The Debate Link

CNN reports:

TikTok this week removed an inflammatory anti-Israel video posted by celebrity beauty mogul and influencer Huda Kattan.

I've never been so happy to be unable to relate to any part of a sentence.

But what were the "anti-Israel" sentiments being expressed? 

Kattan, the founder and face of the billion-dollar brand Huda Beauty, shared a video to her more than 11 million followers on TikTok, accusing Israel of orchestrating World War I, World War II, the September 11 terrorist attacks and Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7.

[....]

“All of the conspiracy theories coming out and a lot of evidence behind them — that Israel has been behind World War I, World War II, September 11, October 7 — they allowed all of this stuff to happen. Is this crazy?” Kattan said on camera in her since-removed TikTok post, which included other unfounded claims about Israel. “Like, I had a feeling — I was like, ‘Are they behind every world war?’ Yes.”

Alert readers might immediately notice that some of these events occurred before Israel was established. Perhaps the more forgiving among us might overlook that problem for World War II -- Israel was founded only three years after its end, and it was such a Jewy war after all.

But World War I? That's a new one on me. We didn't even have the Balfour Declaration at the start of World War I! Roping Israel into it is really an extra special stretch.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't flag the interesting language "allowed all of this stuff to happen." What I like about this is that it takes for granted that Israel and the Jews control the entirety of global affairs, and is only mad at their non-interventionist mindset. I suppose once you've decided that Jews are like all-powerful gods, theodicy becomes our problem too.

All this talk of global Jewish domination does remind me of a thought I once had, though. Among all the people who think the Jews run the world, there must be somebody who thinks we're doing an okay job of it, right? I'm just imagining some guy in a Peoria bar, overhearing grousing about the damn Jews who run our society, slamming his beer down and yelling "Hey! They're trying their best, okay? I'd like to see you juggle running the banks and the media and the universities and Hollywood and the United Nations!"

And honestly? That guy would be right. It's hard managing all of that at once, and nobody gives us an iota of credit for it.

This was an interesting bit of trivia I didn't know about. In 1944, 2nd Lt. Jackie Robinson -- yes, that Jackie Robinson -- was court-martialed after refusing to move to the back of a bus on a Texas army base. The army had recently desegregated army buses on army bases, and so Robinson knew he was entirely in the right when he refused to move back. Nonetheless, he was taken into custody and interrogated by a superior officer who was none too keen on the "uppity" Robinson.

Robinson was charged with insubordination, but in part thanks to excellent representation and in part thanks to sterling testimony by his battalion commander, he was acquitted of all charges.

The latest wedding prep item to be checked off the list is my wedding suit. I like it. It's snazzy. Still have to pick it up post-alterations, though.

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Anil Kalhan explains what was evident to anyone paying attention: John Roberts didn't "overturn" Korematsu in Trump v. Hawaii -- he renamed it.

What do you call a Jewish Indian fusion food truck? Nu Deli. I love this more than I can express (semi-related: I picked up The Last Jews of Karala: The 2,000-Year History of India's Forgotten Jewish Community at a bookstore the other day. So far, so good.).

Right now, we're seeing growing recognition of the full diversity of the Jewish community. That's good. But it also means reckoning seriously with the fact that the Jewish community has not always been welcoming of our full diversity. Hey Alma hosted a roundtable discussion with six Jews of Color that's definitely worth a read. Sandra Lawson and Donna Cephas write of racism they've experienced within the Jewish community. And the Baltimore Jewish Times just ran a profile on Mendel Davis, son of an African-American Chabad Rabbi.

Nobody expects the National Review to defend the Spanish Inquisition!

An interesting blast from the past: the Jewish Current reprints an exchange between Rabbi Joachim Prinz and an antisemitic Christian pastor who heard him speak at an army base in Abilene, Texas. It is striking reading, precisely because the pastor's arguments come couched in language we'd recognize today: he condemns Nazism, acknowledges the existence of some good Jews, speaks in unfailingly polite terms -- but nonetheless makes sweeping generalizations against the faith as a whole to justify his bigotry. It's well worth reading not because of how alien it is, but because of how little the language of "civil" bigotry has changed over the past seventy years.

JTA profiles Alma Hernandez, a 25-year old Mexican-American Jewish women running for a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives. (She's also being targeted by David Duke, which is possibly the least surprising thing imaginable).

It is a date that will live in infamy (which I missed by a week. I was busy, okay?). The day that the Jews finally succeeded in getting the Japanese to attack the United States at Pearl Harbor, which in turn brought the United States into World War II to fight against Hitler. [http://incogman.net/2012/12/roosevelt-wanted-the-japs-to-attack-pearl-harbor/]

ONE OF THE big questions of history is whether or not Roosevelt knew the Japs were going to bomb Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. You know, “The Day of Infamy” and all that jazz. Well, I’m here to tell you that not only did FDR know the Japs were coming, he purposefully worked at goading them to do just that for over a year!

