COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ISRAEL SHAMIR IN RUSSIA
INSIDER
"Anti-Semitism
Weaponized"
An accurate phrase for what we see occurring.
The most glaring case was the long campaign against a decent
man, Jeremy Corbyn, after he was elected new leader of the Labour Party.
Newspapers like The Guardian - likely the most prejudiced
newspaper in Britain - carried on a regular campaign against him on the grounds
that there was anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
Not one shred of evidence was ever produced, but there were
articles, editorials, and stories.
The campaign reminded me of Senator Joseph McCarthy's phony
attacks on "communists in the State Department." McCarthy, an old
drunk, had hit upon a way to spark up his flagging political career.
Good old Tony Blair and his acolytes made major
contributions, Mr. Blair - with his Iraq War, his Israel "Peace"
Prize, and his sinecure appointments like the one to the Mideast Quartet - was
one of the Israel Lobby's driving forces in British in British politics.
Why was Britain's Lobby so set against Corbyn?
His views on Israel and Palestine are far-minded, and that
is not allowed in Western politics where the Israel Lobby has a firm grip. You
must be overwhelmingly for Israel and ignore its countless abuses. Otherwise
you are "anti-Semitic."
Well, the brave and capable Corbyn managed to survive the
hideous attacks, and today he thrives.
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Response to another
reader’s comment on the Origins of contemporary Israelis
Yes, it is even possible that the Palestinians themselves
are the closest we have to descendants of the Hebrews.
The Romans were not known to remove the people from the lands
they conquered, and they left no record of having done so with the Hebrews.
The dominant people who identify as Jews today are the
Ashkenazi, a Germanic people, whom some DNA tests suggest arose about a
thousand years ago on the Mediterranean near Italy and migrated north.
Their language is a Germanic language, Yiddish, not Hebrew,
although many or most maintain the tradition of learning the ancient Hebrew tongue
in their religious schools, just as many Muslims around the world learn Arabic
in order to read Koran in its original.
Some DNA tests also suggest Ashkenazi origins, again maybe a
thousand years ago, in the Caucasus region going back to the Khazar (Turkic)
civilization, another group of people converted to Judaism. But as with other
ancient groups affected by Hebrew evangelism, of course, there was movement
back and forth between regions and inter-marriage.
Following the extreme success of Christianity which actually
started as a sect of Judaism in evangelizing, evidence suggests the Hebrews
were for some period evangelists. That's why there are Jewish groups in central
Europe, in the Caucasus, and a little in North Africa. There is even a small
group called Cochin Jews in India.
Of course, there would eventually have been some
inter-marriage - Judaism being a relatively small religion whose various
adherents have often have had problems finding a large enough pool of marriage
prospects (we see this today with the ultra-Orthodox sometimes travelling long
distances for marriage prospects) - so DNA tests today do find some Semitic
characteristics in the Ashkenazi.
But overall, the science tells us the Ashkenazi people are
Germanic from central or eastern Europe.
Of course, we see the origins not only in DNA and language
but in food and physical culture. The traditional foods of Jewish delicatessens
and for holiday events such as Passover Seder have no Middle Eastern origins.
The people in Israel have made a conscious effort to assume
Middle Eastern foods as their own - thus, we have everything from
"Israeli" couscous to "Israeli" olive oil. Thus, Jaffa
oranges, which existed well before Israel was re-created, are regarded as
Israeli.
If indeed the Palestinians are the true descendants of the
Hebrews, it only adds a level of bitter irony to the whole abusive situation of
contemporary Israel where they are oppressed and abused and often despised.
