nazi groups, there is a very good reason to believe that the term is actually associated with those groups. Usage of the same terminology by others suggests either ignorance or condoning of these practices and, furthermore, of the groups themselves. Given the choice, it is better to stay away from loaded terms that display either ignorance or support for bigotry. Lack of knowledge is really a poor excuse in such cases. Would it really be OK for someone to say “My brother Jewed me down …”, only to plead ignorance when confronted with the word’s antisemitic origin?
This is not at all the same as the claims against picnic, handicapped, niggardly, etc.–largely because the claims are entirely fictitious and have no basis in reality. If Bernstein’s investigation is correct (and I’ve noted above that it does not appear to be complete, but the findings may well be accurate), then we clearly do not have the same case here.
So we are back to the old stand-by–no, not all critics of Israel (I’m among them) are antisemites, but many critics in fact are antisemites. All that means is that we can’t take criticism of Israel–or use of particular terminology–in isolation as indication of antisemitism. But given other evidence, it may well serve as additional evidence.
January 15, 2012, 2:38 am~aardvark says:
Actually, there is a world of difference between “blame America first” on one hand, “teabagger” on the other, and the rest of the terms as contrasted with the first two. “Blame America first” was a complete fabrication from the very beginning, intended not just to identify but to brand the opposition as near-treasonous for no other reason than political disagreement. “Teabagger” has a background similar to the reason why opposing teams’ fans used to chant “Joey! Joey!” to Albert Belle. In Belle’s case, it was, in fact, the name he used through a major part of his career (it is an abbreviated version of his middle name, while he eschewed Albert initially, because his full name is Albert Jojuan Belle Jr. and Albert is his father’s name). Belle changed it after running into a trouble on more than one occasion. So it was more of a brand change (like ADM or KFC running away from their tainted original names). “Teabagger” is a name given to the movement by its own members before they were embarrassed to find out “other” meaning of the term. So the usage is not so much a label created by the opponents, as a reminder of the Tea Party organizers’ own stupidity. But you’re right, the other terms make little sense as general insults. They are descriptive in most cases and they’ve acquired a negative connotation because of this descriptiveness. “Robber baron” is a recognized historical terms that would be difficult to erase–anyone who thinks he can prevent anyone else from using it is not playing with a full deck. Balancing it against “blame America first” is silly. The only other one that may be questionable is “one-percenter”, but it’s still not in the same category as either “blame America-first crowd”, “teabagger” or “Israel-firster”. “One-percenter” is generally accurate–it is applied to those who are, in fact, in that one percent. The same cannot be said about the other three–there is nothing literal about those three terms.
January 15, 2012, 2:57 am~aardvark says:
You’d be wrong. The whole point here is that “Israel-firster” is an expression of alleged loyalties without any evidence as to such allegiances. “Pro-Israel fanatic”, while gratuitous, is a description of perceived opinion that the person in question holds. It is not a value judgment in itself–some people describe themselves favorably as “fanatics” (or, to make the point more obvious, as “fans” or “cheerleaders”). The reason one person may describe another as a fanatic is because he believes that rational arguments do not persuade his opponent. That’s is not at all the same reasoning as what is behind referring to someone as “Israel-firster”. Suggesting that someone may not reason rationally is not the equivalent of accusing him of false-flag loyalties.
January 15, 2012, 3:19 amleo marvin says:
I’d love to follow you down that philosophical bunny hole, but I’m due back on Planet Earth where people have access to dictionaries and use words like “racism” accordingly. And much as I wish I could tax the entire Right with your views, and despite Steverino lacking the sense to disavow you lest he find himself, however briefly, aligned with a liberal, those dictionary using folks happen to reside on both sides of the ideological divide.
January 15, 2012, 3:27 am~aardvark says:
This would be true under a number of counterfactual conditions. For example, the use indeed would have to be a random invention, the politician in question would have to come from a background that has no actual connection to those who use the term “macaca”, and his application of the term would have to be to someone other than those who would traditionally be tagged with the “macaca” label. Note that “macaca” resembles “macaque”, which actually means exactly what “macaca” is meant to represent–thus making the random coinage nearly impossible. The person accused of using the term has a very direct linkage to those who use it disparagingly and he used it in exactly the same context they would use it. In other words, in Allen’s case, being Republican had absolutely nothing to do with having been caught referring to a life-long Virginian of South Asian ethnicity as “macaca”. Allen turned out to be a self-hating Jew (he lied about knowing that his mother’s family is Jewish nearly his entire life) with racist tendencies that he would peddle to local “conservatives” (actually “racists”, but we’ll pretend that they are just misinformed rather than prejudiced) in order to win over their votes. Given that half his family is Jewish and the other half is deeply and rabidly antisemitic, the outcome is not surprising, yet he does not make a particularly sympathetic character. I am all for second chances, but he’s a long way from having earned it.
January 15, 2012, 3:49 amTJ says:
Richard H. Curtiss @ The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 1986:
http://www.washington-report.org/component/content/article/95-1986-december/697-in-toto-outrageous.html
January 15, 2012, 6:43 amrarango says:
nothing like a Professor Bernstein post to generate hits–As the sainted professor Volokh said in an earlier post this year: its all about eyes on a page.
January 15, 2012, 8:26 amOrenWithAnE says:
Indeed, the sad history of tyranny in human relation is most tragic. On the other hand, we lived with such noxious evil as slavery and the effective chattel of women (including State sanctioned rape) for thousands of years as well. Hell, genocide is a pretty thoroughly human invention, so is your claim that no one has the right not to be murdered for their ethnicity because historically genocide has been practiced?
[ And where the heck did your is/ought distinction go? Did you lose it? ]
Fundamental rights, of course, cannot “come from” anywhere or else they would be contingent rights, not fundamental ones. We can learn that self-government is fundamental by rather straightforward application of Kant’s categorical imperative. Britain would not be happy to be ruled without consent by Americans (or anyone else), therefore they should not subject America (or anyone else) to government without consent.
Safety is not the only goal that one might have. It needs to be balanced against other goals, hence the reference to purchasing live at the cost of chains and slavery.
January 15, 2012, 8:54 amJ. Otto Pohl says:
Almost all US politicians are Israeli firsters in that they put the interests of Israel ahead of the US when the interests of the two states clash. The vast majority of them are not and have not been Jews. For instance President Johnson’s cover up of the attack on the USS Liberty. LBJ was not a Jew. Israel firster is a statement about ultimate political loyalty not ethnicity or race.
January 15, 2012, 8:56 amOrenWithAnE says:
Neurodoc, this wasn’t a moral statement. If you look at the subject of the predicate ‘has’, I was referring to both sides of this online argument doing something equivalently. That has nothing to do with saying that both sides of the conflict are morally equivalent.
Ther borders are themselves arbitrary. That doesn’t mean the existence of a border is arbitrary. It’s also arbitrary that the US Congress has 435 representatives and not 893. That doesn’t make the entire enterprise suspect, it merely means that implementing requires some additional details that are not essential for its fundamental purpose.
For example, we have to have a legal driving age (assuming that the legislature in good sense says that 5 years olds ought not drive) but clearly there’s no way to rationally justify 16 or 17 as the particular cutoff (and not 15.5 or 17.1). I think Orin discussed this sort of distinction between arguing the rationality of a line drawn at some point and arguing the rationality of the particular place the line is drawn.
January 15, 2012, 9:03 amMr. Whiskas says:
“in accusing Jews of putting Israeli interests above American interests, they’re wading into ancient anti-semitism.”
I can see that. Unfortunately I think a legitimate-if-true criticism of our Israel policy and many of its supporters kind of has to be based in the idea that it is contrary to U.S. interests and that therefore people pushing such a policy are pushing something that may be advantageous for Israel but is not for America. Nazis may have used “Israel Firster” to mean, and tap into an anti-Semitic trope of, “disloyal Jewish citizen” but it seems the critics using the term as discussed here use it to mean “person pushing a policy advantageous to Israel but harmful for the US.”
January 15, 2012, 9:24 amMr. Whiskas says:
Another quick point: part of the commentary here seems to revolve around the idea that “PC leftists complain about the use of non-inherently racist terms that have bad associations in others, but here they are doing that exact thing.” Conceded that they dserve to have this turned back on them here, doesn’t this cut both ways? In other words conservatives and libertarians who often criticize and mock the PC left for being so worked up about this kind of thing look kind of strange now being worked up over something similar…
January 15, 2012, 9:29 amPhiladelphia says:
David Bernstein said: Thank you for the “mea culpa.”You’ve hit a good part of the point.Another part was that I was interested in whether Kirchik was right about the origins of the phrase.A final part, which I probably should have addressed more directly, is that elements of theright that had a virtual monopoly monopoly on vitriolic anti-Israel arguments, and who often were either anti-Semitic or turned a blind eye to it, have migrated to the Left, because that’s where they find a receptive audience for their “anti-Zionism.”At the same time, lefties looking for anti-Israel arguments can find a treasure trove from said rightists.As a combined result, anti-Semitic formerly “right-wing” arguments are filtering into the Left, the members of whom may not be aware of their provenance, or familiar enough with the history of anti-Semitism to easily spot them.But when it’s pointed out to them, the proper reaction (which some have done) is not to claim that the other side is trying to shut down debate, but, when appropriate, to acknowledge their error.As noted previously, this is, at the very least, what they would do if caught repeating arguments with a recent racist provenance playing on longstanding racist tropes in just about any other context.