Finding a way to get Americans in a fighting mood for his fat cat International Jew buds became FDR’s secret lust after getting re-elected for his second term. He really wanted America to get at Der Fuehrer man, the Jew’s worst enemy at the time (and still going strong to this day). The deal was to make the Japs attack us first and get Americans riled-up enough to deflect into killing the enemies of the Globalist Jews — the Nazi Germans (White people). The Japs stabbing us in the back would be just the ticket. Pretty much the same thing happened with 9/11 and Iraq, when you think it all out.

Did we give up when the Jews bombed Pearl Harbor!?!?!

Ahem. Anyway, have the Japanese attack America to ensure that we go into Europe and save the Jews almost a decade after Hitler came to power. The misdirect bankshot is indeed a favored tactic of my people. As the author well knows:

DR even admitted a “Europe first” effort from day-one (because of logistics he couldn’t hide it). Most of America didn’t want to go fight in another European war overseas (88% were against it in a poll at the time). However, the fools sucked-down FDR’s bold-faced lie about keeping them out of war and re-elected the squirrelly bastard to another term (or the election was stolen). That sealed the deal for 2,500 dead at Pearl Harbor and another 418,000 dead American Goyim (virtually all White Gentile men) over the next four years, to say nothing of tens of millions of other people in the world.

“So, what’s all this got to do with me, in this day and age?” You might be asking.

Let’s just say you live in a pissant little town somewhere in middle America, minding your own business, trying to make a buck. Now, imagine some hook-nosed, greedy Khazar bastard someplace (maybe even Tel Aviv), who wants to stir-up war hysteria against Iran by faking a terror attack on America. At this very moment Mr. Chubby Neocohen has just spun himself around in a little circle with a blindfold on and jabbed his fat, freckled finger on a map — right where your White ass lives. Guess what? Sayonara, sucker!

And the best part is that it totally fits with the aggressive steps FDR was taking to save Jewish refugees at the time!

A local news channel is aghast that Sidwell Friends school (where Sasha and Malia Obama attend) served (gasp) Asian food on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor:

What are President Obama's kids eating at school on Pearl Harbor day? Japanese food and other Asian items.
[...]
Here are the options for Malia Obama and her sister, Sasha on the "Day that will live in Infamy:"

Asian Mushroom Soup
Oriental Noodle Salad
Classic Spinach Salad
Teriyaki Marinated Chicken Strips
Szechuan Tofu & Veggies
Garlic Roasted Edamame
Vegetable Fried Rice
Fortune Cookies

One might note that while Teriyaki chicken is Japanese, Szechuan Tofu is in fact Chinese. And while yes, one can lump them all together as "Asian" cuisine, believe it or not Pearl Harbor was not an attack on America by the entire Asian continent. It's true. In fact, I have credible sources that tell me we were allied with the folks who gave us Szechuan Tofu & Veggies in that very conflict! True story.

(Via, with the original pointer from my former history Professor, Harry Williams).

Forgive me, I've been busy.

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A host of leftist luminaries, including Noam Chomsky, have lent their imprimatur to a book which, among other things, effectively denies the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Well, let nobody accuse folks of singling out the Jews anymore, at least.

The internal IDF probe of the Gaza flotilla incident (distinct from the independent Terkel commission) has found mistakes in the operation, but fully sanctioned the use of force by the commandos. One of its observations was that there aren't really that many ways to stop a ship from going someplace without boarding it, and there aren't that many ways to board a ship whose crew is violently resisting without yourself using some violence.

Whoever wrote the screenplay for this World War II thing I keep seeing on the History Channel needs to find a new profession. I mean, sheesh.

It's not nice to kick folks while they're down, but Matt Yglesias I think is appropriately harsh to journalists just now discovering that John McCain is 95% hack. He didn't really change, you just weren't paying attention.

Switzerland refuses to extradite Roman Polanski, bowing to an international outcry that punishing a convicted child rapist is a gross injustice when the rapist is friends with important to people.

Adam Serwer has a good post on the Justice Department dropping voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party.

The NAACP is considering a resolution condemning racism in the Tea Party movement.

Daniel Schwammenthal has an interesting column up about a German exhibition that was to note Nazi sympathy in the Arab and Palestinian community (expressed notably, but not uniquely, by Haj Amin al Husseini), as part of a broader exploration of "The Third World in the Second World War". The exhibit was canceled, the column indicates, because the curator of the center did not like the indication of potential Arab complicity in the Holocaust.

