How Many Jews Own Oil Wells?

Blaming the Jews

Back in 1982 there were some horrible massacres at two Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Christian Lebanese Arabs actually did the killing; but the Israeli army was in the neighborhood, and was responsible, at some theoretical level for Palestinian civilians in the zone that included the camps. Because of this, the Israelis took much of the brunt of the world's outrage at the killings. Commenting on these events, the Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, remarked in disgust: "Goyim kill goyim, and they blame the Jews!" (Derbyshire - National Review)

There are Antisemites and conspiracy theorists on various mailing lists and websites which claim there were no Jews in the World Trade Center during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, when in fact, hundreds of Jews perished there and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre reports an explosion of thousands of Antisemitic hate sites on the InterNUT. Israel is not a cause of any of this, except to the degree that Israeli culture is essentially Western and hatred of the Jews has been built into Arab-Moslem culture since the time of Mohammed.

Israel was reborn in 1948 at about the same time that 22 Muslim states were also established in the region as individually separate and independent sovereign nation-states - all of them Muslim - but the one Jewish and secular state which is Israel is the nation which is constantly condemned as a colonial construction and a "catastrophe" for Muslims.

Because Israel is a haven for oppressed Jews it is criticized for being too sectarian. Yet all the other states established at about the same time are Muslim states, which is all right with them - but the one Jewish state is not.

Israel has saved millions of Jews and non-Jews. It does not teach hate in its schools whereas Muslim states inculcate their youth with antisemitism in their schools, their newspapers and their other media. And state sponsored Islamic terrorist organizations send suicide bombers to kill innocent Jewish women, children and old men.

All Israel wants is to be left alone. Israel is called a "settler-state" even though every town everwhere began with a settlement and chances are you live in a settlement somewhere yourself, and your parents came from somewhere else, yet in Israel Jews always lived on the land. Some never left and some new settlements were established for Israel's security and in many cases even where Jews have recently lived before and were expelled from there by Arabs who were interlopers.

Denied is the truth, that the intifada has been war, by other means, with one ultimate goal: to eliminate Israel and kill the Jews.

In May 1994, on the eve of his planned return from Tunis to 'Palestine', Arafat took the opportunity of an invitation to speak at a mosque in Johannesburg, South Africa, to state his goals. In this address, Arafat maintained that he was forced into the peace process by the economic conditions in the territories following the Gulf War. But that was a temporary accomodation, he stressed, and in fact the Cairo agreement had just signed with Israel was `the first step and nothing more than that' on the road to Jerusalem.
"The jihad will continue," Arafat declared. "Jerusalem is not only of the Palestinian people, but of the entire Islamic nation." He urged his audience to join the Palestinian struggle. "You must come to fight, to begin the jihad to liberate Jerusalem, your first shrine." As for the agreements signed with Israel, "I regard this agreement as no more than the agreement signed between our prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca," Arafat stated, using the same comparison that he had used a year earlier, on the eve of the Khartoum summit, "As the Prophet Muhammad accepted it (the treaty of Hudaibiya),.. we now accept the peace agreement (with Israel), but in order to continue on the way to Jerusalem."
Arafat told his listeners that the PLO needed them "as Muslims and as mujahideen." He concluded by chanting: "Until victory, until Jerusalem, until Jerusalem, until Jerusalem."

The Johannesburg speech, along with other, similar pronouncements, left no doubt that as far as Arafat and his circle were concerned, no reconciliation with Israel -- not even the acceptance of the very existence of Israel -- was possible. Given this enduring taboo in the Arab world and the growing militancy of the Arab masses, Arafat realized that there was no option but an explosion. He was now determined to be in the lead.

- terrorism specialist Dr. Yossef Bodansky, "The High Cost of Peace", 2002. Dr. Yossef Bodansky is the Director of Research for the International Strategic Studies Association and Director of the United States Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare.

Arafat used militant Islamism to fuel his jihad against Israel, but all those who condemn Israel for responding to the orchestrated terror by the Palestinians often ignore the cause and criticize Israelis for legitimate defense. Those Jews, albeit left wing Jews, who attempt to find fairness and truth are considered as being outside the acceptable or legitimate left wing fold. I know, I have often been accused of beyond beyond the pale, but Jews have always been considered "beyond the pale".