David, that is very interesting. I think a lot of this discussion confuses legitimate consideration of American interests vis a vis Israel and anti-Semitism. Your observation of anti-Semitic rhetoric shifting from right to left might be indicative of your own prejudice—or not—I am not sure. As I mentioned in my previous comment—way up earlier in the thread—one can legitimately condemn Pollard and others siding with Israel to the detriment of the US without being either anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. In fact, one might legitimately say that the recognition of Israel served no vital interest of the US at the time and supporting Israel was of questionable national interest for several years thereafter. However, now there is no doubt that Israel is valuable to the US and to western culture generally in struggling against Arab islamism. (See my previous comment.) For a neutral example in this discussion, as a protestant, I was no fan of the Roman church in the past, but now I regard the Roman church as a leading defender of western culture in the face of islamic insanity. If you see opposition to Israel as anti-Semitic, then a pro-US stance shifting from questioning or opposing Israel to favoring Israel will over time appear from your perspective to indicate migration of “anti-Semitism” from right to left, because the left has been fairly consistently anti-US interest over that time and changed from being pro-Israel when I was in college and law school to anti-Israel today reflecting their new-found sympathy with islamism.
January 15, 2012, 11:14 amneurodoc says:
Right, we are talking about “this online argument” about the legitimacy of the term “Israel-firster.” DB made the case that the term has an ugly provenance and is objectionable for that and other reasons. Some, including neurodoc, concur with him and might go still further with the meaning of it in the mouths it has lain; while others, including many of the usual minimizers or deniers of antisemitism on the Left, have disputed DB, some in rather personal ways.
According to you, the respective cases made by those who think “Israeli-firster” is a perfectly fair label, one without taint of bigotry, and those who think it is tainted with bigotry are “equally disgusting” or have been made in an “equally disgusting matter.” If “equally disgusting” is not to be understood as anything like “moral equivalence,” or “a pox on both your houses,” what were you trying to say from that morally obtuse and/or willfully blind perch of yours?
[And in the future, please use the quote function properly, so it will be clear that it was not neurodocwho said the rest of what you quoted.]
January 15, 2012, 11:19 amB-Rob says:
Well here is the problem — there are some American citizens who are “Israel firsters.” They think US foreign policy should reflect Israels interests, not our own, even when our interests diverge. They apologize for Israeli acts that hurt the US’s interests, and condemn the US when its actions hurt Israel’s divergent interests. They oppose the US government in its conflicts, no matter how minor, with Israel. And if US foreign policy is not seen as sufficiently “pro-Israel”, then they work to undermine that policy. In their mind, Israel is almost a quasi-state of the US, as entitled to US support, funds, protection, favored status and ego-stroking as Florida is.
But “Israel first” is not an anti-Semitic statement because (a) most Jews are not Israel firsters, and (b) most Israel firsters are not Jews. Palin, Santorum, Gingrich even Romney have all espoused “Israel first” sentiments, even hinting that they would attack Iran for Israel. Which is why this episode of Professor Bernstein’s weekly Israel rah rah session is such nonsense — he totally ignores the fact that the Israel lobby and that foreign country’s enablers are largely Christian! Indeed, just as Jews do not “control the media,” they don’t even dominate the institutional Israel lobby!
Bernstein’s is an effort to undercut any criticism of that foreign country’s out-sized entanglement with our foreign policy decision making by deeming all criticism of “Israel firsters” as somehow being “anti-Semitic.” His is a weak and intellectually dishonest effort and should be exposed as such.
January 15, 2012, 11:33 amGiant Frog says:
A Firster Mongering Macaca-Bagger Denier?
January 15, 2012, 11:47 amPKM says:
Wrong. It would be like calling Kennedy an “Ireland-firster”. The term needn’t necessarily be associated with religion, however, it just so happens that Ireland is overwhelmingly Catholic and Israel is overwhelmingly Jewish.
Calling someone’s loyalty to a country into question may be an ad hominem argument, but it isn’t necessarily anti-semetic or anti-catholic.
January 15, 2012, 12:03 pmMDJD from NY says:
Really?!?! They don’t think that an Iran with nuclear weapons would be disastrous for the US? Consider the possibility that US and Israeli interests may be aligned, at least at times.
January 15, 2012, 12:14 pmMDJD from NY says:
And, BTW, Hillary Clinton, presumably with the approval of the administration she works for, has said that an Iranian attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz would be a causus belli. Are she and Barack Obama “Israel-firsters” for this?
January 15, 2012, 12:20 pmaeolius says:
Mr. Bernstein.
January 15, 2012, 12:31 pmYou seem to make the all-too-usual error of confusing opposition to Israeli Irredentism to a broader opposition to Judism (anti-semitism). But what I find nearly nauseating is your use of the Holocaust to accuse those who oppose Israeli Irredentism of dishonoring the victims of the Holocaust. Who of course were victims of a Teutonic Irridentism.
As a Jew I was proud when the State of Israel was created and applauded the egalitarian nature of its government. I watched with incresing dis-ease as that became replaced by the Irgun position. And how that position became increasingly popular as the Holocaust genertion died out.
But it is more then Irgun. It seemed increasingly like (in Freud’s terms) an identification with the successful aggressor. Or in more modern terms victims of Stockholm Syndrome. Too often we see the most extreme settlers rampage without much interference or punishment . Or the recent law and court approval of disallowing citizenship to a Palestinian married to an Israeli woman. Visions of Krystalnacht and Yellow Stars emerge.
What you seem to be blind to is that such aggression does not bring an increased chance of safety. But in the usual manner of reciprocal escalation of violence actually increases the chances of a new Holocaust in the mid-East. It is no accident that the chief opponent of the now ueber-patriarchal in this reciprocal escalation is te similarly ueber-patriarchial Iranians.
So your word-magical rage at the use of some words blinds you to what the term “Israel First” actually describes, and of the dangers to the Jewish people it helps reminds us.
“We have met the enemy and they are us”
Asher says:
@ Steverino
Yes, I am saying that there is no such thing as bigotry, racism, etc, etc. As Quine said, no identity, no entity. Words give meaning when they demarcate things, and the terms in question no longer demarcate things. Words like racist or bigot now are simply sophisticated ways of saying “I hate you”.
Usage is meaning, and the terms in question have been used in a huge array in, often, contradictory manners. They no longer demarcate, therefore, they are nothing but reports on the emotional and intellectual state of the speaker, and nothing more.
January 15, 2012, 12:44 pmJoseph Slater says:
Since earlier in the thread I indicated that I generally agree with Leo, let me stress as strongly as humanly possible that this does not extend to the Yankees.
January 15, 2012, 12:50 pmAsher says:
@ leo marvin
Man, you are one target-rich environment …
A) Dictionaries determine meaning, eh? Really? Really??!! Fine, but, then, if where there are no dictionaries there can be no meaning!!! Hilarious. Among other things, you’ve inadvertantly implied that languages with no written form or no comprehensive dictionary have no meaning.
It gets even worse. Oh, yes, it does. If words’ meanings are defined by dictionaries then words themselves must come from dictionaries – dictionaries are prior to language!!! Even if humans, by some accident of history, had never evolved dictionaries would still exist! Hilarious.
No, bro, usage is is meaning and when usage changes so does meaning.
B) Your position on rights is remarkably similar, identical, really, to your position on meaning in language. Rights, like words, just “are” – notice the resemblance to Platonic forms? You say that rights must be fundamental because, if they weren’t, then they’d be contingent. But why can’t they be contingent? You don’t argue against that. You just keep asserting their “necessity”.
Why are they necessary?
Consider the following statement: oxygen is necessary for human life. Now consider this statement: fundamental rights are necessary. The first follows an if-then form while the second is an absolutely subjective statement of, well, absoluteness.
But there is a hidden if-then located in the second statement. Here’s how your statement should read: fundamental rights are necessary to implement my political agenda. What’s driving your line of reasoning is the desire for political power and to advance your status and agenda. That’s what notions of fundamental rights are for, to increase various parties’ political power and agendas But the driving force is not “rights” but power.
January 15, 2012, 1:19 pmAsher says:
@ leo marvin
Man, you are one target-rich environment …
Dictionaries determine meaning, eh? Really? Really??!! Fine, but, then, if where there are no dictionaries there can be no meaning!!! Hilarious. Among other things, you’ve inadvertantly implied that languages with no written form or no comprehensive dictionary have no meaning.
It gets even worse. Oh, yes, it does. If words’ meanings are defined by dictionaries then words themselves must come from dictionaries – dictionaries are prior to language!!! Even if humans, by some accident of history, had never evolved dictionaries would still exist! Hilarious.
No, bro, usage is is meaning and when usage changes so does meaning.
I feel like I’m trying to teach Heidegger to a third-grader.
January 15, 2012, 1:23 pmAsher says:
@ Steverino
No, for leftists all non-whites are not moral agents. Seriously. For leftists, the only moral agents are evil white rightwingers and saintly white leftists.
January 15, 2012, 1:25 pmneurodoc says:
Take a Compazine suppository to help with the near-nausea you say you feel when you read,
That is the gentlest and most direct treatment we can advise for someone who suffers from what you do.
January 15, 2012, 1:39 pmrilkefan says:
Facts not in evidence.
By this supposed logic “f****t Republicans” isn’t homophobic. Or calling Clinton the n-word would be fine.
When you go beyond saying “You know, David Duke has a point” to blessing his rhetoric, maybe it’s time to reconsider.
January 15, 2012, 1:45 pmneurodoc says:
Dissentus, know that you are addressing yourself to the intellectually sterile by-product of a cross between Humpty Dumpty and the Ouroboso.
January 15, 2012, 1:53 pmHm. says:
I think you’re reaching really, really far.
January 15, 2012, 1:59 pmYankev says:
It does not refer exclusively to Jews; it refers also to those who have been bought off by or duped by Jews. But of course that doesn’t make it a slur on Jews, any more than calling someone a “n-lover” is a slur against black people.
January 15, 2012, 2:05 pmYankev says:
The bigger problem with the term is that it lets anti-Semites, ignorami and obstructionists derail the discussion by protesting “That’s ridiculous. Everyone knows that Arabs are semites, too.” (Or worse, “Arabs are semites, and today’s Jews are descended from the non-semitic Khazars.”)
