I'm always happy to see someone come to the light on an issue, and I especially like the last bit of Yglesias' piece.

But, and maybe this is churlish of me to say at this juncture but I've got to say it anyway, to me it just shows how little he knew in the first place. He's on a panel at the JStreet conference yet he just figures this out on the spot? Hello? Yglesias has always struck me as something of an attention getter for the fact that he was a young guy with an opinion on everything in spite of his obvious lack of experience and whose main talent runs along the lines of the Onion's I Can Write 600 Words About Anything. One of the main prerequisites for that particular talent is not to even know how little you know about everything...just let it rip.

Let me admit that I haven't read much of Yglesias, mostly because in the early days, whenever I'd see someone say, "Well, Matt Yglesias says..." I'd think, 'Who cares what Matt Yglesias says?' And when I'd go read him, it would just confirm what I wrote above. I mean, I think that before you can say things like, "It seems to me," and "that strikes me as correct," and the like in regard to say, a presidential election, then you should have had to have actually lived and been politically aware during a couple of election cycles first. Know what I mean?

Anyway, that's beside the point. I welcome what he wrote, and for better or for worse, he is influential in certain sectors of the blogosphere, so that's important.

David Bernstein has some excellent comments on this:
http://volokh.com/2009/10/27/yglesias-at-jstreet/

The term "pro-peace" has undergone the same kind of bastadization that the term "human rights" has. Peace no longer means cessation of hostilities and violence between the two sides of the I/P conflict. Examples of what it has come to mean we can see when we cast back to all those "peace" demostrations that took place during the 2006 Lebanon war and "Cast Lead". We all witnessed what sort of placards were being flaunted, openly and insouciently by the conscientious marchers: "We are all Hizzbala" and "Israel must be wiped" (or at least in one recorded instance, "Jews to the gas chambers"), etc. Those rallies were referred to in the media as "peace" rallies.

Just as "human rights", at the hands of the UNHR Council, have come to mean, exclusively, Palestinian rights, and by inference, if Palestinian is human, then Israelis are not, or less, human.

No wonder that people who are bitterly aligned against Israel have come to use these two terms in their highly deformed and exclusivist meaning. It's a genuine example of the Orwellian "doublespeak",language constructed to disguise and distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass.

And the naked hatred to Israel expressed by those people who crowded those rallies (and to a lesser degree glimpsed at that famous panel where Elie Wiesel became the target of mockery by the execrable Max Blumenthal) reminded me constantly of Orwell's "Two Minutes Hate".

Therefore, for these J-street supporters to be "pro-peace" as they understand it is simply incompatible with being "pro-Israel". Peace has to be "no peace" for Israelis or else the term is vitiated of its moral power.

They no doubt feel they were duped into believing the organization to be their kind of "pro-peace" and not what the dictionary tells us "peace" is.

That is the same configuration that the Western Left mastered with respect to White European Christian males. Its takes many forms, but lets just take the Orwellian newspeck term "Diversity." Which doesnt mean diversity as in everyone gets to have their own POV, history, and identity cultural political institutions and groups.

There are some groups that are proscribed from playing the diversity game of identiy politics....so this word doesnt mean diversity at all, it means elevating all other groups over the proscribed groups, which are White European Christian Males...or the core of Western Civilization. It is an anti Western project....but couched in progressive happy-speak terms.

The story that perfectly illuminates this is the host of the NPR Radio program Tell Me More, Politics and Current Events show taylored toward African Americans. Michele Martin was doing some work at a hospital for her show, and the HR woman in charge of the hospital's "Diversity Program," proudly proclaimed that they were 85% diverse. Left unsaid is that they just had 15% more to reach their goal of excluding White European Christian Heterosexual Males...they were already past the percentage of local population numbers. Michelle Martin challenged her on this, and declared..." White Men are people too, arent they?"

OK, I'll bite on this, Escape Velocity, because I don't think "diversity" is intended as an anti-Western project but rather to introduce a broader range of people into the world of "white European Christian heterosexual male" consciousness and indeed to expand our vision as to the contributions of non white non Christian non heterosexual males, like women, to Western Civilization.

The claim that WECHM are the "core of Western civilization" is a little ironic given the history of Greece. It's more than a little offensive considering the fact that at least half the world's population is female, and that y'all wouldn't exist were it not for the women who gave birth to you.

Also, Judaism is a strong a pillar of Western Civilization, it's the precursor of Christianity and Jewish legal and ethical arguments are directly or indirectly a core element of Western Civilization.

And, the ancient Greek philosophers and their inquiries into political systems and the nature of the universe are a critical element of the West. In fact they created one of the earliest working democracies and their art and interest in the natural world were foundations of the Renaissance.

Great artists and architects like Leonardo and Michelangelo risked legal and religious sanction in order to discover how bodies actually worked under the skin, and neither was straight. Both fought religious superstition in order to further the interests of art and science.

Not for nothing was the time before this, the Renaissance, called "the Dark Ages" and it's also important to respect the fact that medical, artistic and scientific creativity was, at the time, centered in the Orient. The Crusades themselves provided Europe with a great deal of wealth and food for thought as people returned with knowledge and booty from the East.

Both Rome and Greece had commerce with the East and Greek and Asian art overlapped in areas where Alexander (educated in the finest Western traditions) (one of the greatest warriors ever) (a true visionary) (not all that heterosexual) made his conquest.

The arts and sciences of the East provided the West with some of our most prized possessions, like gunpowder, silk and spaghetti. Columbus didn't set out to find America after all - he was looking for a sea-route to the Orient.

Christianity itself owes much to Asian and Egyptian religion too as well as Greek myth and it was in Greek that the New Testament was originally written.

And - how much of Western wealth, admittedly much of which is held by WCEHM's, was created by African and Native American slaves?

