> i would of course be cautious of making any sort of generalization about
> jewish people, in particular using a term like "The Jews"... are you
> advising such caution? or are you arguing that though meaningful
> statements about jewish people as a group can be made, those statements
> are in a different context (such as a religious one: the jewish people
> use the legend of the golem to illustrate the good and bad sides of
> using power to right wrongs), not relevant to this list? or am i right
> in understanding your position as one denying any valid grouping of
> people under the term "jews" (other than the trivial one)?
mbs: Sure, your examples point up that I was over-generalizing re: the "the Jews" thing (which is a different flap than the creepy bit; I'm not backing away from that).
Nobody cares if you say, "the Jews are fine citizens," although even here as I noted in an aside, adulatory statements can get creepy too. Imagine if I harped on the people of south asia being a wonderful, mystical people. But that wasn't the problem here. Rather it was more in the vein of, "the Jews" as a unitary corporate body covertly exercising malign political, financial, and cultural influence in the world, or worse. This was "Ace's" sin.
Note your examples are qualitatively different. the one about the Palestinians speaks to fundamental rights, which by definition apply to all; the one about Indians is literally false but true in the ordinary sense of speaking about 'average wealth.' Obviously every Indian is not wealthier than every other immigrant in the U.S.
Even accurate statements can have malign connotations. For instance, you could say that the average incidence of arrests for drug possession is higher among group X than all other groups. In this case, the fact is worse than useless information: it implies a slur on the group as a whole, for more than one reason, in a social context where such statements could do harm.
Anti-semitic discourse has been pretty well described. You can get as much information as you like on this from Chip's web site. Jews as a group are assigned overweening influence in financial and political affairs; they are described as alien from the standpoint of ordinary citizenship; their religion is invoked as a glue for an assortment of historical events that are not necessarily related to each other, much less to judaism; the Israeli state, or jewish self-determination, is painted as inherently illegitimate, in contrast to other capitalist states, national aspirations, or despotisms.
I disagree with what some have said about the Israel/Zionist lobby. It is real, strong, and nasty. But as others have said, it isn't a jewish lobby.
There was an anti-semitic episode in the county in which I live, one of the most liberal and wealthy in the country. Most people never heard about it. It had nothing to do with Israel. It was played as a local, whimsical flap about nutty people who didn't like Santa Claus. The jews involved basically got fucked over, and the only protest came from a African-American columnist for the Post. That's the difference between a jewish lobby and a Zionist lobby.
mbs