An inherent characteristic of Leftist movements is that they tend to be focused more on *domestic* opponents than on international threats. As Neptunus Lex put it:

"The innate character flaw of the political right, with its thrumming appeals to the logic of blood and soil, is its lamentable tendency to go in search of enemies abroad. The left, on the other hand, with its own appeals to the politics of envy and class warfare, is content to find mortal enemies closer to hand."

Many leftists despise Israel precisely *because* Israel shares so many characteristics with their own societies. For American leftists, Israel-as-an-enemy is an extension of the enemies they find at home.

Important and depressing survey results here: 25% of Americans blame "the Jews" (anwhere from "a moderate amount" to "a great deal") for the current economic downturn. The percentage is almost twice as high among Democrats as among Republicans.

...meant to include this link referencing the survey results with the previous comment.

It's maddening the way the only true democracy in the mideast gets treated by the rest of the world. Still, there are a lot of us that strongly support Israel. Just thought I'd mention that there's a fine article in the Weekly Standard this week regarding the strong liberal bias in universities nationwide.

There is a lot to comment on this nice write up - more this evening - but on your remark of "academia":

"Some—by no means all—of the most stupid people I know are respected academics; they have less common sense than an amoeba."

My late grandfather had a nice saying about said subject:

"If you take a fool and educate him, all you get is an educated fool".

That's right. We don't hear criticisms of Israel. We hear condemnations - or demonizations - of Israel.

Israel must mollify the Palestinians or it will "cease to be a Jewish or democratic state," but the Palestinian can promote terror and deny Israel's legitimacy and still be portrayed as moderate and accepting of a two state solution. Moderation is a relative term regarding the Middle East.

The intellectual somersaults necessary to arrive at these inconsistent and illogical conclusions are really quite extraordinary.

Regarding academics et al.
George Orwell:

You have to be an intellectual to believe such nonsense. No ordinary man could be such a fool.

I am sure that Israel has committed human rights violations in the last 62 years. But they are a thimble in the ocean of crimes in the countries and territories surrounding the only democracy in the cesspool of the ME.

Tim is right on - how do these terrorist and criminal governments get put on the same moral plane as Israel? A democracy that allows Arabs to serve in its legislative body? Surrounded by countries that would allow a Jew to be killed should they wander down the streets of Damascus or Cairo?

And Robert, you have to get the correct talking points down. It's not you getting all the hate mail. It's the muslims in America that were targeted after 9-11 by the government and right -wing hate groups. Don't you know Jews control the levers of our government?

Hi Robert,

Have you seen this clip? It is disturbing!

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

Another excellent, well-reasoned post, Robert. Keep up the good fight.

Sooner or later, the World's next "greatest generation" will stand up for individual rights (which is, essentially, what Israel claims -- the right to exist). Until then, the leftists and the radical Islamics will label everyone else as an infidel for not marching lock-step in line with Obama's and Ahmadinejad's world view.

PJ

Actually, I think Jew-hatred is only part of it. Envy, which in this context can be defined as hatred of success, underlies a lot of anti-Semitism.

What greater success story is there than of a tiny, resource-poor nation like Israel somehow surviving all this time?

And that is the second reason why Gentiles like myself should condemn this kind of thing. (The first being that anti-Semitism, like all anti-, is just plain wrong.) To condemn success is to ensure failure.

Hi Robert,

First I commend you for your excellent site. (enough or it will go to your head;-)) Refer to your piece "The New-Old War Against the Jews".