How much of modern art and music do we owe to Africa and to our own African American people, to Mexico? Is America not enriched by the Native Americans who live here, many in 3rd world conditions?

I think it's important to see that Western Civilization in fact has many roots and many people have and continue to contribute, including women, gays, Jews and people of color, indigenous Americans and people from the East.

Why is this so upsetting?

Well, my point wasnt to get someone to bite, but to consider the valid point.

I dont disagree with much of what you say, Sophia. That is what the Western Left has been getting by on all these years...excepting that their agenda has been exposed in their treatment of White Christian Males. Its not an agenda of diversity, but rather elevating non White Christian Males over White Christian Males. Re-distributing wealth, and disempowering them politically. We can see with the forthright admission of the Labour Party functionary that a goal of implementing mass immigration was to politically and culturally disempower the White European Christian Male indigenous peoples.

So its not that there isnt academic support for the contributions of these other groups to Western Civilization. And certainly wrongs have been committed by said groups and Western Civilization....however they arent alone in this...except that they are on the receiving end of the vast majority of criticizm and villification as regards these percieved wrongs. Much how Israel is singled out and villified and accused while others are given a free pass, by the Western Left.

You can see that other groups are praised and encouraged to develop their own histories and myths, but certain proscribed groups history must be rewritten to suit the non proscibed groups viewpoints.

Now I could see where an honest attempt at this model of identity politics would be inclusive of the White Christian Males, (even though I think that model is an abomination which leads to conflict and bad outcomes) but that isnt even in play. The reaction to it can be seen in Europe with the rise of Far Right Nationalist parties, as Islam and Muslim immigration and appeasemnt and promotion and protection under the persecuted minority victim class status, was the most absurd and obnoxious version of this paradigm/paradox, and people are fed up.

I wish this wasnt the situation, the zeitgeist that the Western Left has created in Anglo and European countries, but it is. And even though some ugliness is going to be the result, personally, I cant wait for White European Western Christian Males to reassert themselves and their culture, and shed this Guilt Complex that has been promoted and manipulated in such a dastardly manner by the Western Left.

Ooops, gotta run. Ill be back to finish my thoughts.

I guess, Im trying to get you to see the parallel. Jews in the Middle East rubbing up against the Brown Folks and "minority" Arabs are the face of Western Civilization...and thus they are on the receiving end of what is dished out towards Western Civilization. They are the White Christian Male of the Middle East. There racist immigration policy, failed seperation of Religion and State...poor mistrustful treatment of the poor minorities. The whole shebang. The script is totally predictable as its already been developed.

I thought it was pretty well accepted that both of those guys were teh gay. At least there are strong indications (including speculation during their lifetimes).

What the Western Left would like to do in Israel, is the same thing that they are attempting to do, with good success in Europe and Anglo-Nations....is to disempower the majority in Israel, secularize it to such a degree that Judaism and Jewishness is just one of many religions and heritages....rewrite its history to suit the persecuted minorities....affirmatively promote minorities over the majority, promoting "diversity", get rid of its border controls to allow mass immigration of other cultures, and basically totally dis the Jews.

They dont advocate loose immigration controls for Mexico, and criticize Mexicans for being xenophobic racist haters of gringos for their draconian immigration policies and enforcement including property ownership laws. If millions of gringos or Europeans moved illegally into another non European or gringo country, the Western Left would be up in arms about imperialism and colonization.

The Japanese....not much criticism of their immigration policy and xenophobia to be found.

Chinese Han? Some but not nearly as much as the continous assault on the West by the faculty of full time Lefting political philosophers and agitators clogging up the Unis.

Get the picture?

The Western Left is an anti Western project. Its not anti Semitism per se (though hate speech, bigotry, and villification are par for the course which the White European Christian Male is subjected to in giant waves daily), Israel and Israeli Jews are now the recievers of this vitriol, instead of in the coalition of indentity political groups agitating against it...like American Jewry.

Enjoy!

Personally, I see Europe and Europeans adopting the Israeli model in the future, to protect themselves and their cultures. And frankly, it cant come fast enough, as far as Im concerned.

that should read,

"agitating agianst White Europeans, Christians and Christianity....like American Jewry"

Not for nothing was the time before this, the Renaissance, called "the Dark Ages" --- Sophia

I would like to address this.

The Catholic Church and Christianity wasnt the stifler of Western Civilization. It was the preserver of Western Civilization. The common heritage of Rome and Greece was preserved via the Catholic Church and spread throughout Europe. It also provided a communications network and an infrastructure for a common basis of law, increased trade and transportation and communication.

The Dark Ages was about the lack of these things, via the immigration of barbarian hordes (kinda similar to what is happening today, heh?). It wasnt about the Church or Christianity killing off learning, science, and trade...and holding people down...(as the Western New Left and Atheists would have you believe).

Now the Chruch and Christianity wasnt perfect, but it was damn sure the savior of Western Civilization....and a main patron of its rise to global leadership in the arts, sciences, philosophy, trade and industry....from total dissarray, following the collapse of Rome.

Well, I don't want to get into a left/right war or G*d forbid give the impression that I don't respect Christian institutions or White Christian European Heterosexual Males.

But.

I've already stated that I don't believe Western Civilization is the property of whiteness, maleness, Christianity or straightness nor were WECHM's the only or even the primary creators of a civilization whose roots predate ancient Greece.

Now, I'd like to address two other issues - the fears that Western Civilization is under attack and also the attempt to compare Israel to a white power movement, which I reject utterly and find odious.

I do think, underneath EV's commentary is a fear that Western institutions are being challenged by change. Some of that change is coming from within, some from without.

Certainly a subset of the West, White Christian Hetereosexual Males, have held all the cards up until very recently, and perhaps many are upset that women, gays and people of color and of other religions are actually getting decent jobs these days, run companies even; and also get some credit for our contributions past and present.

