Saw this in the Guardian at the weekend. Interesting. I'm not well informed informed enough to know if all of this factually accurate, but I thought I'd chuck it on here for JP to look at.
'We need a post-Zionist leap of faith'
John Rose
Saturday April 2, 2005
The Guardian
6 comments:
From the moment Rose, in his first sentence, puts inverted commas round "land of Israel", the article reeks of leftie anti-Israel bile. His other publications include the admirably titled "Israel: The Hijack State - America's Watchdog in the Middle East", so I think this is probably a toned-down piece by his standards.
Read more of Rose at http://www.marxists.de/middleast/rose/9-socialism.htm, or http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index2.php/free/culture/books/zionism_s_imperial_ambitions_laid_bare (the publications say it all).
Just to take up one of his points, the Jews' expulsion from Iraq, get an alternative view here: http://www.meforum.org/article/263. Rose blames the Jews themselves for their own expulsion, with a bit of help from the Brits. The Jews responsible for their own victimisation? Ring any bells, anyone?
Thought that might get you going. Re: inverted commas, I thought he was using them to express an 'idea' rather than geo-historical entity. if he's blaming the 'the jews' per se - isn't he (perhaps wrongly) blaming the Zionists?
What did you think of this bit:
'... here we have what is sometimes called the "lachrymose" view of Jewish history: the inevitability of Jewish suffering at the hands of non-Jews. As one writer has put it, there is a danger of the scar doing the work of the wound.'
"the inevitability of Jewish suffering at the hands of non-Jews".
Dunno about it being inevitable, but even a fairly cursory reading of history suggests it not very bloody evitable.
Or is that another way of saying "Jewish suffering is the Jews' own fault"?
Well I think he's suggesting that there's a danger of it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My ealier comment got slightly scrambled. I've corrected it above. But it sounds like if he distinguishes between jews (who may or may not be Zionists) and Zionists (who de facto are Zionists.) So to blame Zionists is not to blame ALL jews.
I thought I could edit the comment but I couldn't. the scrambled line should have read ' I don't know if he's blaming the jews per se - isn't he (perhaps wrongly) blaming the Zionists?
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