Norm Geras takes issue with the opening of the piece, which reads as follows:

One widespread myth about the Mideast conflict is that the Arabs are paying the price for Germany's sins. The notion that the Palestinians are the "second victims" of the Holocaust contains two falsehoods: It suggests that without Auschwitz, there would be no justification for Israel, ignoring 3,000 years of Jewish history in the land. It also suggests Arab innocence in German crimes, ignoring especially the fascist past of Palestinian leader Haj Amin al Husseini, who was not only Grand Mufti of Jerusalem but also Waffen SS recruiter and Nazi propagandist in Berlin.

Geras responds:

It is true that Israel's existence has a justification that is independent of the Holocaust (though it is not inconsistent with the justification due to the Holocaust). But Arab and Palestinian collaboration with Nazism has no bearing on what the Palestinians lost or what they have suffered because of Israel's creation. To maintain the contrary is to make every Palestinian responsible for Haj Amin al Husseini. It is also to treat the existence of Israel as a form of punishment - punishment on account of Husseini and other Arabs who were complicit with Nazism.

I think Geras is mistaking what's going on here. It is quite true that whatever role the Palestinian political community did or didn't play in the Holocaust has nothing to do with what the Palestinians have lost in this conflict. But Geras is wrong to say that noting the vibrant enactment of Arab anti-Semitism in that time period is to treat Israel like a punishment. It is true that anti-Israel zealots like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad try to promote that framing as a turn against the Holocaust-justification, so they can then say that Israel should have been established in Germany. But they miss the point because, as usual, they categorically refuse to center the focus on Jews as moral beings of worth and dignity. It makes the center of the story the Germans, (one of) the perpetrators, rather than the Jews, the victims.

When people cite the Holocaust as a reason for creating Israel, they're not saying Israel was a punishment against perpetrators. They're saying Israel was protection for a victimized group, with the Holocaust being a particularly dramatic instantiation of that victimization. Noting the eager willingness of many Arab leaders to partake and promote in that atrocity demonstrates that the need for this shelter did not exist merely in Europe, that essentially where ever Jews lived -- be it Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East -- the prevailing powers could not be trusted to protect Jewish lives. Israel was established, fundamentally, because the rest of the world had proven itself impossible to trust. Haj Amin al Husseini is a demonstration that this was as true of the local Arab political class as it was of the contemporary European political class.

As I've written before, when dealing with sustained and ingrained systems of discrimination, like racism or anti-Semitism, I'm less interested in "getting the bad guys" than I am in making sure that the disadvantaged group has access to what they need in order to live fulfilling lives in an egalitarian social sphere. Sometimes, that means retribution against discrete perpetrators -- I don't want to minimize that -- but it is a severe misunderstanding of justice to think that's all that it means. It is only when we have these blinders on that restrict "justice" to "punishment" that we view the justice of establishing Israel as making sense only within a frame of punishment, rather than in a frame of securing equality and equal global citizenship.

It doesn't have to be about punishment. Indeed, it shouldn't be about punishment. It's about giving Jews what they need in order to be equals in global society.

Via.

For someone who blogs as much as I do about issues of anti-Semitism and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I think I've shown admirable restraint in the amount of ink I've spilled over the various Human Rights Watch controversies that have sprung up of late. I believe I've written but two posts: about Joe Stork's past, and about about how they pitched themselves to various potential Saudi funders.

The latest of these is reports that a former analyst, Marc Galasco, for HRW doubles as an avid collector of Nazi war memorabilia. He specializes in "flak badges", which he literally wrote the book on, and this provides the muse for his internet handle: "Flak 88" (the Nazis operated an 88mm flak cannon during the war). Garlasco has relatives who fought both for the Nazis and the Americans during the war.

There are, as always, a lot of things to be said here. The first is that I really do not believe there is any ill intent behind the "Flak 88" moniker. The objection is that 88 is symbolic for "Heil Hitler" in Nazi circles. Perhaps I'm too credulous though, but that a specialist in flak guns naming himself after a prominent flak cannon seems more likely than closet Nazi sympathies. At worst it is insensitive and stupid, but those are qualities which are alas not in short supply in the world.

And in general, that's my view on Garlasco. It's a bit weird to be a collector of Nazi medals, just in general. It's not necessarily a sign of Nazi sympathies, and it doesn't mean that Garlasco cannot be an objective human rights analyst. The "positive" information we get out of Garlasco's hobby is very little.