So there are internal threats to WECHM's and their heretofore unchallenged dominance, but also, immigration has changed the political landscape.

I don't think any of this is the result of deliberately designed projects by "the Left" let alone well-meaning and long overdue educational programs illustrating the many contributions of people - of all colors and religions and sexual orientations - to Western culture. This includes our own Native American populations whose art, history and wisdom are humbling to people who bother to study them.

That's perhaps especially true of the great Mayan, Aztec and Incan civilizations to the South but also of the people who live within the US to this day - as I say, all too often despised by the "white" people who overcame them and took all they had.

No. Such recognitions won't undermine Western Civilization - they can only enrich us all and in fact reinforce what's great about us - that we ARE inclusive, that we are tolerant, that we aren't bigots, that we respect individuals. And also, that Western Civilization is big enough and strong enough to admit past mistakes and to learn from them.

We can acknowledge our debts, we won't lose our identity by acknowledging others.

As far as change or threat coming from "without": external change and challenges to our values are inevitable as the planet shrinks and people from other places, other worlds come into close contact with each other and with us.

This isn't a new story. We've been trading and interacting with other peoples and other cultures from Day One. Western culture is in fact a melange of many cultures, many peoples, not least peoples of the East, like Jews.

Is this really so frightening?

In cases where people from "outside" actually want to conquer us, that's one thing.

But if they simply want to co-exist, trade, share ideas, seek sanctuary here BECAUSE of our values?

What about women who flee to the West to avoid mutilation? What about gays who'd be murdered at home? What of people who are dying of hunger in Africa? What about Mexico, where people live in cardboard boxes partly because of Norte Americano indifference or worse, economic exploitation?

Should we turn them away?

Shouldn't we acknowledge the contributions of Chinese people who built our railroads?

Studying WWII history I was shocked to learn that Chinese-Americans suffered such intense discrimination that the presence of a Chinese American gunner on a B-24 belonging to the 456th was actually a very rare thing! He risked his life on that rattletrap, now people like him get to hear that Western Civilization is the property of White Christian European Males?

Why?

Meanwhile, people in the East (and in South America and Africa) are feeling nervous too. They are just as threatened by us as we are by them and we're fighting wars now because of it.

Eventually we'll probably figure out ways to coexist (I hope) without anybody feeling they've been ripped off, but rather enriched by their neighbors and by the "different" people who already live within - by our own women, gay people, people of color, Muslims, Jews - people who aren't members of the majority religious institution or power structure.

Now.

E.V. mentioned the BNP and this is one of the most worrisome results of fear, fear that Western Civilization itself is crumbling perhaps but also - fear that "dark people" are going to seize money and power from "white people".

Some are trying to compare BNP or European Christian Whiteness to Israel. I reject this on the grounds that it's utterly absurd.

Far from Israel being an emanation of white power, a comparison I abhor and which is completely innaccurate, Jews were and are regarded as foreign, dark and "other" in Europe and by White Supremacists in general and we were nearly exterminated for it.

Most Israeli Jews are Middle Eastern, they are no more white than the Arabs who along with the Kurds who are some of our closest relatives; and many are black. Some are of East Indian heritage. Some Jews are fair and blue-eyed; Judaism is after all not a race.

It is also true that some Arab people are light, the Circassians for example but also the descendants of Crusaders.

So trying to cast Israelis as "white" and "Arabs" as dark and defining our problems along those lines is inaccurate and has nothing to do with anything, period.

In fact Haj Amin al Husseini was red-haired, light-skinned and blue-eyed and was a big fan of Adolph Hitler and his supremacist, anti-semitic views so this portrayal of Israel, trying to compare Israel to White Europe, is silly, with all due respect.

I do grant that Israel is quite Western as opposed to traditionally Arab culturally and part of the rejection of Israel is on this basis.

But even that doesn't really hold up completely when you start looking at Israeli culture more closely, and seeing the Arab and Persian, Central Asian and African people who live there more clearly.

No. Part of the rejection of Israel is just exactly like the panic and rejection of "foreigners" in Europe and America today except it's way, way more violent.

In fact there are times when I listen to Lou Dobbs on "illegal immigrants" and I cringe because I think back to the desperate Jews of the 1920's and 1930's, and the way they were rejected by the Arabs and how they died by the millions because they had no sanctuary anywhere in the world.

How many were allowed to come to the US, to Canada? What happened to the St. Louis? What happened to the Exodus 1947 after the war, to Polish survivors after they escaped the camps?

Europe learned from the Shoah. America was built by immigration.

The lack of violence here is due precisely to the greatness of Western Civilization, to the fact that we don't hate people because they're different and because we can learn, relatively quickly, from disastrous mistakes we've made in the past. We can change.

But the fear, the reaction against "the other", the fear of losing cultural values, religious values - it does remain.

Tell me there's something different about the rejection of the Jews in the Middle East in the 20th century and the way some people are reacting to Mexicans and Muslims in America and Europe today?

Thus I think one has to refrain from drawing any sort of comparisons between threatened White European Christian Heterosexual Males Who Are Worried About Dark People And Gays And Women And Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Animists, Communists, Aetheists etc - and Israel.

Israel is actually a reaction against racism and religious bigotry, not an example of it.

Israel is no racial or religious or political monolith, but is just as diverse and complicated as America.

That is part of what is WESTERN about it. Not its diversity per se but the fact that individuals within Israel are legally equal REGARDLESS of their heritage.

It's true that this equality is far from perfect and needs work just as it does here but this ideal, a core value of Western Civilization, is well worth pursuing don't you think?

So, I reject utterly the attempt to cast Israel in a racist light or to compare the ideals of Zionism to a white racist project or for that matter to a religious project. It was a nationalist project based on the idea that Jews are a people, like Greeks, who need a home and also who needed to redeem themselves as a people.