January 15, 2012, 2:09 pmYankev says:
Yes, but you only think so because you are one of those hypersensitive Jews. Worse, you are obviously trying to intimidate people from expressing legitimate criticism of Israel — like the fact that American supporters of Israel are by definition disloyal to America. Everyone knows that anti-Semitism is caused solely by Jews making charges of anti-Semitism. If you stopped talking about it, it would go away.
January 15, 2012, 2:15 pmYankev says:
So because Bernie Madoff is a Jew, and is also a dishonest, despicable swindler, you would see no reason to be upset is someone referred to “that dishonest, despicable Jew swindler Bernie Madoff”?
January 15, 2012, 2:27 pmYankev says:
Yes, the problem is that your grasp of reality is tenuous. The only ethnic cleansing going on between the Jordan and the mediterranean is the expulsion of Jews from land that they purchased and have the legal right to live on. And of course the insistence of Fatah, the PA and Hamas that they be given a state in which no Jews will be permitted to live.
January 15, 2012, 2:32 pmYankev says:
And in light of modern scholarship, “Christ killer” much more accurately refers to the ancient Romans. Oddly, though, I’ve never heard it used that way.
January 15, 2012, 2:35 pmYankev says:
Yes, and you will have a much better chance of doing so if you avoid inaccurate and perjorative terms such as Israel-first, apartheid or ethnic cleansing. And avoid applying standards to Israel that are not applied to other countries. And take account of the context in which Israel acts, including the exterminationist goals of even the so-called moderates (e.g. Abu Mazen) among its enemies. And do not insist on Israel choosing among impossible alternatives that are not forced upon other countries. Or basing the criticism on fantasies about Israel’s motives, history, government and population.
Just saying, based on several years worth of comments seen on VC threads discussing Israel.
January 15, 2012, 2:41 pmYankev says:
And as if to prove my point about why the term “anti-Semitic” frustrates discussion . . . And language groups, by the way, not cultures. Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and perhaps a few others (Akkadian?).
In this case, apparently the product of ignorance more than anything else. Please do five minutes worth of research into the origins of that term. Then take up with the 19th century haters-of-Jews who coined the term as a ‘scientific’ replacement for the older term Judenhass.
January 15, 2012, 2:53 pmleo marvin says:
Any of that might be relevant if I’d ever said “Dictionaries determine meaning,” so please show where I said it.
Dictionaries don’t invent meaning, they record it, which makes them useful arbiters when someone tries to substitute his tendentious, manufactured meaning for what sensible people, right and left, understand a word to mean.
Please show where I’ve articulated a position on rights, said they must be fundamental, or asserted their necessity.
Who isn’t a “target rich environment” when you’re aiming at words you put in their mouth?
No doubt you feel that way often.
January 15, 2012, 2:57 pmleo marvin says:
The life of a Yankees fan might be a cold, lonely one if we didn’t have all those World Series banners to keep us warm.
January 15, 2012, 3:01 pmYankev says:
No, you just want to evacuate all Jews from the region and move them to West Texas, then let whatever happens happen.
January 15, 2012, 3:01 pmYankev says:
The charming term “Retard” being another example.
January 15, 2012, 3:03 pmYankev says:
Given the relative population of Israel and the US, what would be the equivalent number of US deaths to 1,000 Israeli deaths, applying the same percentage of population? A lot more than 3,000 I’d wager.
Oren also overlooks the impact on Israel’s economy that would result from being able to interdict a significant part of the country with even random missile fire. Keep the population confined to shelters all day and what happens?
January 15, 2012, 3:08 pmYankev says:
That must explain why Israel was founded by socialist atheists.
Given the relative population of Israel and the US, what would be the equivalent number of US deaths to 1,000 Israeli deaths, applying the same percentage of population? A lot more than 3,000 I’d wager.
Oren also overlooks the impact on Israel’s economy that would result from being able to interdict a significant part of the country with even random missile fire. Keep the population confined to shelters all day and what happens?
January 15, 2012, 3:10 pmYankev says:
Yes, those American non-Jews who think that the there are sound reasons for America to support the Jewish state, or any alignment of America’s political interest with the Jewish state, are every bit as disloyal as Jews who think so. And the good Jews, the ones who think that the Jewish state is an enemy of the US, are loyal Americans (at least for now). So there is no possibility of Israel-firster having any anti-Semitic (or anti-Jewish) connotation, and anyone who says different is simply seeking special teratment for the Jews, and is trying to squelch justified criticism of the Jewish state’s apartheid, ethnic cleansing, organ pilfering, settlement building, APAIC fronted, Likud governed crimes. Glad we have that settled.
January 15, 2012, 3:24 pmYankev says:
Because of course allowing Iran to obliterate Israel would not hurt US interests. And because the US has no reason other than Israel to think that allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons might injure the interests of the US.
January 15, 2012, 3:34 pmOrenWithAnE says:
And both sides have had ample cause to complain about the others’ motives.
Absolutely not. “Israel-firster” is a baseless attack on motives instead of policy. Instead of arguing about whether policy X is good for the US and/or good for Israel (and I believe there are some policies that are good for both, some that are bad for both and some that are good for one and bad for the other).
Some of those who think that it is tainted with bigotry have made equally baseless attacks on the motives of those Americans who believe that some particular policy falls into a different category.
I was trying to say that it doesn’t advance a rational argument to attack your opponent’s motives instead of his argument. A bad policy is a bad policy, whether it comes from a bigot or an anti-semite or someone who says they would gladly support a policy that was harmful to US interests if it advanced Israeli ones.
On the other hand, if you want to attack your opponents with “This policy is bad and you are only supporting it because you have an anti-Jewish bias to the detriment of US goals” then it’s fair turnabout for them to retort with “This policy is bad and you are only supporting it because you have a pro-Jewish bias to the detriment of US goals”.
January 15, 2012, 3:40 pmOrenWithAnE says:
And how long would that last before the IAF reduces both of their missile firing capacity to levels that don’t require the entire population to be in shelters all day long? What’s your over/under?
January 15, 2012, 3:43 pmdeepelemblues says:
So basically, just because you believe that the interest of Israel and the US are divergent, you can call someone an “Israel firster” if they disagree? Because that seems to be the argument most in fashion here among those objecting to what Bernstein wrote.
And of course they are not self-aware enough to realize that they are making half his point for him. The term is not used as descriptive, it is used pejoratively. It assumes that Israeli and US interests are divergent, and anyone who thinks that they are not is putting their loyalty to Israel above that to America (or any other nation, but usually it is used in reference to America).
Using “Israel firster” skips over the whole debate of Israeli interests and American interests, assumes that that debate has been settled, and jumps right into the land of judgmental name-calling. And the term itself does have undeniably anti-Semitic origins.
If you’re oh-so-frustrated with America’s Israel policy please have the decency to object to that, not impugn the motives of anyone who disagrees. There is no reasonable place or time to call someone an Israel-firster unless, as has been pointed out, you are looking at the case of a Pollard.
Andrew McWhatever and those making similar posts are giving us great examples of the breakdown of intelligent thought and argument in modern society. Let’s ignore the real issues and argue over how it is proper to call names just because. Really impressive.
January 15, 2012, 3:52 pmaeolius says:
Neurodoc et al
January 15, 2012, 4:05 pmYour argument as I suggested above is based on the postulate that criticism of Israel, even Israeli irredentism is also a direct attack on all Jewish persons. That is it is an anti-Semitic statement.
Holding this belief it is not surprising that you find many “anti-Semitic” statements in the world press.
You are joined strangely enough with many in the world, mostly Moslems, who have the related belief that being Jewish means you are pro-Israel and therefore anti-Palestinian.
Like the woman who believed that “There are turtles all the way down” your belief is different then most other (non-Moslems) in the world.
We believe that there is not an identity betreen Jewish persons and the State of Israel, especially in its Irredentist policies.
According to our world-view we are not anti-Semite. from you world view we are. And this in Justice Holmes’ quip our air-shaft. Across which we can never agree
Asher says:
@ OrenwithanE
Man, you are one target-rich environment …
A) For starters, calling all of human history “tragic” is emotionally-loading the conversation to offer you a possible diversion from actually arguing for your position. Tragic … and, yet, somehow, we happen to be pushing up on seven billion people on the planet. One would think that if life were nothing but unmitigated tragedy the species would have gone extinct long, long ago. Ever heard of the amazing social scientist Robin Hanson? In this essay, Hanson describes how the main function of pity is to raise the status of those doing the pitying and lower the status of those being pitied. When you pity the past what your are really doing is trying to increase your status, in the present, relative to others in the present. When someone pities the past they are really just being a sanctimonious prick.
No, I do not think of past genocide,slavery or rape as particularly tragic. I’m not interested in those things happening in my neck of the woods, but Did you know that when the US/Union militaries defeated Germany and the South, respectively, the triumphant soldiers engaged in mass rape of the conquered females? So, to end slavery in the US it is necessary to justify the past mass rape of Southern women – no, I’m not a partisan for the “Lost Cause”, so, I’m not bothered, at all, by those rapes.
B) The is/ought distinction is undergoing lots of renewed scrutiny, as is, the idea of teleology. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the recent work.
Violations of the is/ought distinction come in two flavors, the naturalistic fallacy and the moralistic fallacy, and have strong and weak forms. The naturalistic fallacy gets all the press, you can’t derive ought from is. Just as bad is the attempt to derive is from ought. For example, there ought to be fundamental rights, therefore, there are fundamental rights, which is the fallacious reasoning in which you engage. Often advocated of such ideas do a neat rhetorical straddle where they couch things in terms of “needs”. And it usually devolves into advocates of “fundamental rights” scolding their opponents – I am not wrong regarding the existence of right, I am a bad man for even questioning them.
