>Anti-Semitism from above, of the sort that led to
>pogroms in othercountries and the Holocaust at one
>time, has never been strong in the USA -- which after
>all has never had a pogrom against Jews -- and it's
>practically vanished.
Well I know you think I am from another planet so my extra-terrestrial opinion is of no use to convince you, but perhaps you give some credibility to Noel Ignatiev, whose views on Israel-Palestine are much closer to yours:
"One last point: I spoke earlier about the possibility of a resurgence of anti-semitism in the United States. In 1991 George H.W. Bush, the father of the man who sits in the White House and the only member of his family ever to have been elected president, demanded that the Israelis stop building new settlements in Palestinian territory. Unlike previous presidents, Bush sounded serious, threatening to block billions in loan guarantees if Israel disobeyed. As might have been predicted, the dominant voices among American Jews were outraged, and Bush responded by complaining at a press conference that "Jews work insidiously behind the scenes." On another occasion he reminded critics that the U.S. gives "Israel the equivalent of $1,000 for every Israeli citizen," a remark that detractors took as antisemitic. Later on Bush's Secretary of State James Baker made his famous "fuck the Jews" remark in private conversation, noting that Jews "didn't vote for us anyway." And it was true: when he lost to Bill Clinton in 1992, Bush got smallest percentage of the Jewish vote of any Republican since 1964.
"The present occupant of the White House seems for the time being to have recouped much of his party's loss of favor among Jews, in part due to his appointment of so many to positions of power and influence in his administration. But I will go out on a limb and make a prediction (something I rarely do because I hate to be wrong): one-sided support for Israel, while it may win votes among American Jews and some fundamentalist Christians, is not necessarily wise from the standpoint of U.S. oil interests, and may even cost votes among that increasing number of Americans who can pick up the newspaper almost any day and see another story about Israeli tanks surrounding the residence of the Palestinian president, or massacring children, or assassinating a crippled half-blind cleric. I predict that if Dubya manages to extend his control of the White House in 2004, he will present the bill to whoever is in power in Israel, and that bill will include withdrawal from some of the territories occupied after 1967. If the Israelis respond negatively to this demand, which there is every reason to believe they will, and are supported by American Jews, which there is every reason to believe they will be, the younger Bush, already born-again, will be reborn yet one more time and will start making remarks about special minorities with divided loyalties and so forth. In other words, he will stoke up anti-semitism, carefully of course, as befits the leader of the free world. And he will find a tremendous response, more than anyone anticipates, from many ordinary people who are tired of picking up the tab for the number one outlaw state in the Middle East, the state that has defied scores of United Nations resolutions, been condemned by the UN more than any other member or non-member, the only state in the Middle East that possesses actual weapons of mass destruction."
<http://www.counterpunch.org/ignatiev06172004.html>
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