But just as importantly Zionism was forced to life by the endless persecution Jews suffered as a minority, especially as a religious and ethnic minority, in the East but most viciously, most dangerously and ruthlessly, in the West, where we were regarded as dark and strange and strangely powerful, and also as a threat - just as more recent immigrants are now, just as some in the West regard us to this day.

And we most defintely suffered for not being Christian.

Comparisons of Israel to the white European power structure is what the worst enemies of the Jewish people and the State of Israel attempt to do when they accuse the very existence of a Jewish state of representing "apartheid" or compare Zionism to racism, or reduce Israel's existence to European colonialism/imperialism.

It's especially ironic given our history in Europe and the way we're regarded by white supremacists, ie, as "orientals", foreigners and "mud people".

So I'm sorry, E.V.

Much as I understand and applaud the defense of Western values and also the role of Christian insitutions in the past, in that they did preserve the skills of writing and were some of the greatest patrons of the arts in world history, I simply cannot agree to the notion that Western civilization is the property of white European Christian Heterosexual Males.

I can't agree that the attempt to show people that OTHERS including women, Asians, Africans, Muslims and Jews and of course myriad gifted gay people ALSO have contributed to the glories of the West is wrong or somehow threatens the very diversity that defines us.

I do think that Western Civilization is well worth celebrating, studying and defending. But I think we should define what it is that defines us.

Western Civilization isn't a race, religion, sexual oriention or gender but rather the fact that we celebrate the creativity and value of the individual REGARDLESS of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

We are all valuable. As individuals we all have rights, inherent and political, and we all have potential. We all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (and property) regardless of our color, creed, gender, religion or sexual orientation and I feel sorry for people who are threatened by these, the very underpinnings of our civilization.

The thing that's great about the West is defined so eloquently in the American Declaration of Independence and it's evident in our Constitution too - but that's only evolved to include ALL OF US over time and with great effort.

Shouldn't we support and celebrate that evolution, which has finally granted the right to vote to women only in the 20th century, legal equality to African American people more recently than that, and not regard such inclusiveness as a threat let alone some dire left wing project to undermine Western Civilization?

For pity's sake - that IS Western Civilization!

Western Civilization is not despotism, it is not sexism, it is not racism, it is not the maintenance in perpetuity of a power structure based on sex, race or religion or an unchanging grip on military and economic power or an unyielding caste system that excludes people because of their sexuality or their skin color or their religion!

Aren't those things what we're fighting?

I see you went for the cliche'd strawman digs at my position.

"and perhaps many are upset that women, gays and people of color and of other religions are actually getting decent jobs these days, run companies even; and also get some credit for our contributions past and present."

Youve also made a fundamental mistake (another strawman) that I think that White Heterosexual Christian Males are the sole owners of Western Civilization. These are the groups that are proscribed from playing identity politics...which apparently you have no problem with. Which is totally unsurprising. But nonetheless its a reality that you will not address.

Conflict is assured.

"...Jews in the Middle East rubbing up against the Brown Folks and "minority" Arabs are the face of Western Civilization..." (Escape Velocity)

I don't know about that. Jews are a pretty racially mixed lot. As well as culturally mixed. This is what makes Israel so interesting, exciting and at times terribly frustrating. The music is a mixture. There was a time when Mizrahi musicians were marginalized and sneered at by the "Western" looking artists. It is now very democratic. An aspect of successful multiculturalism. Israeli kitchen, too, is a buffet of delicatessen, from Russian borsht to the humus to apple pies and sushi. You can see the many colours and styles in the fashion, as well. It's not Westernism per se that is being celebrated. It is the idea of modernism, democracy and diversity, an attempt to achieve dignity and justice. There are many hitches. Crime is on the rise. There are still terrible problems. Ethiopian Jews sometimes suffer from crude manifestations of racism, but the encouraging part lies in the general response from the majority of the population that rejects these in no uncertain terms. Skin colours in Israel are different shades of browns and pinks, very little white :)

You guys are talking past each other I think. Sophia, you need to go back to some of your leftist friends and explain to them the wonders of Western Civ, because there's no doubt to me that many of them only see the negative side and see it as their duty to overturn the White Male Power Structure, rather than learn it, love it, and take their place in it. The campuses are full of people like that, churning out spoiled brats who know nothing other than how to feel guilty about their own success.

And racism (the reverse kind, I guess you'd say) is also a big part of the discourse. "It's Arab Land," "the indigenous population"...look how much obsession there is out there with showing that modern Jews aren't genetically descended from people who lived in the Middle East 2000 years ago (as though it would matter anyway).

Somewhere up in this thread EV talked about someone who bragged that the class was 85% diverse...if I were the father of a white male child I'd have real concerns about my kid being in a class under someone who thought that way.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I don't think EV is arguing FOR racism and exclusion, but I see a measure of a sauce for the goose argument combined with the recognition of what the survival of Western Civilization is facing, both with people from without coming here without respect for it or any intention of adapting to it (other than accepting the gifts of wealth and welfare), and forces within weaned on the post-colonial "it's all our fault" mindset. That's a bad combination unless some of us start pushing back.

Oops, mine was meant to follow #14 Sophia.

Please spare me the Jewish victim narrative. Im not unsympathetic to Jewish suffering, and Im not a Jew hater, and am largely a fan of Jewish culture and peoples.

"Comparisons of Israel to the white European power structure is what the worst enemies of the Jewish people and the State of Israel attempt to do when they accuse the very existence of a Jewish state of representing "apartheid" or compare Zionism to racism, or reduce Israel's existence to European colonialism/imperialism."

This is exactly what they are doing...as I have pointed out. In the same profuse one sided manner that European White Christians have been villified. Its the narrative, being applied to the wealthy white European Jews in Israel, who just by their success are the targets of class warfare narratives. (Not to mention the Third Worldist Maoism.)