Consider the following statement: over the past hundred thousand years average traits between human populations have experienced some divergence due to different ecological selective pressures. Now, this statement is either right or wrong, but no one ever actually argues against it. What do they do? They call me “evil” for even suggesting it, which is a direct violation of the is/ought distinction. Managing the is/ought distinction is a fine balance between avoiding the moralistic and naturalistic fallacies.
C) Kant is a fraud. The categorical imperative is one of the most magnificent con jobs in human history. The intellectual firepower used is breathtaking, but then I could say the same thing about the Bernie Madoff scandal.
D) Um, the British don’t want to be ruled by the US? What about me? What if I don’t want to be ruled by the US government? Why is one assertion have priority and the other does not? Um, yeah any particular political boundary is an incidental result of the play of human history, what you call arbitrary. And what is the final arbiter of any political boundary? Power, the gun, and nothing besides. So, when you say “rights” in a political context what you are really saying is “power”. I say “power”, too, but I don’t pretend to justify it based on “rights”.
January 15, 2012, 4:07 pmArthur Kirkland says:
That misstates my position, and you do so knowingly. What is warping your conduct in this regard? And, if you do not live in Israel, your willingness to expose others to avoidable danger in order to advance your ideological or religious fantasies seems intensely unattractive.
January 15, 2012, 4:08 pmdeepelemblues says:
Don’t you understand, Arthur Kirkland is just so concerned about the safety of Jews he’d like to see them put in a nice, safe place, what’s best for them. Because Arthur Kirkland knows what’s best for Jews. He just wants them to be safe! In some place far, far away from where they can exercise their right to self-determination. Because then they might be too tempted to do things against America’s interests.
January 15, 2012, 4:25 pmOpen debate says:
I agree with the folks who question the attempt to suppress a phrase whose offensiveness is not self-evident and that does have shorthand efficacy in a serious policy debate. As others have said, the phrase is economical as policy-debate phrases go. It points to legitimate concerns about distortions in our foreign policy wrought by those–among them prominent evangelicals–who believe that whatever Israel does is right no matter how problematic for U.S. interests.
Count me with those who believe that we will end up with another immoral war of choice if we end up being squelched in our ability to criticize those who think the next thing after sliced bread would be an attack on Iran. Israel has been lobbying for a strike on Iran and it appears that Israel was responsible for last week’s terroristic assassination of a nuclear scientist. If the actions of a country with nuclear weapons can’t be questioned without someone deciding that the critics are anti-Semitic because the state was formed as a Jewish state, we are all, everyone one of us, in deep, deep trouble. Israel–in its legal capacity as a 21st century nation with arms–is not a sacred space. Fine–if “Israel-firster” is offensive, I will be the first not to use it. Perhaps Israeliophile would be better. Doesn’t matter. But, seriously, this really does look more like thought control, like an attempt to shut down legitimate criticism, that in does like a reasonable complaint.
Too much of the conversation about Israel’s policies, about US policies vis a vis Israel, has come to rest on the accusation that critics of Israel or of unblinking US support for Israel are anti Semites. When this type of criticism is carried to an extreme, it will do more to fuel anti-semitism than to counter it.
January 15, 2012, 4:38 pmB-Rob says:
I doubt if ANYONE can rationally explain why a nuclear armed Iran would be a “disaster” for the US. We were able to deal with a nuclear Stalin, a nuclear Mao, a nuclear Kim Jung Il, a nuclear Begin, and a nuclear Pakistan without starting a war, but somehow Iran is a bridge too far? Please explain why a single American life should be risked over Iran having or not having a nuke.
The Israel sycophancy on the GOP right goes further than just the idea that Iran is “a threat.” It extends to the question of settlements, the 1967 border that EVERYONE who knows anything about the Middle East agrees should be the starting point for ending this godforsaken Arab/Israeli conflict . . . assuming that is possible. It is as if they take their cues from what the Likudnik right in Israel starts yelling, then they align themselves with that foreign government. I find it appalling and disgusting that politicians in OUR COUNTRY, who get paid with my tax dollars, put the interests of a foreign country before the interests of this country.
Luckily, those who want the United States to attack ANOTHER Muslim country are outliers. Militarily, it is unlikely to work and would turn the Persian street us. In addition, there is no telling what the Iranian response might be. Maybe firing 1000 missiles into Israel or several hundred anti-ship missiles fired at our fleet in the Persian Gulf. Would that be worth it in exchange for a sure-to-be-ineffective attempt to bomb away a nuke program that MAY OR MAY NOT be aimed at producing a bomb?
Most importantly,there very little in the way of ANY US interests at stake if Iran gets a nuke. Saudi or UAE interests? Jordanian or Israeli interests . . . sure. But US interest? No. Cause they cannot get a nuke on our cities and they pose no real threat to us. So if certain forces in Israel (or Saudi Arabia or Jordan) think it is in their best interests to attack Iran (and, luckily, that appears to be a steady-shrinking minority), then they should by all means pursue that. But we should make it very clear that we have nothing to do with such short sighted unilateral madness. Because we have no dog in that fight.
January 15, 2012, 4:51 pmB-Rob says:
I am hoping you are being sarcastic. Otherwise, this is one if the most stunningly dumb things I have read in a long time.
January 15, 2012, 4:58 pmB-Rob says:
Can you identify ANYONE in American politics who could possibly be described as a “France-firster” or a “Germany-firster”? Meaning someone who advocates pro-France or pro-Germany positions even if our government opposes those positions? No, I bet you cannot. But the number of politicians, both GOPers and Dems, who would stand with that nut Netanyahu against our own president, or who would suggest that Israel’s interests are more important or on par with our own interests when determining policy . . . well that is actually a long list. As such, you cannot whine about “anti-Semitism” when there is criticism of Israel because . . . well, our foreign aid, military, religious and political entanglements with that foreign country are not similar in any way with any other country on Earth. It’s not that “you are criticizing the only Jewish country” . . . its really that “you are criticizing the only US client state.”
January 15, 2012, 5:06 pmB-Rob says:
I think it was Ann Coulter and Victor David Hanson who said that Obama was, from their White conservative Blackness scorecard, not “authentically Black” but Cain was. I guess because “their Blacks” are so superior Blackness to “the Dem’s Blacks”.
And you people why most Black people would rather be accused of having a meaningful relationship with a billy goat than be called a Republican . . . .
January 15, 2012, 5:27 pmAnonimus says:
Except the “Palestinian” Arabs who believe the border is the Mediterranean Sea.
January 15, 2012, 5:33 pmMDJD from NY says:
Which they are not.
January 15, 2012, 6:13 pmMDJD from NY says:
People who are grounded in reality generally can tell the difference between earnestness and sarcasm.
January 15, 2012, 6:23 pmRicardo says:
You obviously missed Leo’s point and don’t understand where dictionaries come from. A dictionary documents the consensus usage of a term by real people living in the real world. If you want to invent separate definitions or deny the ones that exist based on some idiosyncratic ideas of your own, you are free to do so but other people will rapidly lose interest in wanting to speak to you.
A conversation is a social act where people endeavor to make themselves understood by using terms with a common meaning. If you are happy speaking to yourself, you can attach completely different meanings to words.
January 15, 2012, 8:16 pmrilkefan says:
Nicely said – I would have just cited Humpty Dumpty though. Come to think of it I’d have stuck with DNFTT.
January 15, 2012, 8:37 pmneurodoc says:
On behalf of himself and that “et al,” neurodoc will say that every word you have written, including the several “the”s and few “and”s, is 100% crapola, starting as it does with your baseless, and flat-out wrong, claim that neurodoc believes “that criticism of Israel, even Israeli irredentism is also a direct attack on all Jewish persons.”
Love that AAJ (“As a Jew”) stuff we see so often starting off letters to the NYT because it immediately let’s us know what to expect. And you amp it up with that “I was proud when the State of Israel was created” florish. We, of course, have no way to verify your self-representations, but we know all too well that there are such people. Now, since you have put the personal in play, how about more details to flesh it out, e.g., how old do you purport to be (not plausible that you were “proud when the State of Israel was created” if you aren’t at the end of your seventh decade or older); what “peace” groups do you belong to or support, etc.
Tell us, if you can, what DB say that supports “your use of the Holocaust to accuse those who oppose Israeli Irredentism of dishonoring the victims of the Holocaust.”
And it is a close question whether your whole “irredentism” meme, and in particular “…dishonoring the victims of the Holocaust…(w)ho of course were victims of a Teutonic Irredentism,” is more simple-minded or offensive.
[If any of the "et al" want their turn with this source of foul wind, have at him. neurodoc is done.]
January 15, 2012, 8:39 pmneurodoc says:
Yes, Ricardo might have made better use of his time than he did by spending it with Asher. But how many trolls come along to amuse us with complaints like, “I feel like I’m trying to teach Heidegger to a third-grader.”?
January 15, 2012, 9:05 pm~aardvark says:
You’re entitled to your opinions, of course. But it doesn’t make them right.
January 15, 2012, 9:54 pmAsher says:
@ leo marvin
That’s tantamount to claiming that dictionaries determine meaning. Yes, we can go look up a definition in a dictionary, but if it is contradicted by usage then either the dictionary is wrong or usage is wrong.
Today, by and large, most usage of the term “racism” is unrelated to the dictionary definition. I would guess that well over three quarters of usage of the term does not conform to dictionary definitions. And the problem is that the nonconforming usages are widely varied.
So, the terms bigot, racism, evil, etc. etc. have become effectively meaningless, they do nothing more than report on the state of mind of the speaker.
January 15, 2012, 10:05 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Why would it? I was referring to the political partisans and religious people who would prefer that Israelis remain in harm’s way, not to the Israelis.
