“Israel lobby” author makes bizarre comparison between pro-Israel pastor and Hitler
A few years ago, two professors wrote a book, “The Israel Lobby,” that made the not-particularly-original claim that Jews are running the world.
In this case, the professors–Harvard’s Stephen Walt and University of Chicago’s John Mearsheimer–were arguing that some nefarious Jewish “lobby” controls the American political class (and electorate, we guess) so that the U.S. does Israel’s bidding. Ludicrous and offensive, yes, and Israel advocates spilled much ink refuting the coded anti-Semitism in the book while Walt and Mearsheimer became darlings of the anti-Israel left.
So how creepy is it that Walt is now weighing in on what to do with Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf (he says he’s looking for ways to discredit it).
But Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin picks up on something far more disturbing. Walt’s drawing parallels between Hitler and Christian leaders who support Israel, Walt’s idea of current equivalent’s of Mein Kampf:
Walt writes: “When you actually look at the book, and read about the history of Nazism, it may be hard to believe that serious people in an advanced society could be persuaded by arguments of this sort. But they were. And while Hitler may be the extreme case, we live in an era where plenty of political (and I regret to say, religious) figures offer all sorts of memoirs and tracts of their own, some of them nearly as bizarre and illogical (if not as murderous) as Hitler’s infamous tome.”
So which religious figure is Walt referring to here? His link is not to the many Muslim religious leaders whose works have inspired not only hatred of Jews, Israel, and the West but also actual attempts at mass murder. It is rather to an American pastor whose primary claim to fame is his support for the State of Israel: Pastor John Hagee.
Tobin acknowledges that non-Evangelicals may not get Hagee’s religious vies, and that, like most public figures, Hagee has made comments that cause controversy, even among his friends. Nonetheless:
But the main impact of Hagee’s life work has been to try building support for the one democratic state in the Middle East and to…
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Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 10:29 AM | Stand For Israel
Where anti-Semitism, bad art, and an absence of taste collide
SFI did not have the privilege of living in an era in which art was created to elevate the human spirit or to add beauty to the world. Alas, we’re stuck in an age in which many self-described “artists” seek not to lift souls but rather to “challenge viewers’ perceptions” (What does that mean?) or sledgehammer through some heavy-handed political theme. However lame those agendas can be, there are the rare “artists” who produce work that is, simply, vile.
A Danish gallery–apparently to coincide with International Holocaust Memorial Day–exhibited a piece by someone named Marco Evaristti (whose previous “art” includes inviting gallery visitors to turn on blenders filled with goldfish): A large model of the entrance to Auschwitz, which he says includes enamel and gold fillings taken from teeth of Nazi victims.
Evaristti–who was born Jewish and converted to Buddhism–has said that the work was meant “to relate to all the atrocities of the world which many tend to forget” and that he wanted to unite some of the most beautiful things in the world with some of the meanest.
We know that that sounds really profound and all. But, really, it’s just stupid. And utterly tasteless.
Some people have no respect.
Comments (2) »Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 10:34 AM | Stand For Israel
Peres’ speech in Germany
Yesterday, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israeli President Shimon Peres delivered a moving speech (in Hebrew) to the German Bundestag:
Comments (1) »I can see in my mind’s eye, at this very moment, the imposing image of my deeply respected grandfather, Rabbi Zvi Melzer, handsome and dignified. I was blessed to have been his beloved grandson. He was my guide and mentor. He was the one who taught me Torah. I see him with his white beard and dark eyebrows, enveloped in his tallith (praying shawl), among the congregation praying in the synagogue, in the town where I was born, Vishniev in Belarus.
I wrapped myself in the folds of his tallith, and with much emotion listened to his clear and lovely voice. It is still ringing in my ears, as he recited the Kol Nidrei prayer of Yom Kippur, in the hours and the moments when, according to our belief, the Creator of the world determines who to life and who to death.
I still remember him at the train station from which I, an 11-year-old child, started on my journey from my village to Eretz Israel. I remember his poignant embrace. I remember the last words and the order that heard from his mouth: “My boy, always remain a Jew!”
The train whistled and started on its way. I continued watching my grandfather until he disappeared from sight. That was the last time I saw him.
Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 9:03 AM | David Kuner
Pope denounces Holocaust “horror”
Pope Benedict XVI marked Holocaust Remembrance Day yesterday by denouncing the “horror” of the Holocaust and the “unheard of brutality” of death camps created by Nazi Germany, AP reported.
Benedict called the death camps “abhorrent and inhumane places,” issued an appeal “that such tragedies never repeat themselves,” and turned his thoughts to the “countless victims of a blind racial and religious hatred.”
He told his weekly audience the memory of those events, and especially “the tragedy of the Shoah that has struck the Jewish people,” should induce respect for all mankind. Shoah is Hebrew for the Holocaust.
Pope Benedict’s personal biography is particularly meaningful (or controversial) for Vatican-Jewish relations. Born Joseph Ratzinger in Germany in 1927, the future Pope was conscripted into the Hitler Youth at 14. According to Catholic media reports, he refused to attend meetings (membership was mandatory for boys of that age). Pope Benedict has said that his father bitterly opposed the Nazis as opponents of Catholicism and that a cousin of his–who had Down Syndrome–was murdered because of Nazi eugenicist policies.
Though his predecessor Pope John Paul II had warm relations with the Jewish community and Israel, most commentators say that Jewish-Vatican relations have been more strained since Pope Benedict’s ascension in 2005.
Questions remain about the role of Pope Pius II, whom Jews say did not do enough to stop the slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust. Though Pope Benedict has not yet approved a decree naming Pius a saint (a move initiated by John Paul II), he has paid tribute to Pius. Pope Benedict has also approved liturgical changes the Jewish community has found problematic and made other moves relating to the Holocaust the Jewish and Israeli leaders have found problematic.
Comments (0) »Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 1:03 AM | Stand For Israel
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