A conservative woman, Pamela Pilger, yells "Heil Hitler!" at Samuel Blum, an Israeli immigrant, as he's being interviewed by a local television crew. She's unthinkingly and ignorantly odious. Even were Blum not Jewish, shouting "Heil Hitler!" at a political opponent is never an acceptable option in civil discourse. (Different standards no doubt apply at official Hitler Youth mixers.) Although she's the one berating a former Israeli citizen while wearing an Israeli Defense Forces shirt, the more interesting party is the man to her left. There she is, with her IDF shirt on, and when the Blum mentions that he served the required three years in the IDF, the man to her left leans in and says:
"Communism."
"No. Is service—"
"Communism."
"In Israel see—"
"Communism."
"Not commun—"
"Communism."
"You see her shirt?"
"Communism."
"Is Israel!"
(someone in the crowd shouts some unintelligible encouragement)
"What is what?"
"Communism."
The smug look of satisfaction says it all: he thinks he won this debate . . . or would have had I not puffed up his side of it with a little more context-based substance than his remarks actually had. Watch him in action and see the horrors Jonah Goldberg hath wrought.
Every line in this exchange.... it's like an annotated dialogue on what's wrong with everything.
My first thought is that better education would help. But even a history ph.d. is not sure protection against nuttery.
Posted by: Ahistoricality | Wednesday, 19 August 2009 at 07:59 PM
Other than the typical American left wing obsession to defend every crime committed by the Israeli state (see Alan Dershowitz for a very good example) I am not sure what is the point of this post. Israel is an apartheid state that denies 20% of its citizens full legal equality on the basis of their race. It also imposes a brutal military occupation upon millions of people who are not its citizens in the West Bank and Gaza. But, because Israel is the "Jewish State" and because Ben Gurion used a lot of socialist rhetoric no self described leftists such as SEK will ever criticise its use of white phospherous to murder children in Gaza.
Posted by: J. Otto Pohl | Wednesday, 19 August 2009 at 11:30 PM
Kook.
Posted by: arclight | Thursday, 20 August 2009 at 12:08 AM
Brilliant post SEK....
Posted by: Ads | Thursday, 20 August 2009 at 04:29 AM
That's odd: the J. Otto Pohl I'm familiar with is actually an expert on communism and someone who makes fact-based arguments. This must be some other J. Otto Pohl, who inflicts irrelevant boilerplate troll comments on otherwise interesting blog posts.
Posted by: Ahistoricality | Thursday, 20 August 2009 at 08:06 AM
I'm not cool enough to have the middle name Otto, but as brothers of a first initial and variant spellings of the same last name, I have to ask: J. Otto Pohl, what in the hell are you talking about? First of all, while yes, a few folks on the left have historically had a blind spot about Israel, pretty much all of the resposible criticism of Israel in this country has been produced by the left, including Jewish leftists. It's the right, and particularly the Christian millenialist right, as represented by the IDF t-shirt wearing woman, who has shown an uncritical embrace of Israel of late.
So what is your point? That all Jews stick together? That the villain in this little vingnette is Blum for having been born in Israel or for trying to earnestly explain to American morons what it is that their t-shirts are on about? Really, where did you see SEK defending the honor of Israel in his little presentation of contemporary American theater? Bah.
Posted by: JPool | Thursday, 20 August 2009 at 09:11 AM
OK, ari did it better at the other place.
Posted by: JPool | Thursday, 20 August 2009 at 09:42 AM
My first thought is that better education would help.
That's . . . I share your befuddlement.
But, because Israel is the "Jewish State" and because Ben Gurion used a lot of socialist rhetoric no self described leftists such as SEK will ever criticise its use of white phospherous to murder children in Gaza.
J. Otto Pohl, I'll follow your lead and repeat what I said over there, while adding an acknowledgment that after the "communism, communism, communism" bit, Blum went on to say some typically Israeli stuff about the benevolence of walls, none of which I endorsed . . . as should have been obvious by my not having endorsed them. Here's the what I said over there:
In this instance, Arclight, yes, but as Ahistoricality points out, not generally so.
Thanks, Ads. But really, the American people deserve some credit here, for without such utter displays of stupidity, I wouldn't have any material.
JPool, Ari did it shorter, but I think you did it better. (Just don't tell him I said that.)
Posted by: SEK | Thursday, 20 August 2009 at 12:05 PM
It just occurs to me that their is a major similarity between monlexical man and Bill O'Reilly. As Charlie Brooker puts it, that's a man "pulling the face of a tortoise who's learnt to enjoy the smell of its own farts."
Posted by: Naadir Jeewa | Thursday, 20 August 2009 at 05:46 PM
Look, most of the mainstream US left is pro-Israel and has been since 1948.In fact in 1948 the international left including the USSR supported the expulsion of the Arabs from Palestine. Outside the US and Germany where the left is still generally pro-Israeli as well, the left shifted to a stance more in favor of Palestinan rights after 1967. Historically most of the mainstream US left, particularly the left wing of the Democratic Party in congress and liberal academics have been the strongest supporters of Israel. Chuck Schumer is not a right wing Christian. Nor is Barbara Boxer. These people far more than the Christian right which did not exist when massive support for Israel began are responsible for the US unconditional support of Israel Chomsky is an outlier. As an anarchist he is not mainstream. But, even he opposes sanctions against Israel. But, Leftwing academics such as Stephen Walzer and Alan Dershowitz are not pro-Palestinan. You would never have had South African citizens defending apartheid and not be criticized by American leftists and liberals. Yet, until I commented SEK had no intention of distancing himself from Blum's support of Israeli apartheid.
Posted by: J. Otto Pohl | Friday, 21 August 2009 at 12:10 AM
Wow. J. Otto has just convinced me to kill myself.
Posted by: karen marie | Friday, 21 August 2009 at 12:29 AM
Yet, until I commented SEK had no intention of distancing himself from Blum's support of Israeli apartheid.
So, you are a troll.
Posted by: Ahistoricality | Friday, 21 August 2009 at 08:11 AM
Don't do it Karen Marie! He's not worth it!
Posted by: JPool | Friday, 21 August 2009 at 09:34 AM
SEK, I am dismayed that in this post you have made no effort to distance yourself from the claim (shockingly acceptable among the American left) that Jay-Z is better than Nas. I guess since he recorded 'My President is Black' no self-described leftist will ever criticise his telling everyone he slept with Nas' girlfriend on 'Supa Ugly'.
Posted by: SeanH | Saturday, 22 August 2009 at 03:52 AM