January 15, 2012, 10:18 pmneurodoc says:
January 15, 2012, 10:35 pmDoc Rampage says:
All you are doing is proving my point. You simply ignore the man’s own explanation because he is a Republican. If he said that he never heard the word before, then maybe he doesn’t really remember hearing it. Maybe he heard it as a 5-year-old and forgot about it and it came out as a reflex later. Or maybe your information on the word is wrong. I don’t know where you got it, but I’ve never found your sources to be very reliable.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It is beyond preposterous to suggest that a politician deliberately made a public racist statement in the US in 2003. One ambiguous statement does not a racist make. You know that very well because you apply it generously to your friends on the Left. But those on the right never, ever, get the benefit of the doubt.
Which is the whole point of PC, of course. It is a weapon. Its purpose is to destroy political opponents in order to give more power and wealth to Democrats. Why would you give anyone the benefit of the doubt when this never was about elevating the level of discourse, or holding people accountable for racism or sexism? If that’s really what it was about then Democrats and Republicans would get treated the same. But they don’t. Not even close. And that’s how we know it’s all a scam.
January 15, 2012, 10:46 pmAsher says:
@neurodoc
Look, it’s painfully obvious that terms like “bigot”, “racist”, “evil”, etc. have ceased to be identifiers and merely are insults. When I point this out and explain why I am told that “in the real world we have dictionaries”. That is spoken by someone incapable of arguing for their position.
I challenged him to offer me a definition of “bigot” that was coherent, non-tautological, substantive and conformed to common usage. It has been many hours and he has refused. The simplest explanation is that he cannot provide one.
Is this not obvious?
Seriously, I feel like I’m conversing with a very precocious third-grader. Smart, but lacking any substantive base on which to make serious conversation. His entire oeuvre is substantively empty, there’s simply nothing there.
January 15, 2012, 10:51 pmDoc Rampage says:
I didn’t claim any such thing. But dishonestly reporting what someone said is just part of the PC strategy, isn’t it? You don’t care about truth, only about making a conservative look bad.
What I claimed is that you don’t know if they turned around. What I claimed is that those of you who are so critical of Allen and the crowd are making unfair assumptions on minimal evidence and that if Allen and the crowd had been liberals you would be excusing them and claiming it is no big deal.
Just as when Bush makes a misstatement, it shows how dumb he is, but when Obama makes a misstatement, it’s just a misstatement. There is no effort to be evenhanded or impartial because the chatting class Left has no interest in truth or justice, only in power.
January 15, 2012, 10:59 pmjukeboxgrad says:
rampage:
In other words, you didn’t bother using the links I provided. How convenient for you.
It’s easy for you to maintain that belief if you never look at them.
Can you show a single example of me making an incorrect statement, or citing an incorrect source? That would be helpful.
By the way, you said this:
When did he say that? What’s your source for this claim you made? How ironic that you make a phony claim that you refuse to either substantiate or withdraw, and then you claim I’m the one presenting bad information. Hilarious.
I realize you didn’t bother looking, but I already explained in my linked comment that Breaks VA, where Allen spoke, is pure white. Pure meaning 100%. This is the heart of Appalachia. Allen calculated correctly that this particular audience would enjoy hearing him mock a non-white person. Allen forgot or didn’t notice or decided to not care that Mr. Macaca was holding a camera. Politicians have done much stupider things than that.
You’re good at ignoring inconvenient facts, so I think I can count on you to ignore “George Allen’s ugly history on racial issues” (link).
January 15, 2012, 11:22 pmleo marvin says:
You’re confusing “incapable of arguing for their position” with “unwilling to invest any more time in a pointless exercise.” But if declaring victory pleases you, knock yourself out.
January 16, 2012, 1:12 amAsher says:
@ leo marvin
It takes what, ten, fifteen minutes to post a comment? I have spent, maybe, one in the last fifty minutes of my life over the past day posting comments to this thread. It’s Sunday. You care enough to acknowledge my comments, and, yet, are incapable of making a response? Please. The simplest explanation is that you have no response.
George Orwell wrote a famous essay about politics and language where he pointed out that the term “fascism” had come to mean nothing more than “that which I dislike”. I’m simply pointing out that terms like racism, evil and bigot have come to denote the same thing.
It’s a simple challenge. If your position were so unassailable it should be an easy response – it should take ten minutes out of your life. Hell, it takes a few minutes to just get to this comment section and find my comments to respond. But you just can’t be bothered to actually formulate a response.
That’s f*cking pathetic. You’re f*cking pathetic.
January 16, 2012, 2:54 amleo marvin says:
Q.E.D. (as to the pointlessness of the exercise)
January 16, 2012, 3:40 amChris Travers says:
First I think there is the question of loyalty owed. I am reminded of the story, told by Plutarch, or the young Athenian who says to the Spartan king, “I am known by my friends as a great friend of Sparta.” The Spartan king replied, “It would be better if you were known by your friends as a great friend of Athens.” Anytime Western leaders say they are “friends of Israel” that story comes to mind. Score one for Plutarch……
January 16, 2012, 6:03 amMDJD from NY says:
Interesting that he chose Heidegger.
January 16, 2012, 7:12 amneurodoc says:
“Call him a Nazi, he won’t even frown. ‘Ha, Nazi Schmazi,’ says Martin Heidegger.”
(Sorry about the versification, but neurodoc ain’t no Tom Lehrer.)
January 16, 2012, 7:41 amneurodoc says:
Roughly 1:40, so 40,000.
January 16, 2012, 8:02 amAsher says:
Um, you miss the point. it is dictionaries that at idiosyncratic. More precisely, dictionaries are obsolete.
The internet is an amazing thing. It allows for direct interaction between far-flung parts of the world. If you have an argument for a position then present it.
If you cannot do so you are an ignorant, little twat.
January 16, 2012, 8:27 amAsher says:
@ neurodoc
If what Hitler had said about the Jews had been true the Holocaust would have been perfectly reasonable. (Note: it was not true, so, it was not reasonable).
Argue against that.
January 16, 2012, 8:30 amAsher says:
I’m not sure how familiar everyone here is with the current Gypsy population in Europe. They are an unmitigated curse.
If the Nazis had managed to exterminate all of Europe’s Gypsies Europe would be a better place to live.
January 16, 2012, 8:35 amAsher says:
@ Ricardo
Um, I have no definition for words like bigot, racist, evil, etc.
How is this difficult to understand.
Seriously.
I feel like I’m talking to inanimate objects. Are you people rocks? Two-by-fours?
THESE
WORDS
ARE
MEANINGLESS
They cannot logically mean anything as they do not demarcate between things. I do not have some private meaning of these terms. I do not use these terms, at all, because they are meaningless.
There is no such thing as a racist.
There is no such thing as a bigot.
There is no such thing as evil.
If you think there are such entities then it is your responsibility to provide a demarcating identity to separate them from what is different from them.
Call like things alike – Nietzsche
January 16, 2012, 8:45 amAsher says:
@ neurodoc
Sorry, dude. I read a whole crapload of history. I’m no fan of the Naais, but they’re pretty much par for the course given the scope of the history of the species, homo sapiesn.
The Nazis were awful. And most of human history has been even worse. Deal with it.
January 16, 2012, 8:51 amThe Helper says:
Some upper level Jews are Israel first, last and always. Therefore they should be referred to as such.
One of my law school classmates (top 10 school) had the typical Jewish background and connections at that level. Richish family. Interned with a Jewish Senator during college. Second summer job interning at Defense and then career hire at State.
She stated repeatedly over and over that Israel was all that mattered, that the life of every Jewish soldier was more precious than an American. Not one fellow Jewish student or faculty member put a stop to that train.
She fully meets the criteria for a Israel Firster. Not referring to her as such is censorship of the worst kind.
January 16, 2012, 10:45 amOrenWithAnE says:
While I’m not generally a fan of such litmus tests, in this case I’ll make an exception and state that I’m categorically not interested in the opinions of those that do not think the murder of 6 million Jews in a deliberate plot to exterminate them constitutes a human tragedy.
Just as well, considering that your other stated views on constitute an ethical nihilism that I didn’t think was possible. If you ever end up underneath some thugs boots watching your sons beaten to death and your daughters raped, remember that this is just “par for the course”.
January 16, 2012, 10:47 amOrenWithAnE says:
(1) If Pat Buchanan said that Alan Dershowitz is in favor of policy X because AD prefers policies that are good for Israel irrespective of whether they are good for the US and Alan Dershowitz said that PB is against policies that are good for Israel irrespective of whether they are good for the US because PB hates Jews, then truly a pox on both their houses for failing to argue the issue at hand.
[ Note, I don't know if PB or AD said these things. ]
(2) I reiterate that if you can’t see moral light between killing 1000 Jew and annihilating them form the face of the planet, you must be joking. Both are immoral acts, one happens to be far and away more grave than the other.
January 16, 2012, 11:09 amClark says:
Heh again. As my original post showed, I actually quoted your full statement in context when responding to it. So, your claim that I engaged in dishonest reporting is.. well, you get the idea. Don’t go all PC on me now (by your own lights).
January 16, 2012, 12:32 pmClark says:
Nick, got it. I agree.
January 16, 2012, 12:33 pmYehuda says:
What is an ‘upper level Jew’ and what exactly is a ‘typical Jewish background and connections’?
January 16, 2012, 1:02 pmNahum says:
It’s an elegant well poisoning but still not an argument. Language changes. I’m free to call someone a hooligan or a vandal without questioning if I’m bigoted against the Irish or ancient Germans.
“Israel firster” joins the throng of impolite phrases thrown about in the word-war of Israeli politics. Applying “anti-Israel” to groups who’ve only criticized Israeli policy (like The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs called as such above by Dr. Bernstein) is at least as offensive, implying an actual opposition to the Jewish state.