Its not fair to the Israeli Jews anymore than it is to White European Christians.

But you seem to favor applying it to White European Christians, but not the Israeli Jews.

At least the Western Left that attacks and villifies and double standardizes Israel AND Europe is consistant.

You are clearly acting in percieved self interest of your identity groups, that is your consistant position. And there is nothing terribly wrong with that...you just dont like being called out on it....and are trying to enunciate a position that is inherently hypocritical as the moral high ground.

I realize that these are difficult issues and are difficult to enunciate properly. I am not the enemy of Jews or Israelis or women or gays or blacks or brown folks. However you seem to have a problem with certain groups.

Its easy to label me a hater, racist, homophobe, mysoginist, far Rightist, white supremacist and then claim moral superiority. However that doesnt describe me, nor is it effective communication. It leaves us in the same immovable space, which gave rise to the BNP and other such groups in Europe, the movement towards proscribed groups organizing for identity politics.

Its unfortunate that it has to come to that....but that is on people like you, not on people like me.

Sophia said:

What about women who flee to the West to avoid mutilation? What about gays who'd be murdered at home? What of people who are dying of hunger in Africa? What about Mexico, where people live in cardboard boxes partly because of Norte Americano indifference or worse, economic exploitation?

Should we turn them away?

------

We could help them by criticizing the groups and governments and religions that are oppressing them, profusely and backing them in their own countries so they dont have to flee.

That is the correct course of action. Not destroying the indigenous Europeans culture with massive abuse of assylum seekers.

Disempowering Jews in Israel and European Christians in their strongholds while doing nothing about these other cultures and countries oppressive non tolerant regimes, ideologies, etc is a recipe for dissaster...a new Dark Age as it were. Creating balkanized disempowered Europe isnt the march toward peaceful coexistence, liberty, and justice for all. It empowers the foes of those ideas, safe entrenched in their strongholds, now with footholds in Europe and Anglo countries to wage their assault on freedom and tolerance....with no one left to back the pro democratcy, pro liberty, pro tolerance opposition to them at home.

Regressivism.

Instead of the non stop criticism of White Christian Males and Western Civilization, the Western Left should be on full on assault on the gross human rights abusers, xenophobes, racists, supremacists, around the globe. One can dream!

So trying to cast Israelis as "white" and "Arabs" as dark and defining our problems along those lines is inaccurate and has nothing to do with anything, period. --- Sophia

This is a problem with language. Its the differing cultures that matter not the skin color, IMO.

Jewish supremacism is Israli policy. Racist Jewish immigration policy. Racist Jewish property ownership policy. Racist Jewish marriage and burial policies.

Israeli Jews are right up the BNPs alley....or the Black Panthers for that matter.

Of course their is diversity of opinion in Israel among Jews, and the Israeli Jews have a Left which is suicidal, just like the rest of the Western Left.

But Im not down on Israel, however imperfect it is...and let's not forget the perfect is the enemy of the good.

Let's not bring ruin upon Europe nor Israel, lets bring change to the peoples and culturesa and countries most in need of it, which isnt Europe or Israel, which are some of the most Enlightened progressive tolerant cultures on the planet.

Destroying them with social engineering and mass immigration and multiculturalism and statist "diversity" promotion....will be a dissaster for those who hold dear the values they claim they wish to promote.

Israel is actually a reaction against racism and religious bigotry, not an example of it. --- Sophia

Voters moving to support parties like the BNP are a reaction against racism and religious bigotry, not an example of it.

You see the parrallel?

Here is another example...

The Black Panthers and their supporters are a reaction against racism and bigotry, not an example of it.

Western Civilization isn't a race, religion, sexual oriention or gender but rather the fact that we celebrate the creativity and value of the individual REGARDLESS of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation -- Sophia

So a Jewish State is anathema to your definition of Western Ciivlization.

European peoples have distinct cultures and nations formed around those cultures. Are they allowed to protect those cultures and preserve them? Or is only Israel allowed to do that?

You see your error?

Im not opposed to women voting or equality for African Americans.

You keep battling strawmen. Im opposed to a system which uses the state to give priveleges, rights, wealth redistribution, preferences over others to people based on identity markers. The exclusion of Dead White Males from having their own culture and history in the great diversity celebration, and the attacks on Christians for bringing their philosophy and ideology to the voting booth....to create room for other people to push theirs.

Sophia is right down the Leftwing zeitgeist.

Its a shame really, that she has no room for White Christian Males in her Brave New World. I bet Israel doesnt either.

It seems to me Sophia that you are big fan of the everyone is a victim of White Christian Males narrative.

However when the same narrative is applied to Israeli Jews...then you strenuosly object, because Israeli Jews are nothing like those racist imperialist exploiters and supremacists trying to maintain hold on the power structure within European Countries.

"No we are the victims of those dastardly White Christians like everyone else."

The people that deserve the vast majority of criticizm on this planet are the White Christian Males.

I must say that I derive a bit of shadenfreude that Israel is getting hammered with the same bullshit that you apply to White European Christians. You deserve every bit of it.

In response to Noga.

Yes the language is imprecise. I appreciate the eloquence of your post. The reason why it works to some degree with the promise of a better tommorrow is that Judaism is the cultural commonality that binds them enough, so that other cultural, racial and whatnot differences can be worked out.

The Israeli Arab Muslims however dont figure in so well, do they?

When will the Leftwing assault on Israel as a Jewish nation and the seperation of Church and state and the villification of Jews bringing their religious philosophy, ideology, and morality be attacked as it has in Europe and the Anglo Nations with Christianity, with a group of Atheists, Leftists, and Minority groups like Jews For Jesus, Christians and Muslims?

Open up the floodgates to immigration to non Jews, to correct the cultural bigotry and attempt to maintain religio-cultural control of the power structure in Israel.