And anyone who points out the intentions of Islamists to destroy Israel is suspect on left even when they criticize Israel for its excesses, as Rabbi Lerner and many others have done. These critics are told they are too soft on Israel. More often we are seeing outspoken leftists who condemn Israel in the extreme, stating that Israel must be eliminated. Or simply because Israel receives its support from the U.S. or others considered anti-left, the left condemns Israel for its choice of friends when those are the only friends Israel may have in an increasingly unfriendly (to Israel) world.

Blaming Jews for Everything from 9/11 to the War in Iraq

During anti-war rallies around the world this groundswell of anti-war sentiment resulted in the largest anti-war demonstrations world-wide ever, as if any of it would sway the Bush administration to stop his war. But, it is also not surprising that with such large numbers of people taking to the streets that we all saw many of them attacking Israel and blaming the Jews for everything from 9/11 to the war with Iraq. We heard all this from the right who traditionally blamed the Jews for communism and world revolution and now from the left who blame the Jews for capitalist exploitation, control of financial institutions (which is also false) and blame them for a few neo-cons in the Bush administration and blaming Israel for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and even blaming the Jews for the higher price of gas and other petroleum products. How many Jews own any oil wells?

"Given the rhetoric at past rallies organized by this group, we are extremely concerned that the message of this weekend's antiwar protests will be tainted with hateful calls for Israel's destruction and comparisons of Israeli actions to the Nazi extermination of Jews during the Holocaust," said Jonathan Bernstein, Central Pacific Regional Director. "While we have always said that there is a time and place for criticism of Israel, we remain very much concerned and alert to those pro-Palestinian forces in this country who resort to Anti-Semitism, and who may use the war in Iraq as a pretext for attacking Israel and Jews."

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) warns that organizers of antiwar protesters in San Francisco have a history of attacking Israel and Jews (02-14-2003) - US Newswire
"The antiwar rallies are primarily being organized by the International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition. Past rallies by ANSWER have included significant anti-Israel propaganda, including claims that Israel is guilty of "war crimes" against Palestinians and that Israel is a "racist state." The group was responsible for last year's largest anti-Israel rally, the "National March for Palestine Against War and Racism" in Washington on April 20, 2002, which served as a forum for supporting violence and terror organizations, and a proliferation of antisemitic expression. Antisemitic messages were also present at the January 18, 2003 rally in San Francisco." (ADL)

The organizers of the protest in San Francisco did not want a pro-Israel speaker at the rally even though that speaker was against the war. Rabbi Lerner was banned from speaking (even though he never asked to speak).

(SAN FRANCISCO)--Imagine my surprise when I found out that I am banned from speaking at a peace rally here this Sunday. As editor of Tikkun, the largest-circulation liberal Jewish magazine in the world, I have been an outspoken critic of the proposed war in Iraq. I have also unequivocally condemned Saddam Hussein's brutality and called for the world community to bring him to justice for crimes against humanity. But we at Tikkun do not believe that this war--in which thousands of Iraqi civilians are likely to die--will bring democracy to the Middle East. Instead, it is bound to increase the threat of terrorism to American citizens and provoke more violence. It will also fuel American fantasies of world economic and political domination.
- Rabbi Michael Lerner, "The Antiwar Anti-Semites: Peace protest organizers tolerate no dissent" - Wall Street Journal - Feb 12, 2003

We should always be concerned about the anti-Israel rhetoric because it escalates. Protesting the war in Iraq, at anti-war rallies, there were inflammatory anti-Israel statements and some Jews, who expected it, did not go to the rallies for this reason. The organizers of some of the anti-war protests have equated Zionism with Nazism and some groups which were involved in the demonstrations were also calling for the destruction of Israel, something which is heard on Internet mailing lists all too often. There has been a break with many on the European and American left with the Israeli left because being a leftist in Israel, unless on the really far extreme fringe, one is still Zionist because even the Israeli left does not support its own destruction. A lot of Jews may be nuts, but we're not that crazy to support our own demise. And some U.S. and European Jews are no longer identifying with the Left because of this increase in anti-Zionist anti-semitism, as if it was a bad thing to favor saving Jews. They should instead be asking themselves, "Where is the authentic Palestinian left?" They, like most of the Israeli left already knows, would soon realize there isn't any. A Muslim progressive movement is as miniscule as it is for all intents and purposes non-existent.

Hank Roth founded the PNEWS-L Progressive News mailing list in 1982 and is a current or former member of the War Resisters League, Hashomer, Hatzair, the American Civil Liberties Union, Pax Christi, Veterans for Peace, the U.S. Peace Council, the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice, and the Democratic Socialists of America.