January 16, 2012, 2:26 pmBored Lawyer says:
Perhaps these points have already been made somewhere in the thread, which I do not have time to review:
The phrase “Israel-Firster” impugns the loyalty of others in a debate on foreign policy. As such, it is
(a) an ad hominem attack, which is always suspect and a sign of intellectual weakness;
(b) deeply offensive; and
(c) smacks of intellectual hubris – the speaker is asserting not only that his position is correct, but that it is so obviously correct that no one with proper loyalties and rational factulties could possibly disagree, hence any opposition must have improper loyalties. In other words, one’s opposition is not merely mistaken, but venally disloyal.
The most famous example of the rhetorical use of loyalty questioning were the “America Firsters” in the 1930s leading up to WWII. Most people (except for Pat Buchannan and his ilk) would now agree that they were wrong – that the position espoused by them was in fact NOT in America’s interest at the time. (Anyone here care to dispute that proposition?) That historical example should serve as a warning to those who are so convinced of their correctness that they impugn the loyalties of those they debate.
January 16, 2012, 2:58 pmisrael news historian says:
“I think it’s rather early to proclaim that anti-Semitism is no longer a matter of significant concern” – I remember 10 years ago walking the streets of Manhattan and seeing swastika graffitti everywhere. No efforts were made to remove it. Do we care enough about anti-semitism in America?
January 16, 2012, 3:12 pmthirdeblue says:
If we (the U.S.) get mired in an another Iraq sized debacle in Iran, “Israel-firster” will be one of the kinder things I’ll be hurling at all the warmongering, chickenhawks involved.
Seriously, if Iran tries something, then by all means bomb then into the stone-age, I won’t care. But preemption makes us the bad guys. Israel can do whatever they want to, solo.
We’re somehow surviving with a nuclear North Korea. Besides, a nuclear North Korea, like a nuclear Iran, is not really the United States problem. They might be South Korea and Israel’s problem, but not the United States. I would hurl the same vitriol at a politician or writer who advocated fighting the Korean War all over again.
Final comment. Israel is not a substitute word for Jews, although it’s obviously in the pro-Greater Israel crowd to conflate the two.
January 16, 2012, 3:36 pmthirdeblue says:
I wonder what DB’s opinion of referring to Israel’s foreign policy as lebensraum is?
January 16, 2012, 3:47 pmJoseph Slater says:
I was more intrigued by this I’m-sure-absolutely-accurate-description-of-an-entirely-realistic-character-who-totally-talks-like-lots-of-real-people.
EDIT: the quote function doesn’t make it clear, but the quoted language was not Yehuda’s originally.
January 16, 2012, 4:40 pmJoseph Slater says:
One has to assume that was intentional, a little dig for folks who know.
January 16, 2012, 4:47 pmAsher says:
@ Orenwithan@
If your position were so strong why would you need to resort to emotionally shaming language for your position. I simply pointed out that the Holocaust was par for the course in how the species homosapiens behaves.
Gerrmany, as a society, will be gone within the next few generations. Or, if it survives it will be a little rump society. What is the reason for the demise of the German people? Nazism. Germans took some of the most law-abiding, productive people in their societies and killed them off, based on the silliest of fantasies.
The lesson from Nazi Germany is don’t kill off productive law-abiding people. If all the Nazis had done was kill off Gypsies and commies then Germany would be one of the cultural wonders of the world.
Genocide is common in the history of the world. It is likely to happen again. Hell, TIME magazine has advocated for genocide of white people. The question is no whether to kill or not to kill, as killing inevitable, that’s just what biologically based beings do. No. the real question was asked by Lenin “Who? Whom?”
Killing is inevitable. It all boils down to who is killing whom.
No, I am not bothered by the Holocaust. I am not bothered because I can’t do anything about it and because no one seems to learn the real lesson of the Holocaust, which is don’t kill off law-abiding, productive members of one’s own society. Everyone else is fair game.
January 16, 2012, 5:03 pmNick056 says:
With regard to Allen, the only thing left to add is this:
A white politician directs a racist slur at a dark-skinned man. As JBG points out, this racist word is common in Tunisia, where the politician’s mother is from. This politician offers conflicting, inconcistent reports as to why he said what he did, and his defenders do the same in the media. Fine. C’est la vie. (Liberals are interested in power and French. Always French.)
This might diminish his prospects, but it shouldn’t really reflect on his party. However, a broad defense of his actions by party actors and partisans — such as literally saying that the “left-wing media” forced him to change his story and offer equivocal explanations — is really shameful. And blaming the left-wing media for obvious lapses in character by right wing politicians (as well as asserting, as fact, that a politician in 2003* would not say a racist thing) seem increasingly to be the dwelling-place of right-wingers. I really don’t think that there’s been any explosion in racism directed at Obama, or that the Tea Party is racist, or that people hate Obama more than they hated Clinton, or view him as more “other.” But when one person’s racism bubbles to the surface — as it apparently did with Allen — he’s defended. And that is the problem. I didn’t distrust his explanation because he’s a Republican; I distrusted his explanation because he said something racist toward a dark-skinned person and then offered nonsensical justifications right out of the gate (e.g. “I meant mohawk” when the guy has a mullet; “No, I meant ‘caca’ both times”). It’s easy for me to flip Doc’s accusation and say that he only finds that reasonable because it’s a Republican, and that he would never accept the same from a Democrat. Indeed, I suspect his Pollyanna moment — that politicians just wouldn’t be frankly racist as of 2003* — would evaporate in half a heartbeat if a Democrat said something racist.
*The event occured in 2006, not 2003, another mis-reporting in Doc’s posts, which seem to show little fealty to a factual account of what actually happened.
January 16, 2012, 5:08 pmAsher says:
Not sure what you thing “ethics” means. It seems as if, for you, ethics is some universal, ahistorical imperative given “from on high”. The Greek root is “ethos”, meaning “shared understanding”. That’s it. The Latin “mores” sheds more light and just means “customs”. So, morals/ethics is just whatever a group of people find customary over some period of time.
If ethics does not come from the necessary cause-and-effect of history then you need to explain where ethics comes from.
Nazism was an ethical system – as Walter Sobchak noted about nihilists “say what you want about the tenants of national socialism, but at least it was an ethos”. Nazism is not my ethical system, or yours, but that does not make it any less an ethical system.
Ethics are just the rules of behavior that evolve over time within some particular social setting. Every single successful ethical system includes an obligation to kill individuals based on some criteria. In such cases, killing is not only not forbidding, it is morally mandated.
January 16, 2012, 5:17 pmAsher says:
Okay. I both loath Nazis and and am, simultaneously, not bothered by historical genocides. It’s pretty safe to assume that I am making a point by choosing Heidegger. I am not bothered by the Holocaust because I don’t think about it, and I don’t think about it because no one draws the actual lesson from the Holocaust. That lesson is “don’t kill off law-abiding, productive members of your society”.
Everyone else is fair game.
The Nazis were wrong about the Jews and right about the Gypsies. This is not rocket science.
January 16, 2012, 5:25 pmOrenWithAnE says:
From crazy to crazier. At the very least I can bookmark this page and its comments to ensure that no future commenter can take Asher seriously (if any still do).
January 16, 2012, 5:31 pmAsher says:
If I ever wind up under some thugs boots it will be because social order has collapsed. The lesson is not to screech like a moralizing hag about ethics.. The lesson is to support social order.
Countless people in history have wound up under the jackboots of thugs. My concern is that I, and my family, not wind up under jackbooted thugs, and your screeching, hysterical sermonizing has no bearing on whether or not I avoid that fate.
Someone living in Syria? I couldn’t care less whether or not they wind up under the boots of thugs. I have no “ethos” with them.
January 16, 2012, 5:34 pmEl says:
Antisemitism and racism are bad?
January 16, 2012, 5:38 pmYankev says:
What, I said they shouldn’t be allowed to move to West Texas if they want to? When did I say that?
January 16, 2012, 5:59 pmYankev says:
I don’t want to suppress it at all. Like “apartheidt state”, “racist ideology”, “war crimes” or “settler only-roads”, it lets me know exactly who I’m dealing with.
No, by all means continue to use it, for the reasons I mentioned. But the fact that you think Israel-lover is a justifiable term of opprobrium is also telling.
Your concern is touching.
January 16, 2012, 6:07 pmYankev says:
Of course they are not, but what does reality have to do with it?
January 16, 2012, 6:10 pmYankev says:
I am hoping you are being stunningly dumb. Because if you are trying to be sarcastic, you have failed stunningly.
January 16, 2012, 6:13 pmYankev says:
Well, that’s a glory for you! (And yes, I agree with you.)
January 16, 2012, 6:14 pmYankev says:
And now apparently, like the fictional Mr. Finkler, he must be an ASHamed Jew.
January 16, 2012, 6:16 pmYankev says:
Given the textbooks and curriculem in the UNWRA-funded PA schools and the content of PA kids’ television, which one or more of those statements do you disagree with?
January 16, 2012, 6:18 pmYankev says:
I see. It’s the the political partisans and religious people who are blocking the Israelis from abandoning their country en masse.
I’m sure it’s lovely this time of year on Arthur world.
January 16, 2012, 6:21 pmYankev says:
Thank you. So to put it another way, OrenwithanE must think that the slaughter of 40,000 Americans within the space of a few days is nothing to get upset about.
January 16, 2012, 6:26 pmYankev says:
Thank you for clarifying that you are only an anti-upper level semite. Not for your use of Israel firster but for the part of your post that immediately follows. (Emphasis added.)
January 16, 2012, 6:30 pmAsher says:
@ OrenwithanE
If what I have said were so out there it should be easy to point it out. You have not done so over the course of many hours.
The simplest explanation is that you cannot do so.
You have not disputed one thing I’ve said. If your positions were so unassailable it should be easy to argue for them. Why are you so unable to do that?
January 16, 2012, 6:31 pmYankev says:
It is a pathetic attempt to say “Oh, of course I don’t dislike Jews per se. But we all know what those kind of Jews are like.”