I know Sophia will reject the analogy...but its plain as day.

Myself I dont begrudge Jews their land, country, culture or the wish to maintain it.

However Sophia and the majority of American and European Jews do with regards to the US and European coutries. Identifying them as xenophobic racist supremacists trying to hold "the other" down.

You know there is a middle ground where tolerance and respect for rigths and liberty reigns along with maintenance of cultural supremacy.

However that line is drawn in 2 very different spots in Sophia's mind with regards to Europe and Israel.

Shrugs

OK, thinking out loud here, about identity, identity politics, Western Civilization, Israel, etc.

I do think it's bogus to compare Israel to Western imperialism of any kind, it's unfair and absurd.

This is a favorite tactic of some on the Left and they are full of it, they are just as ignorant as people who think Jews are all white or all rich or all dark and all scary, ie, typical racists.

The "colonialist/imperialist" oversimiplication comes from a different political wing but it's just as bad as the baloney from people who buy into the far right Walt/Mearscheimer memes or the Jews Are Victimizing Poor Me or Stole My Seat In Congress Green Party memes or say we are trying via the ACLU to advance the Jewish Sodomite ACLU Anti-Christian agenda (that's from Vos de Atzlan btw); whatever.

It is sort of odd that Jewish identity or self-identification is considered bad and that black or Muslim or etc is ok and considered good.

In the sense that E.V. feels that white heterosexual males are being condemned for their personhood, I think perhaps he has a point here. After all, we don't choose our gender, our parents, or our color and we should all be respected for who we are and not victimized or marginalized for it.

If we're talking "identity politics" wherein group contributions to civilizations are discussed then it's bogus to celebrate Asian women, for example, and ignore white men.

Is that really happening?

I don't know - maybe it is. Perhaps we just take the backdrop of our culture so for granted - is it necessary for example to reiterate the accomplishments of Ben Franklin or the Wright Brothers when their accomplishments define our world? Maybe we should though, maybe we should take a moment to reflect and appreciate what we've been given.

Also, because modernity has inflicted harm, albeit not deliberately, where people are afraid of it shouldn't we realize why that is, and where we've stupidly harmed our planet we should face up to that shouldn't we, and try to fix it?

Anyway, reading British blogs I know that some there feel threatened and concerned by immigrants, even the Archbishop of Canterbury states that sharia is inevitable - that certainly would seem to cut across Western values and Western law and social mores.

I don't think it's bigoted to discuss that and why it might not be a good idea, even as we reiterate the rights of Muslims to worship and be safe as individuals and as a group within the Western world.

But it's important to say, well we don't want to abandon our own legal system or the advances we've made over a long period of time and introduce a legal system that is actually discriminatory to women, for example - because discrimination against any group is anathema to Western Civilization.

So I think, instead of being afraid of immigrants and their values we need to reassert our own, and one of those is a reliance upon a secular government and separation of church and state.

Also - affirmative action has definitely damaged some individual white men, that's a fact. I don't think it's hurt white people as a group but what are groups but collections of individuals?

So I think we need to step back and think about this, say, well, it's true we shouldn't discriminate based upon this or that but what if our efforts to help actually do harm?

That's a discussion worth having, definitely.

Part Two (then I'll respond to EV's attacks on Israeli Jews)

Solomon is correct, I think, in claiming that Western Civilization is no longer taught with the same kind of respect it had been when I went to school. In fact "Western Civilization" was Course #1 for all freshpersons :) at my school.

On the other hand, we had no slides of non-European art to study, a few samples of African art maybe as it related to modern Western art. "American art" included only the art of European settlers, not the Native Americans, etc.

Finally a professor donated a big collection of slides showing Indian (as in the subcontinent) art. We did have a few pictures of Japanese and Chinese art - but nothing in comparison to the enormous richness of those traditions. And considering their huge impact on the West we should have had more - so - better late than never.

Also, the head of my department was British and routinely referred to Africans, Indians etc as "wogs". This wouldn't fly today nor should it.

I am confused therefore with what is wrong with learning more and with expanding our knowledge and our respect for the many peoples of this earth. I don't think that respecting Asian art and Asian people for example makes me or anybody else respect "white" persons less.

I don't think that's what is intended.

Is it?

I think the best, most honest academics reflect the fact that things evolve, that we have indeed come a huge distance since the days of WWII, but that this very evolution has grown out of Western respect for individual rights. In fact we sometimes forget that "Left" and "Right" are both elements of the same Western spectrum and reflect the huge variety of thought our freedom allows.

This in itself is an aspect of Western Civilization and it should be celebrated.

Somehow maybe that respect for Western values has gotten lost as our many sins have been catalogued and maybe we, in fact, have been dishonest about our own history.

I doesn't hurt us to own up to it and try to do better in the future, and accept where we have done harm as well as celebrating the many progressive things we have done right.

I feel the same about the honest Israeli left in that context: it won't hurt Israel to respect Arab rights and Arab culture and also respect the limits of power - it will only make her stronger.

There are some Arabs and Persians too who are bucking tradition and they will be instrumental in helping heal rifts just as the more traditional people uphold values that have worked for generations. Left, Right, old, new - don't they have their places?

Same here - same in Europe - don't you think? G*d forbid we should be alike or think alike!

I do think there's quite a bit of anger among oppressed groups, oppressed people, this includes women even in the West.

We see it reflected in Black Liberation theology for example, and I don't think that's really surprising and it will probably dissipate as people are accepted as individuals for who they are and what they can accomplish, and are not routinely barred from participation in society because of their skin color, gender, religion, sexuality.

So eventually I think identity politics will be less important someday.

It's maybe more important now than it should be precisely because there have been large violations to certain groups of people and also because of huge variances between rich and poor, sometimes based on color and nationality and gender even within relatively small Western nations let alone globally.

