The tragic coma of English reason

daniel maris

We've heard lots of hysterical stuff from Palestinians over the years - chewing gum that induces infertility being given to Palestinian girls.

There does seem to be an anti-semitic element to way these stories resonate in Europe and often it seems among people from a Catholic background (and we know that a lot of them will have been exposed to religious anti-semitism).

Gerry C

Daniel, I'm a Catholic (born and bred) and at 61 I have only very rarely come across anti-semitism in Catholics of my generation and class (working to lower-middle) in the UK. Quite the opposite: most of my Catholic friends are friends and supporters of Israel and view the rise of militant Islamism as a threat to Christianity, to Judaism and to secular democratic Western values. They see the so-called Palestinians as a people 'more sinned against than sinning' - but by their Muslim 'brothers', not Israel. Now I am not trying to say the Catholic Church was not guilty of violent and baseless anti-semitism in the past, nor that there are some who still subscribe to such heinous views, especially perhaps in Eastern Europe. But we try to combat it when it appears in our towns and cities nearby (I live in Yorkshire...). Why? Certainly out of a sense of historical guilt - to try to do some deed, some mitzvah, however small, to put one small stone on the tombstone of our community's past sins; and just because it is the RIGHT thing to do. My father, may he rest in peace, was one of the British soldiers who first entered Belsen; my uncle, may he rest in peace, served in the colonial police in the British Mandate until 1948, and was an enthusiastic supporter of Israel until his death: he had nothing but praise for the young Israeli state, nothing but contempt for the Arab nations who had not only tried to finish the work of H---er but exploited their own people in so doing. I visited Israel ten years ago and fekt welcome as a friend by all the Jews I met; I was spat on in the Via Dolorosa by Muslim schoolchildren. Be assured of where the sympathies of at least some Catholics lie.

smog

In 1561 an Amsterdam chamber of rhetoric put on a play at the Rotterdam dramatic festival representing dissolute life: a Jew completed a quartet of characters consisting of, in addition, General Badness and two clowns.

After five hundred years of progress and the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, the Industrial Revolution, modernity, the scientific revolution, the Holocaust, the Jewish people are still surrounded by general badness and a host of clowns.

Nietzsche: I told you so, the return of the same, but differently.

daniel maris

I speak as I find. Catholicism is in many ways an admirable ideology. But I don't think I'm imagining this. There seems to be a certain readiness in parts of Europe - especially the more Catholic parts - to identify Israelis with these blood libels (like the bogus filming of the Israeli army allegedly shooting the Palestinian child and the bogus reporting on Jenin).

That is my honest impression.

david elder

Mel, we here in South Australia had a similar scandal a decade or so back. Organs and tissue were being removed from cadavers without permission from relatives. When this scandal became public the state government firmly regulated the area and put a stop to improper practices in it. Today few people in the world would know it happened here. Jews must get sick of instant lingering worldwide publicity for such things. In the light of the earlier commentator who singled out Catholics for obsession with Jewish blood libels, I a protestant can only comment that Australian Catholicism does not seem to have had much serious antisemitism. The Irish were the main Catholic bloc for a long time and I don't recall much antisemitism from them either in Ireland or here. Other more recent European migrants were more mixed with some antisemitism from Eastern European Catholics, but in Adelaide the church leadership firmly rejected this.

Summer

English Reason is alive and we are well, you can see it in many a blog comment, and in the actions of brave men. But, we are struggling to be heard. In our 'reasonableness' we have let 'evil' take over the establishment. We have to find a way to re-establish ourselves.

This latest turn against Israel is sickening !!

tiki

Where is all this leading?...to catastrofe! If this thing doesn't STOP now and people start doing what SHOULD be done! Bring those 'fact finding truthfull journalists to court and make them PROVE their
'truthfull findings. If they can't 'make them pay with fines and front page rectifications.
If nobody moves and everybody waits for the storm to blow over, they will be in for a bad surprise, for the storm will turn into a hurricane and destroy the land as we knew it.

Miranda Rose Smith

I'm sure the Israeli media can find a pro-IRA Irishman in Belfast who's prepared to accuse British doctors of harvesting Irish organs and return the favor. Turnabout is fair play and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and when in Rome, do as the Romans do, wouldn't you say?