January 16, 2012, 6:32 pmAsher says:
@ OrenwithanE
Government is the gun, force, pure and simple. If you support government you support violence and killing. Period. We use violence and killing to keep social order, and everyone relies on this. I do. You do.
The difference between the two of us is that I am honest about it and you are not.
You are, fundamentally, an intellectually dishonest person.
January 16, 2012, 6:35 pmYankev says:
Wait a minute — you mean that the international Jew bankers were NOT trying to manipulate the US into a war with Germany in order to earn huge war profits?!!!
Right, next you’ll tell us that the Jews aren’t trying to manipulate us into a war with Iran for their own benefit the way they did the war with Iraq. We all saw how Israel benefitted from that one.
January 16, 2012, 6:36 pmMDJD from NY says:
Well, once we were attacked by Japan and Germany declared wor we didn’t have much choice, I suppose.
But it isn’t just the Pat Buchanans who wouldn’t have lifted a muscle to save Jews– presumably even after we entered the war. The link is to a current presidential candidate.
January 16, 2012, 6:39 pmMDJD from NY says:
DNFTT!
January 16, 2012, 6:45 pmMDJD from NY says:
But why does Kirkland fixate on West Texas? Vietnamese refugees and Somali refugees settle wherever they like. If he thinks they should stop being Jews (he despises religion) and Israelis (too dangerous) and presumably become American, why shove them into some Birobidzhan-like hole?
January 16, 2012, 6:50 pmMDJD from NY says:
To be fair to Oren, he just thinks it’s less to get upset about than the annihilation of all Americans.
January 16, 2012, 6:52 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Except that the Washington Report was indeed opposed to the Jewish state. Consider that one of its most prominent writers and speakers for many years was Alfred Lilienthal.
January 16, 2012, 7:07 pmTJ says:
The people formerly known as Israel-firsters generally don’t seem to have any problems accusing others of disloyalty to America as well as calling them disgusting, despicable human beings, insane, crazy, anti-semites, un-American, treasonous, dangerous, terrorists, terrorist sympathizers, appeasers, traitors, Quislings, dhimmi, Judenrat, and self-hating Jews. Many people that I know personally act as if any criticism of Israel or Zionism is disloyalty to America (Amerisrael?)
If words and ideas that originate with racists are beyond the pale, wouldn’t that make Zionism beyond the pale as well – considering its origins in British racialism and its implementation through imperialism, collaboration with racist Jew haters, organized terrorism, and ethnic cleansing. Progressivism would also probably also be beyond the pale as well – considering its involvement with Eugenics and its intellectual ties to National Socialism.
Even I might be in trouble, considering that The Declaration of Independence was written by a slave owner, and my alias is named after him.
January 16, 2012, 7:24 pmOrenWithAnE says:
It’s certainly not an immorality that’s even remotely comparable to wiping 400 million Americans off the face of the planet!
“X is horrible but not comparable to annihilation” != “I’m not upset by X”.
I am both bemused and amused that this is a difficult concept for some. Two immoral horrible acts can still be placed on a relative scale. Not everything that is wrong is equally wrong. Some, in fact, are far far worse than others without at all stating that any of them are even remotely acceptable.
[ I see MJDD has beaten me to my own defense. ]
January 16, 2012, 7:27 pmOwen H. says:
Oh yes, that proves they all believe exactly the same things.
Is having opposed the formation of a religious state the same as opposing the continued existence of it? For that matter, what of the Haredi? They oppose Zionism as well. Are they anti-Semitic?
January 16, 2012, 8:19 pmThe Helper says:
It is the usual professional/academic mix in the family, who gets their way in life greased through connections, like a Bush family member. If they want to be law professors they are given appeals court clerkships, otherwise they are given government internships and then appointments.
My best friend and roommate in the military is Jewish. He loves Israel. However, he also loves America, and he never got the ways greased for him.
January 16, 2012, 8:36 pmleo marvin says:
Quick, somebody close this thread before The Helper connects the rest of the dots in our cabal to give clerkships to undeserving upper echelon Jews.
January 16, 2012, 8:57 pmMark says:
Am I a Nazi sympathizer or whatever if I use the term “America-Seconder”? I am willing to meet you halfway, DB.
January 17, 2012, 1:36 amRicardo says:
Since your comment was apparently in response to me, is there a reason for this strawman? As DB says, “But is the phrase clearly anti-Semitic, even if used by those who have no anti-Semitic intent? I don’t think we need to reach that issue. Some of the “Progressive” bloggers who have used the phrase may not have been aware of its origins in the depths of unhinged neo-Nazi land.”
January 17, 2012, 6:06 amyankev says:
Comments glitch still unresolved? The VC home page says 342 comments on this thread. Going to the page itself says 310, and nothing displays after Jos. Slater’s 1/16/2012 comment posted at 2.47pm.
January 17, 2012, 9:44 amOrenWithAnE says:
Go to http://volokh.com/2012/01/13/israel-firster/comment-page-1000/ but increase the number every time you refresh.
January 17, 2012, 10:06 amyankev says:
Anyone who claims that Israel was formed as a religious state or exists as a religious state today has exposed themselves as being either ignorant or malciously mendacious to a degree that disqualifies himself from having his opinions seriously considered.
January 17, 2012, 10:20 amyankev says:
You did not advance the argument but there are comments by others on this thread (don’t have time to search them out now) that have expressed at least some of them.
January 17, 2012, 10:26 amMark says:
Wow, I see some inoffensive comments are getting tossed.
Must be really a privilege to study under an intellectual thug like DB.
January 17, 2012, 10:32 amMark II says:
Wow, what a thug you turned out to be DB. Typical America Seconder behavior, of course. Your students must be so lucky to have you presiding over them.
January 17, 2012, 11:03 amneurodoc says:
First, that “defense attorney” of yours is MDJD from NY (formerly MDJD2B, not “MJDD.”
Secondly, and more importantly, you really should ask him why he is standing over there chuckling and shaking his head in disbelief at what his “client” thinks about the “defense” provided him.
(You do realize, don’t you, that the person you imagine has come to your defense on “1000 isn’t 6,000,000″ is the same person who originally told you your “statement is incredible. It is at the same time likely false, morally obtuse, and wilfully blind as to the intent”?)
(Also, you didn’t mean to say “!=,” did you, you intended the symbolic representation of “does not =,” right?)
January 17, 2012, 12:48 pmneurodoc says:
First, that “defense attorney” of yours is MDJD from NY (formerly MDJD2B, not “MJDD.”
Secondly, and more importantly, you really should ask him why he is standing over there chuckling and shaking his head in disbelief at what his “client” thinks about the “defense” provided him.
(You do realize, don’t you, that the person you imagine has come to your defense on “1000 isn’t 6,000,000″ is the same person who originally told you your “statement is incredible. It is at the same time likely false, morally obtuse, and willfully blind as to the intent”?)
(Also, you didn’t mean to say “!=,” did you, you intended the symbolic representation of “does not =,” right?)
January 17, 2012, 12:48 pmleo marvin says:
neurodoc,
Do you disagree with Oren that differences of scale make some categorical wrongs worse than others?
January 17, 2012, 2:14 pmJoseph Slater says:
Well, so much for me having the last word. Sigh.
January 17, 2012, 2:18 pmJoseph Slater says:
Dag nab it, I’m a Jew who went into law teaching and I never got a clerkship or internship (with a Jewish judge, Senator, or otherwise). Indeed, I had to go get a Ph.D. from a freakin’ JESUIT university (oh no, the Catholics are in on the conspiracy too!)
And don’t get me started about never having gotten my ethnically-deserved share of the media, banking, and entertainment industries. . . .
January 17, 2012, 2:23 pmSeamus says:
Well, this is one comment that I don’t think could reasonably be characterized as “inoffensive.”
January 17, 2012, 3:45 pmMDJD from NY says:
And, while we’re at it, who was worse, Himmler or Beria?
January 17, 2012, 4:20 pmdr says:
Joining the conversation a bit late here, but worth noting that Ron Paul himself (or the RP newsletter, anyway) used this term in 1991.
http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/PolRepFeb91_0.PDF
Just asking: Does this tell me something about libertarianism?
January 17, 2012, 4:38 pmyankev says:
You must not be from one of Helper’s typical “upper level” Jews. Helper only resents true Scotsmen.
January 17, 2012, 6:08 pmTJ says:
Yankev, I noticed this comment that you posted in response to a Volokh.com post that I had not even read.
http://volokh.com/2011/09/19/n-y-magazine-on-obama-and-israel/
Is this what you were referring to:
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Prayers/Daily_Prayers/Shemoneh_Esrei/Birkat_HaMinim/birkat_haminim.html
January 17, 2012, 9:01 pmyankev says:
Omain!
January 17, 2012, 10:01 pmneurodoc says:
In the OP, Professor Bernstein said,
[now, neurodoc]:
January 17, 2012, 10:12 pmOrenWithAnE says:
If you read my original post, my complaint was that DB was being generous to Hamas and Hezbollah by implicitly comparing their efforts at killing Jews to those of the Nazis.
I trust without reservation that you pay more careful attention to brain surgery than to reading the comments (even the ones way upthread) to which you respond.
January 18, 2012, 1:01 amKirk Parker says:
Wow, what with the little dustup here at the end regarding Asher’s revolting approval of a would-have-been Roma genocide, everyone seems to have missed his totally preposterous claim that American GI’s celebrated the fall of Germany by engaging in mass rape.
January 18, 2012, 2:46 amyankev says:
In my case, at least, because I stopped paying attention to Asher’s comments well upthread. Perhaps others have done likewise. But yeah, based on what I read upthread, he does seem to defy the imagination, reality and morality in equal measure.