Simultaneously, there's something valuable about identifying with a group - a family, a tribe, a nation - a state - it helps keep alive what's valuable and rich, that people have created. It makes individuals feel less alone and part of something bigger.

It is kind of a condundrum actually especially since identities, people's creations, the way we see our own creations, are always changing. Even simply as we age, we change, we change within our own skins, our skins themselves age and sag, we're not seen the same way at 60 as we were at 20, and we aren't the same inside. If we've grown at all our work won't be the same either:)

I go back and forth about this all the time when I teach/work with music and dance. I like the really old stuff, but at no point was it ever "pure".

There's really not a place in time, recorded time, where you can go back and say, this was strictly "Jewish" or this was purely "Egyptian" or this was Andalusion - what is that? Spanish, Jewish, Roman, Gypsy, Arab, Catholic, Berber? - it's all of the above!

What is purely "Lebanese" or purely "Greek"? What is "American"? "Israeli"? "European"?

It's all of us!

The music is just like identity in fact - it's really too layered, too rich, too wild, too elegant, too old!

All these traditions are so old, so complex and they've overlapped, and also in the West we acquired elements and influences from Persia, India, Africa, Spain, the Turks, the Armenians, North Africa - the Gypsies - China - Japan - all the various Arab groups - Europeans too - and now they're picking up nuances and instrumentation, including electronic music and hiphop and rap, from the West.

So what remains is appreciation for all of it and the ability for people to pick and choose and enjoy all the various styles, all the wonderful things that people have created, and in our own creations to build upon that huge body of art and knowledge and poetry.

It's important also to say, I guess, that respect for Eastern and African and Native America and modern art/music/dance in no ways makes Mozart less wonderful or Bach less valuable.

On the contrary - the more we see, know, understand and appreciate the raga the more we appreciate the Requiem.

Isn't it so?

If we get to the point where we can really appreciate each other AS PEOPLE, appreciate everybody's accomplishments and not just those of some - then identity based on color, youthfulness, sexuality etc, shouldn't be so important, even while heritage is appreciated.

Maybe then we'll just look at a person, another person, and see his or her personal qualities, and all the nations of this earth will remain vibrant and spicy in their differences but we'll all see each other as human and good.

Maybe I am dreaming:)

OK, EV, in between all the verbiage we finally get down to it.

I objected and rightly so to your comparing Israel and Israeli Jews to the worst abusers in Europe, people who have historically abused Jews and enslaved others, then complain when those others assert themselves - and sure enough you come back with this:

"Jewish supremacism is Israli policy. Racist Jewish immigration policy. Racist Jewish property ownership policy. Racist Jewish marriage and burial policies.

Israeli Jews are right up the BNPs alley....or the Black Panthers for that matter"

Sir, that's sheer baloney.

But, I think this is the real gist of your argument.

It has nothing to do with discrimination, real or imaginary, against White European Christian Heterosexual Males, does it.

Your argument is actually a pretty thinly veiled attack against Jews and Israel as well as other minorities, women and gays, as I had already sort of figured.

Nobody can make you enjoy or appreciate "the other".

But I'm going to ask what I ask other people who have nutty ideas about Jews, Arabs, women, gays, etc, which is, please study and at least learn some history before you make bogus comparisons like that.

I suggest, please, that you study the roots and ideals of Zionism before you attack Israeli Jews.

They are not claiming supremacism, they fled to Israel to try and survive repeated attacks and expulsions, religious and ethnic bigotry that finally culminated in the Nazi extermination attempt (darn near successful).

Nor are they racist, they are all different colors; they are not "whites only" like the BNP and anybody, it should be noted, can become a Jew if they're so inclined.

There's no way a person can become a White European Hetereosexual Male now is there unless you are born one?

Now, it can be argued that any kind of group identity is a bad thing, and argue against Zionism, ie Jewish nationalism, on that basis. And maybe in time, Jews won't feel they need a majority Jewish nationstate as a haven. Sixty years after the Shoah, maybe it's a little soon to assume that they don't.

Some who argue for a world government or its opposite - local governments only - use precisely that argument - that any kind of group identity is a bad thing.

They say, Greeks are people, Turks are people, Jews are people, the English are people, surprisingly enough; and Arabs and Africans and Thai and Chinese are people, so why do we need to separate ourselves into groups based on identity?

I think philosophically they have a point.

However, at this point in history, cultural and ethnic and religious identity have a purpose, a purpose in making individuals less vulnerable and alone and also in preserving valuable human creations and traditions.

And, national, ethnic, sexual/gender and religious groups and their histories absolutely impact the individuals within those groups.

So you can't really take an African American person or a Jew or a Palestinian or a Greek and expect him or her to be exactly like an Englishman, nor can one assume a man is like a woman or a straight person is exactly like a gay person or a youngster like a retiree: the experiences make us different, different people based to some extent on our identities.

Now. Regarding Jews and Jewish Israelis.

We are not claiming superiority, we are merely claiming equality as people and as a nation and the right to exist as persons and as a people among other nations and other peoples - and there's a huge difference between that, sir, and the BNP and I shouldn't have to point that out.

In fact I'm disgusted that you'd make that comparison, particularly in view of history.

"Jewish supremacism is Israli policy. Racist Jewish immigration policy. Racist Jewish property ownership policy. Racist Jewish marriage and burial policies.

Israeli Jews are right up the BNPs alley....or the Black Panthers for that matter"

If I may venture to correct Sophia's judgment that this is "the real gist of [EV's] argument".

I'm not sure it is something he believes. It is something he believes rabid leftists believe. And he is not wrong to get that impression.