Paul Freeman

Gerry C:

Thank you for this, Gerry.

As a Jew of roughly the same age as you, who, at school here in the 'fifties and 'sixties, experienced dislike of Jews from some teachers and pupils alike, I am always moved to read public statements of friendship by non-Jewish people.

You, Gerry, in your turn, have more Jewish friends than you know.

May I wish you a merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

Bill Corr

That aphrodisiac chewing gum would be an invaluable aid to date rapists, wouldn't it?
Is it absolutely totally certain that the story was a total fabrication.

Disappointing if so.

Fabio P.Barbieri

Daniel Maris: I was taught to hate Jew-bashers and admire Israel by nuns in Italian schools. I had my first experience of Jew-bashing in my first English school - a very famous and ancient Anglican foundation in the shadow of an Anglican cathedral. Since then, I never met a single Catholic who had anything against Jews - even a Fascist friend of my father is an admirer of Israel. I have, however, met plenty of Jew-bashers among the categories who also love to bash Papists. You speak as you find - in the lying media who lead the bashing of Jews and Catholics both. Guess who has been promoting the meme of Poland being anti-semitic, a canard first invented by the Communists in the late forties? As you evidently are no expert in European affairs, I am not surprised that you should believe the media's lies; but you should have learned, from Melanie if nobody else, to be a bit more critical.

phil

Gerry C
December 23rd, 2009 11:49pm May I echo what Paul Freeman has said to you most eloquently, I have many Catholic friends who speak in exactly the way you have .In these difficult times I am grateful for the opportunity to applaud your gracious statement -Happy Christmas to you and your family and shlonce (cant spell it but you will know what I mean ):)

Tancred

Responsibility for the next Jewish genocide will be laid at the door of Western Liberals.

You have no friends amongst the "elite". They will let you be wiped out by Iran.

Unfortunately, just like the native British and mainland Europeans, if you wish to survive you will have to take matters into your own hands.

Western politicians and the media have a death wish.

BBSNews

It was NOT one rogue doctor...

Does no news source fact check anymore?

Doesn't the juxtaposition of IDF skin grafts from Palestinians who has skin tissue taken from them without their families permission ring any alarm bells for anyone?

This guy, Yehuda Hiss, was the man in charge of Israel's whole forensic operation for many years and y'all can just dismiss it?

Andy Gill

More than 2,000 pots containing body parts from around 850 infants were discovered during an investigation at the hospital.

Which hospital? Alder Hey in England, where a pathologist removed organs from dead infants without their parents' consent.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jun/17/alderhey

Birmingham Children's Hospital and Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool had also given thymus glands, removed from live children during heart surgery, to a pharmaceutical company for research in return for financial donations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alder_Hey_organs_scandal

Far worse than what happened in Israel, and no-one was prosecuted.

Edward in the USA

Stealing body parts of the deceased has gone on in the US too. Alistair Cooke was a victim of this desecration.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/27/AR2006012701569.html

Martin Meenagh

As far as I can tell, there is a positive correlation between the anticatholicism of middle class liberals and Marxists and their antisemitism. This silly meme that a church that could have had John Paul II at its head--who declared Jewish people 'the elder brothers in the faith'--is antisemitic is in itself a pathology. I understand where it comes from; a couple of thousand years of people attempting to murder you will do that to a culture that remembers things as well as Jewish culture. But that was a sin of all Europe--Protestants, Catholics, and the rest--and, I might further point out, antisemitism is mortal sin now.
It is not catholics per se who are antisemitic today; wake up to how neoliberalism and liberal multiculturalism divide those who can think of something more than the atomised, individualised and history-free market, and stop falling for it....

Yuval B.

Melanie, I think we know by now where is all this leading. The UK and Great part of Europe are not going to be safe for Jews for much longer. It is as simple as that. Those Jews who refuse to acknowledge it and are slow leave that continent will regret it.

BBC news had you had a shred of decency you wouldn't have hidden the fact that Hiss was doing what he did on all bodies he dealt with, Israeli, Palestinian and other.