It's my fault

Henry's Cat

I went to see the new Michael Frayn play last night, Afterlife. It was all about Jewish theatre impresario Max Reinhardt who had to flee Austria because of the purge on Jews.

I can't say it was a great play but it was very interesting to theatre aficionados since it mixed up the tradition of the first ever types of morality play with fourth wall theatre. I doubt this makes good box office, though.

To the point, though, I was struck by how history is repeating itself all over again (before the nasty posters arrive I am not part of the "Jewish Lobby" - I am not Jewish).

I'madinnerjacket must be stunned at just how easy it is for him to act as a puppet master over parts of the world like Europe, stoking anti-Semitism to make out he is somehow justified in his aims and ambitions.

Reinhardt escaped Austria, refusing to renounce his Jewishness, but how many will be so lucky as the Caliphate gets an ever firmer grip on Europe's windpipe?

What dark times we live in.

Joshua

Very well said, Henry's Cat.

David Lindsay

"By which he means Jews"? What, the Jews who have a reserved seat in the Iranian Parliament? Jews in the Middle East go back a lot further than Zionism, and, to put it at its politest, did not welcome the Zionist project.

It is becoming quite comical how dedicated the fag end of neoconservatism is to forcing Israel to adopt a far harder line on Lebanon and Syria (and, by extension, Iran eventually) than she, being inhabited by people who actually have to live in the Levant, has the slightest remaining desire to do.

The Israelis long ago gave up on theirs being a positively Jewish State, having cottoned on that the American Jews, in particular, would noisily do anything for Israel except live there.

Instead, Israel has become purely negative in her self-definition as an obsessively non-Arab state, using a historically ludicrous definition of Arabs as excluding native speakers of Arabic if they happen to be Jewish.

On that basis, she flies in pretty much anybody, from Russian Nazis to Peruvian Indians (seriously), in order to maintain a non-Arab majority, thus defined, within her pre-1967 borders. Yet even there, the single most common name for newborn boys is now Muhammad.

So those Israelis who are still very Jewish indeed have clearly decided, "Sod this. There have always been Jews in the Levant, and very nicely they have done too, as part of a society also including Christians, Muslims and Druze, with Arabic as its lingua franca and with its de facto capital at Damascus. Compared to the alternative, that'll do nicely, thank you." And good luck to them.

But no one seems to have bothered telling anyone in the New York bagel bars or the Scofield Reference Bible Belt. Or on here, apparently.

It is becoming very, very funny to watch.

David

"to put it at its politest, did not welcome the Zionist project."

Some did, some didn't. Quite a lot of Jews in the Middle East and worldwide welcomed it after WW2, when holocaust survivors were either killed when trying to return to their 'homes' or kept in internment camps as country after country refused to have them.

"So those Israelis who are still very Jewish indeed have clearly decided, "Sod this. There have always been Jews in the Levant, and very nicely they have done too, as part of a society also including Christians, Muslims and Druze, with Arabic as its lingua franca and with its de facto capital at Damascus. Compared to the alternative, that'll do nicely, thank you." And good luck to them."

No they haven't; at least the ones with a factual appreciation of history that is, who would be aware that the welfare of the Jews amongst Arabs varied depending on the whims of the ruling class, much as it did elsewhere in the world. If they turned against you, you'd have to move on or be killed.

No more thanks; one country where Jews can stand up for themselves and aren't dependent on the whims of others will do nicely.

David Lindsay

"Compared to the alternative", David.

Russian Nazis, or at least Russians who won't eat kosher food and who insist on taking their IDF oaths on the New Testament alone?

The Pashtun, listed as somehow Jewish really on the same websites that advocate and organise the airlifting in of Peruvian Indians ("converted to Judaism" and then put straight on the plane, as a single action), among numerous, ludicrous others?

Or the old Levant, with its prosperous Jewish merchants and its powerful Jewish courtiers?

I know which I'd choose in the Israelis' position. The one that the Israelis clearly have chosen.

Whether people like it or not in Golders Green or Crown Heights. After all, what have the inhabitants of Golders Green or Crown Heights ever really done to prevent it?

David

"Or the old Levant, with its prosperous Jewish merchants and its powerful Jewish courtiers?"

Or not, depending on the period you look at. And there is no substitute for being the masters of your own destiny, rather than being at the whims of others.

"I know which I'd choose in the Israelis' position. The one that the Israelis clearly have chosen."

Yes, the continuance of an independent, Jewish state of Israel.

"Whether people like it or not in Golders Green or Crown Heights. After all, what have the inhabitants of Golders Green or Crown Heights ever really done to prevent it?"

Prevent what, anti-semitism? Attacks on Israel? Quite a lot, as it happens.

David

The idea that Israelis are harking back to 'the Levant' and wishing that they were once again living under the rule of another people, subject to their whims and sufferance is just laughable.

Brian Gould

Sooner or later Ahmadinejad will be a stinking corpse.
And when that happens, Israel will still be a thriving democracy.

G

Mr. Lindsay, Mizrachi Jews, whether or not they do or did speak Arabic - and many never did actually - are by no stretch of the imagination Arabs. They are and always have been part of the Jewish Nation, which, like all nations (though in this case somewhat more obviously), transcend crude racially based schemes of classification.
I suggest you familiarise yourself with the concept of ethnogenesis used by Ancient Historians to see how your attempt to divide up Jew and non-Jew, Arab and non-Arab is hopelessly false.

Another nation, by the way, are the Arabs. Are you seriously of the belief that a Janjaweed militiaman and Assad are of the same 'race'? No, Arab is a national category, with some grounding in ethnicity but also based, as with the Jews, on a complex mesh of language, culture, ideology and shared experience. At no point, and certainly not now, has the Arab nation ever comprehended the Jews or any part of them.

Needless to say your belief that Israeli population is itching to ditch the Jewish Nation state is roughly on a level with your belief that the BPA will do, errr, anything very much at the next election.

phil

david lyndsay why dont you mind your own business and write about things you know about instead of pontificating about a people and a state you obviously know little about. your mindset is obvious too ,so just cut to the chase say you dont like us and then we can all get on with important matters ,instead of answering your unwelcome remarks