January 18, 2012, 9:22 amOren Reich says:
I agree with you that the term “Israel firster” is perfectly valid, and that too much of the Arab-Israeli conflict has turned into accusations of anti-Semitism, but I strongly disagree with your characterization of the assasination of a nuclear scientist as “terroristic.” He’s a nuclear scientist. That’s a military target, believe it or not. He may not carry a gun, but that’s a military target, not a civilian, and WHEN he/she is targeted, it’s obviously not to “terrify” or “terrorize” so much as to stop Iran have nuclear weapons.
January 18, 2012, 2:45 pmOren Reich says:
Keyword: “JEW.” Where is the term “Jew” in Israel-firster? And what rational discussion of foreign policy views can we possibly have if Israel supporters confuse virtually every critique of Israel with anti-Semitism? I’ve literally had this argument with my father dozens of times, and I’ll tell you what I tell him. Regardless of the correctness of Israel’s actions in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and I generally side with Israel, there are many white Westerners who can’t look at a white nation occupying a brown nation, with gross economic and military disparity, and not shout bigotry and oppression. Whether that argument is racist or has a logical basis or whatever is another story, but that’s the reality behind so much of the opposition to Israel. Between that and the completely logical reasons for disagreeing with Israel, I refuse to look at opposition to Israel, and terms like ‘Israel-firster,’ and call them anti-Semites, as so many have done. Mr. Bernstein and yourself may not believe that all users of the term are anti-Semites, but the fact remains that these accusations of anti-Semitism have gotten ridiculous.
Jews who worry about anti-Semitism, and we do have reason to worry about anti-Semitism, need to realize that Israel’s image, objectively speaking, is not simply that of a perfect, innocent, angelic nation that happens to get targeted by the West. Israel’s image, objectively speaking, is of a nation involved in convoluted, controversial series of wars with a much poorer and militarily inferior population which they have now occupied for forty+ years. No nation in Israel’s position can have a clean image, they are truly in a unique position as far as Western nations go (in the 21st century).
January 18, 2012, 3:06 pmTJ says:
Israel First/Israel Firster seems to be such a simple phrase with a self-explanatory meaning that it is likely to have been independently originated by multiple individuals at different times. I coined the term Amerisrael prior to realizing that others had already used the term before me — I have no idea who the first person to use the term was.
Because the term “Israel First” is so similar to the term “America First” it seems especially likely that those familiar with the term America First might independently use the term Israel First. Image if the term did not exist today — it is highly likely that the term would be invented in the near future.
January 18, 2012, 6:53 pmneurodoc says:
neurodoc thought that this “Israel-first” rhetoric harked back to the America First Committee, an organization whose purpose was to keep the US from entering WWII allied with those fighting Germany. And he was under the impression that it had a major pro-German, antisemitic component. But according to Wikipedia, that wasn’t so, and a famous speech by Charles Lindbergh was not representative of the movement. Is the Wikipedia one reliable?
January 18, 2012, 7:47 pmSeamus says:
Really? So Iran could licitly whack scientists who work for our Department of Energy, and you wouldn’t call that terrorism?
January 18, 2012, 9:10 pmTJ says:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/a-case-of-leftist-mccarthyism-1.407064
_________________
________________
Before Clinton meeting, Cantor’s one-on-one with Bibi
http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/1110/Before_Clinton_meeting_Cantors_oneonone_with_Bibi_.html?showall
The Gary Bauer and the Emergency Committee for Israel call Ron Paul hostile to the US military
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MX7gFB4KR0
Newt Gingrich’s Hebrew Connection Advertisement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyFaWhygzjQ
January 18, 2012, 9:49 pmneurodoc says:
TJ, your point about James Kirchick is exactly what, and how does it pertain here? Something other than an attempt at ad hominem? Did you discover any relevant facts that he got wrong or failed to bring forward?
January 19, 2012, 8:51 amAn Fealsunachta says:
So long as we’re policing words based on etymology, what about proscribing the use of ‘anti-Semitic’ as applied to criticisms of the state/government of Israel {as such a legal entity does not possess an ethnicity per se} AND/OR as applied only to Jewish people, since the overwhelming number of Semites in the world are in fact Arabs?
It’s frankly tought for me to see how this argument is not, in effect if not intent, a chilling of fair and free criticism.
There is also a genuine issue of a double-standard here. If Richard Perle, as maybe the best example, was a dual citizen of Ireland, and wrote policy papers for an arch-Republican government prior to working closely with an American administration, would we even be having the debate and hand-wringing if/when he was accused of dual loyalty as to issues bearing on US-British relations, or as to the Northern Irish peace process?
Is my analogy off base for some reason?
January 19, 2012, 2:09 pmyankev says:
While you’re at it, what determines whose name is worthy of bold type in TJ’s post and whose is not? Why is Charles Krauthammer, e.g., not in bold?
A better reason to ban the term “antiSemite” (which, if you had read up-thread, was coined by people who hated Jews and used by them proudly as a supposedly more scientific subsitute for a German term that meant “Jew hatred”) is that it furnishes an opportunity for distraction or distortion to the truly ignorant, the willfully ignorant, the psuedo-ignorant and to genuine anti-Semites. Anyone who raises the “Arabs are semites, too” nonsense invariably falls into one or more of those categories.
I have yet to see that argument advanced in good faith by anyone who had something worthwhile to contribute to a discussion.
By the way, neither Arabs nor Jews nor anyone else are Semites. “Semitic” is a linguistic category that includes Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Akkadian (I think, but do not quote me) and probably a few other languages that I have forgotten about.
Thanks for playing and please don’t forget to pick up your home version of the game on your way out.
January 19, 2012, 5:10 pmyankev says:
Used proudly by the Jew-haters, that is. Gotta watch my antecedents more carefully.
January 19, 2012, 5:15 pmTJ says:
Prof. Bernstein, please restore the my comments that you deleted (without even mentioning that you deleted any comments).
January 19, 2012, 9:41 pmTJ says:
January 20, 2012, 10:25 amTJ says:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/us/politics/in-shariah-gingrich-sees-mortal-threat-to-us.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Questioning the loyalty of fellow Americans appears be kosher — just so long as the person doing the questioning is an Israel Firster.
January 20, 2012, 10:26 amyankev says:
January 20, 2012, 1:54 pmneurodoc says:
As she so often is, Caroline Glick was dead on in this recent column of hers.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=254400
January 20, 2012, 9:05 pmneurodoc says:
Lawyers must be able both to compare and contrast, that is to analogize and to distinguish. You have attempted to make some point you apparently think relevant to this thread by noting what Newt Gingrich said about unnamed “stealth” and “violent” jihadis trying “to replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Shariah.” If you can somehow do a better job of arguing by analogy here, why don’t you give it a go, but then turn around and have a go at the rebuttal so everyone can see if you have any critical reasoning capabilities.
Judging from what you offer as your “affirmative” case by means of an analogy between Gingrich’s assessment of the threat the West faces from Islamofascism and the accusation that those Americans who are outspokenly pro-Israel can be seen as disloyal to their country, your critical reasoning capabilities appear to be minimal at best.
(BTW, where in what you quoted of Gingrich was he
January 20, 2012, 9:48 pm“(q)uestioning the loyalty of fellow Americans”?)
yankev says:
“Don’t use words that you don’t understand” is still good advice.
January 23, 2012, 9:46 amAn Fealsunachta says:
You’re also simply wrong as to ‘Semites’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semites
And the objection stands – if a word is to be banned based on its problematic origin, regardless of whether a speaker is even aware of same, then this zealous policing should apply to the term “anti-Semite” itself. The term should either not be used to mean only Jews, or should include Arabs.
What we’re left with is whether or not a double standard can or should be taken seriously by intelligent people.
That stupid people prefer double standards doesn’t seem to be at issue. Those are the folks who would claim that the use of white phosphorus on civilian Arabs isn’t ‘anti-semitism’ – but criticism of same is.
No thanks.
January 23, 2012, 12:07 pmA leftist talks about the "Israel-Firster" label (Tablet) - ScrollPost.com says:
[...] quite mild compared to some of the others.“Israel Firster” has a nasty anti-Semitic pedigree, one that many Jews will intuitively understand without knowing its specific history. It turns out [...]
January 27, 2012, 12:20 pmThe predictable aftermath of the anti-CAP smear | A New Worlds in Birth says:
[...] neocons like Goldberg have attempted to tie the targeted CAP writers to that term and thus to link their targeted writings with some sort of neo-Nazi provenance. But as Robert Wright pointed out weeks ago: Don’t be [...]
January 27, 2012, 5:24 pmA leftist talks about the "Israel-Firster" label (Tablet) | ISRAEL TRIBUNE says:
[...] quite mild compared to some of the others. “Israel Firster” has a nasty anti-Semitic pedigree, one that many Jews will intuitively understand without knowing its specific history. It turns out [...]
January 28, 2012, 8:11 pmGuest says:
The “Progressives” are not much different from the Nazis… I don’t mind this kind of rhetoric – I simply hope that it wakes up people who are unaware of who we are dealing with.
January 29, 2012, 5:51 pmPeter says:
Professor Bernstein:
You obviously didn’t look deep enough otherwise you would have found that the term “Israel-firster” was mentioned in the book “The Zionist Connection: What Price Peace?” by Alfred M. Lilienthal.
However Lilienthal was a Jewish-American diplomat who opposed Zionism. That would suggest that the term “Israel-Firster” was used to denote Zionist not Jews as a whole.
January 30, 2012, 3:16 pmJelperman says:
If a term like “Israel Firster” is not to be used in 2012 because a couple of obscure Jew-haters used the term thirty years ago, then the terms “anti-Semite” and “anti-Semitism” need to be off-limits because they were coined by Wilhelm Marr, the infamous 19th Century Jew-hater.
Well, which is it?
January 30, 2012, 7:59 pmPutting Israel first « Major Karnage says:
[...] the moment in the blogosphere about the term “Israel Firster”, which it turns out was made popular by neo-Nazis and spread through the antisemite network before making it into mainstream discourse. From what I [...]
January 31, 2012, 6:50 am