Even Yglesias acknowledges that:

"it became clear that a number of people in the audience really were quite uncomfortable self-defining as “pro-Israel” in any sense and that others are uncomfortable with the basic Zionist concept of a Jewish national state. I was, of course, aware that those views existed but it had seemed to me that it was clear that that wasn’t what J Street is there to advocate for. Apparently, though, it wasn’t clear to everyone."

Those who are "uncomfortable with the basic Zionist concept of a Jewish national state" justify their position by claiming exactly that it means "Jewish supremacism is Israli policy. Racist Jewish immigration policy. Racist Jewish property ownership policy. Racist Jewish marriage and burial policies.".

EV has a problem with the fact that most American Jews seem to be strong supporters of Liberalism (that is, the Democratic party)even when some (or many, or few) liberals align themselves explicitly with Israel's enemies. (I think Solomon has been making the same argument himself.)

I'd like to cite a personal example. I had a very good friend who is an avowed Democrat and an avowed Israel supporter. She used to complain about Bush whenever he made conciliatory voices towards the Palestinians! Yet when Obama came on the scene he could not be wrong or criticized for anything, not even for his 20-year long friendship with the scary Rev. Wright. I wrote about my own Obama doubts in my blog. She ended our friendship by sending me a letter in which she basically blamed me for moral indifference to suffering Americans and all that derives from that, except maybe cruelty to animals. Israel no longer figured in her thought. It was important but hardly a main concern, she said. She, who could not stand Bush speaking of a two-state solution!

Clearly there is some sort of cognitive dissonance going on with American Jews' professed concern for Israel and their voting patterns. The reality in fact is almost in direct opposition to the Mearsheimer&Walt doctrine of a powerful Jewish lobby that draws its legitimacy from the general support of Jews.

Sorry if I got a little shrill or beligerant last night. Ginned up on Halloween Night.

Your argument is actually a pretty thinly veiled attack against Jews and Israel as well as other minorities, women and gays, as I had already sort of figured. --- Sophia

Your paranoia and fixed narrative, that you play over and over in your head....is not a thinly veiled attack against Jews.

I do have major disagreements with the majority of American Jews on domestic policy. In your mind that makes me a Jew hater.

I really cant argue with that mindset. However I can say that that leaves us(as in the not just you and me but the body politic in Europe and the Anglo Nations) at loggerheads and an impasse, in which step the likes of the BNP.

The empowerment of the BNP(and similar groups, though they are not all the same) is the creation of the Western Left.

If I was a UK subject, I would be voting for UKIP, not the BNP. But I am sympathetic to the concerns that drive lower class whites who used to vote Labour to the BNP, it was entirely predictable that eventually people would not be kowtowed by charges of racism and hatred, and embrace the Western Lefts identity politics for their own. The Labour Party abandoned them, and not just abandoned them but have utter contempt for the lower class whites and their culture.

And that is where we are. Unfortunate that the Western Left chose this route, but it is none the less the route they chose, and here we are.

Enjoy!

even while heritage is appreciated --- Sophia

Of coure the whole problem is that some peoples heritage, history and traditions arent appreciated. As I pointed out. "Diversity" is double speak, for the exclusion of and shoving aside certain groups heritage, history, and traditions, to make room for others....and not true celebration of all cultures. Its affirmative action for minorities, which is discrimination against the majority.

The utter contempt for Sarah Palin. Clinging to Guns and Religion. The contempt for lower class whites and their culture. The contempt for the Christian Right and rural folks....aka the Western Redneck.

Go into the Amazon jungle to find Stone Age tribes and you will find Leftiwngers slobbering all over themselves to admire the wisdom of the village elders and valuing the cultural and heritage of those peoples. Go into rural American, and the same folks will sneer at the Western Redneck.

Figure it out.

We are not claiming superiority, we are merely claiming equality as people and as a nation and the right to exist as persons and as a people among other nations and other peoples - and there's a huge difference between that, sir, and the BNP and I shouldn't have to point that out. --- Sophia

No the BNP is making the exact same argument, except they are fond of a group that you arent fond of. White Christian English are people too. That is your fatal error in logic.

Jews deserve protection and their own culture. African Americans as well. But not White Euorpean Indigenous.

This double standard exclusion by the Left is responsible for the rise of the BNP....as those folks move to protect themselves from the non stop villification and unfair unequal discriminatory policies, designed to promote others and their cultures and power over them.

So eventually I think identity politics will be less important someday. --- Sophia

And the American Right has been trying to bring that day to fruition. While the American Left has created the Identity Politics zeitgeist, and been very successful with it. And now the proscribed groups have finally tossed in the towel and joined the identity politics game...and you dont like it.

LOL! Well tough shit. American Conservatives have been trying to tell you for the last 30 years that identity politics is evil. Its clear that you just think that they are evil if practiced by teh proscribed groups who you see as oppressors and exploiters (classic villification). Well it doesnt work that way.

That should be the Western Right or the proscribed groups that dont own Western Civilization nor were they the primary creators shepherds of it in your book.

And so it goes.

Sophia, you really take the pro Jewish pov in with regards to Israel and European and Anglo countries. Whatever benefits Jews the most in each instance.

It you would like to create a Multicultural Utopia, I suggest you try it out in Israel, instead of Europe. Of course you wont do that, you prefer to keep your Jewish nation, Jewish, and let the indigenous Europeans take the hit if the social engineering with utopian visions turns into a dissaster.

Some people arent down with that. And they arent evil Nazis and White Supremacists for it, just as the Jews in Israel arent.

You cant have it both ways.

It also seems to me that you are perfectly supportive of the Western double standard, you just feel that Jews (in Israel) shouldnt be on the European/Anglo Nations/American side of the double standard. They are the victims of European White Christian Males like everyone else, in your book.

Anyways, its going to turn out worse for the Jews, the coalition of minorities, and the Western Left because of this narrative that they have concocted and the way they chose to act on the opening that they had at the end of the 20th century.

Should have chosen more wisely. But alas...