True, but facts are irrelevant to genocide-mongers. Kosovo is a good example, and so is Darfur.
On 5/5/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >"Chechnya, Darfur, and Jewish Activism"
> ><http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/furuhashi050506.html>.
> >
> >Hey, MP, you have my permission to send this to Marc Cooper or anyone
> >else for that matter. Spread the word!
>
> Where you say:
>
> >Meanwhile, Vice President Dick Cheney "delivered the Bush
> >administration's strongest rebuke of Russia to date. He said the
> >Russian government 'unfairly and improperly restricted' people's
> >rights and suggested that it sought to undermine its neighbors and
> >to use the country's vast resources of oil and gas as 'tools of
> >intimidation or blackmail'" ("Strong Rebuke for the Kremlin From
> >Cheney," New York Times 4 May 2006), presenting no evidence
> >whatsoever. Of course, his motive has nothing to do with human
> >rights and everything to do with Moscow's refusal to agree to the US
> >demand for sanctions or military strikes on Iran.
>
> I think that's just part of a larger problem, from Washington's POV:
> Russia is no longer on its back, as it was during the Yeltsin years,
> taking stupid advice from Harvard economists and impotent in
> international relations. Note how Cheney complained about Russian
> energy "blackmail" - Russia has become a power in a field that the US
> likes to dominate. These troglodytes can become cold warriors all
> over again!
I agree with you in part. Washington has problems with Putin's ability to combat the worst oligarchical excesses. And Russia's economic recovery gives Putin the economic basis from which to pursue an independent foreign policy. But Russia's economic recovery has been going on for some time. What's new here is a standoff over Iran.
On 5/6/06, Jim Devine <jdevine03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> a lesson:
> it's important to be _very_ careful, avoiding even the appearance of
> criticizing Judaism, Jewishness, or Jews (as such). It's also very
> important to be conscious of this problems when criticizing Israel or
> Israeli Jewish nationalism (i.e., Zionism). This is because fools
> will rush in to accuse you of "anti-Semitism" and because they will
> receive a lot of attention from the pro-Israel lobby -- and because
> that lobby is well-organized and does have a lot of influence (based
> primarily in the importance of Israel to U.S. imperial goals and
> strategies).
I've taken no less care of not appearing to criticize Jews as such than I've taken care of not appearing to criticize Arabs as such, Muslims as such, whites as such, Americans as such, etc. It would be odd to take more care than usual in the Jewish case.
BTW, some of the people who anti-Semite-baited me probably did so because they knew of my participation in the Palestinian solidarity movement. Here's what one of them says on a blog (at <http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/comment.php?id=393>):
<blockquote>Yoshie Furuhashi, the author (and editor of MRZine), is a long time lecturer and "activist" at The Ohio State University. The Committee for Justice in Palestine, a campus group to which she has belonged, was instrumental in bringing the Palestine Solidarity Conference to Ohio State in autumn 2003. (This was basically a propaganda festival, as epitomized by a fake Desmond Tutu quote featured prominently throughout the conference's official website.) The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Antisemitism and Racism had this to say about Yoshie and the PSM conference in its 2003 general analysis:
>
Groups that endorsed the Ohio conference included: Al-Awda Chicago;
AWARE, a NJ-NY activist forum which claims that support for Israel is
support for "racism, apartheid and terror;" and SUSTAIN (Stop US
Tax-Funded Aid to Israel Now), a coalition of student and non-student
activists that sees the divestment campaign as part of a "global
intifada." Yoshie Furuhashi, a CJP activist who feels that PSM
[Palestine Solidarity Movement] should oppose suicide bombings, stated
that Israel's Law of Return, which allows Jews to immigrate to the
country, is "the practice of Jewish supremacy, much like white
supremacy in US and South African histories."
>
see: www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2003-4/general-analysis.htm</blockqutoe>
On 5/6/06, Jim Devine <jdevine03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's strange, I admit, that in U.S. society at large anti-Jewish
> bigotry (a.k.a. anti-Semitism) is much more taboo than say anti-Black
> bigotry, anti-Armenian bigotry, etc. But it's true, based on the power
> of the pro-Israel lobby and the importance of anti-anti-Semitism in
> shoring up support for U.S. foreign policy.
That's why Arab-bashing is fair game. I've blogged about it yesterday: "Why Liberals Love to Hate Rich Arabs" <http://montages.blogspot.com/2006/05/why-liberals-love-to-hate-rich-arabs.html>.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>