These "people"(?) are not rational or thoughtful or want to engage in reasoned debate and win by reason, they are infantile emotional brats who scream with theatrical zeal these mindless slogans like "apartheid...this or that" or "Israeli-war-crimes"(as though its one word) these are not intended to promote thoughtful discussion, they are emotional tropes that are intended to kill reason in its tracks and to short circuit any analysis of their solutions of cruelty and outrage. I am seeing that the vast majority in my Canada and in Australia are fast recognizing the recalcitrance and malice of moslems and many of those politically correct multicultural groupies who think that open immigration from moslem countries is shrinking as we speak except it appears in the USof A. It is only the loony Trudeauopian jacobins that refuse to distance themselves from them. The point being yes they can make a lot of damage and ruin a country's civil peace but those Arab malcontents will eventually overplay their hand and as you know that has happened so often it could be said to be their moniker. Now that said I will give a qualifier, it will depend on how deep cultural relativism with moral relativism and political correctness has affected the sensible from speaking up. When you don't stand up for your values and principles then the intolerable will carry the day. My experience with non-Jewish Canadians, even when I encountered bigots, that they will always back down, all the time and everytime, when they meet a person who is resolute and with integrity is clear, concise, convincing and courageous.(the usual comment is "oh I didn't mean you"!!?)

The bottom line is when Jews or Israelis take on passively, unjustifiable attacks on their community and their integrity, they send a message that they can be tormented at no real cost to the tormentors, they further prove to the bystander that they have no conviction or integrity. They send a message that their enemies can always get cheap PR victories. Make yourself a rag and people will rub you in the dirt, and they won't feel one bit guilty. The only time their guilt will catch up to their conscience is when they are giving a eulogy for your corpse. Our "nutzlicher Juden" both in the eretz and the jerks who think they're "white folk" over here haven't learned a' ting. When our enemies understand that they will pay a frighteningly unacceptable cost for attempting to victimize us, only then will we start to see this persecution abate.

Prisoners in the lagers will tell you that in the last days of WWII that they saw with their own eyes how their nazi tormentors, began to back off and be more forgiving for infractions that would have brought instant death only a week before, all because the Germans had heard that it was Jewish soldiers that were leading the allied armies in. My father and his friends told me of a group of waffen SS men who on the death march, were talking among themselves and had heard that the Jewish soldiers were in the lead of the American VIIth Army pursuing them, when he collapsed from exhaustion later that day instead of shooting him like they did to thousands of others they made his fellow prisoners help him back to his feet, only two or three days before he would have been shot in the blink of an eye, and he's not the only one who told of such events, Other survivors told me of similar things.

My advice and something I have learned from experience, is when a bully sees a strong and determined person who knows what he is about and is not afraid to fight, that bully doesn't want trouble and will look for easier pickings, even if he thinks he can beat you, if there is a chance that the smaller guy can hurt him he won't go near him. Because he invariably has other enemies, who if they see he can be hurt will seize their chance. When I was a kid in grade 5 back in St John's a school bully followed me after school and attacked me with a gang of pals they chased me up a tree in a wood behind Pine Bud Avenue. After a while I decided to come down (they were throwing stones trying to get me out of the tree) I broke off a dead branch jumped down and attacked knocking the teeth out of one ferret, the rest ran away and I went home. A few days after I saw them but wow, they avoided me like as if, even if I looked at them they'd get the plague. I was never bothered again, and several years after I remember one instance where I heard a bunch of toughs who were hassleing other kids outside the school, as I came out to go by I recall one saying to his fellow gangsters, "no stay away from that one, he's crazier than those byes in the battery" (the battery a neighbourhood near signal hill, where some of my friends lived, had a fierce reputation, many knew I was close with some of the lads from there, and if anyone would have touched me, hell would be the only safe place they would find). I recall one day an idiot in a car whipped past me several times on Elizabeth Ave. screaming "Heil Hitler" of course, thats the way it's always been for me, when one of these jerks gets the neurotic itch to vent their hate, with me they always do it at the other side of the room close to the exit and the next thing I know they must have left for Mars or something cause I never find em again.

keep up the good work

Take care,

BS"D

Sorry but this guy is totally insane. 2000 activists? What is he on about? If he were any crazier he'd have to join his friends in the Neturei Karta!

One little difference. His buddies in the NK are harmless nuts. This screwball wants a nuke.

Robert, congratulations on this post winning at the Watcher's Council this week. It is a superb post.

Thank you all for your fine comments.

Larry, your comment is, in fact, a first class essay. You should start a blog.

Wold Howling, very proud to be honored by the Council. My wife wants to know when the check arrives:-)