But -- and this is what I want to focus on -- there is an expressive dimension to what Garlasco and HRW did that I think is disturbing. When the story broke, HRW responded in what is rapidly becoming typical fashion: accusing critics of being motivated solely by the desire "to deflect attention from Human Rights Watch’s rigorous and detailed reporting on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by the Israeli government." You know Jews -- they're only after that one thing.

Human Rights Watch is an NGO that does incredibly important work. It is absolutely critical that it comport itself in a manner that does not even give the appearance of partiality. This is a high standard -- behaviors and practices that do not actually lead to biased reporting can nonetheless undermine a perception of impartiality. Maybe giving millions of dollars to your judges re-election campaign won't influence his vote, but the Supreme Court was absolutely right, in my view, to say recusal is required anyway. The appearance of a potential source of bias -- the nagging doubt, the voice in the back of the head -- is sufficient. Without a commitment to that sort of standard, the entire edifice upon which the judiciary's legitimacy is built upon -- trust -- comes crashing down. And same with an organization like HRW, that likewise casts itself as a neutral, dispassionate judge on the state of human rights worldwide.

HRW seems to be losing sight of this. In it's haste to deflect any and all criticisms as the workings of bitter pro-Israel partisans, it is forgetting that it's job isn't to flash how independent it is from the influence of pro-Israel supporters -- it's job is to be a trusted and neutral arbiter on human rights. And, hard as it might be, that means that no matter how loud NGO Monitor shouts, they cannot be seen as enemy nor friend. Groups who take it upon themselves to be adjudicators don't have the luxury of friends or enemies -- only an interest in fairness and justice. The minute they forget that is the minute the cease to be a useful resource in the struggle for human rights.

The problem is that, even if everything Whitson and Stork and Garlasco has ever done is entirely above board, the expressive message HRW is sending out is that it does not particularly care if Jewish persons and organizations find them biased, unfair, or hostile. The behavior may be facially innocent, but it is of the sort that leads to legitimate suspicion -- all the more so when it becomes a pattern -- and that in turn is at odds with HRW's mission to be a trusted and dispassionate resource for human rights advocates.

It does creep me out that somebody focusing on Israel's human rights record is a collector of Nazi paraphernalia. I'm sorry, but it does. It's not like descendents of slaves collecting tokens of racism, because Garlasco is not a descendant of Holocaust survivors, he's the descendant of a German soldier. He is George Allen in this story, not Bill Cosby. I am no more sympathetic to the claim that it is unfair that victims of oppression can collect mementos of their oppressors, whereas perpetrators (and their progeny) cannot than I am to complaints that White folks can't use the n-word.

I'm not sure that I'd go as far as this CST post, but it is very true that promoting a marketplace for Nazi mementos is an act that has consequences no matter how innocent the motives. It has real effects on the survivors, and it has real effects on the climate that Jews (and other victims of the Holocaust) have to live in. We say the same thing about Southern good ol' boys who love flying those Stars and Bars. Maybe it is about heritage for them. But there are other people to (not) think about. At best, Garlasco didn't consider that. And what message does that send?

This is not paranoia. These are fair concerns. And they are exacerbated when HRW's response is that as far as it's concerned, any and all Jewish complaints can be dismissed with a wave as pro-Israel posturing. Why on earth would we trust an institution which is transmitting these messages?

Dave Kopel, the Volokh Conspiracy's resident gun scholar, has an interesting request of his readers. Or rather, an interestingly juxtaposed pair of two requests:

I believe I have read--but I can't recall where-- that during the Second World War, some English pacifists proposed that when the Nazi troops arrived in England, unopposed by military resistance (thanks to pacifist policy), they should be greeted with Christian love. Such a greeting would be disarming, and the Nazis, seeing that the invaded population were Christian friends rather than belligerents, would realize the error of the war-like Nazi ways.

Does anyone have a citation or other information about this proposal?

.... How a good article or book chapter on Frantz Fanon's influence in promoting racist violence and other terrorism? There's mention of this scattered in many sources, but how about a consolidated, extended treatment?

Hmmm.

Now, I admit to playing psychologist as to the motives of Kopel's request, but I feel pretty confident about this. The former bleg is about the need to sometimes violently resist oppression. The latter bleg is indicting Fanon for encouraging...the violent resistence of oppression. The British pacifists were clearly unrealistic in their appraisal of Nazi evil (and of course, the Jew in me knows what happens to those of us who are not by any twist "Christian friends"). But the French colonization of Algeria was undeniably evil as well -- is Kopel guilty of misapprehending the nature of the situation as well? There's no indication that pacifism would have been any more likely to drive the French out of Africa than it would have been a deterrent to Nazi occupation of the UK.

Fanon, at least, was consistent: he won the Croix de Guerre after being wounded fighting for the Free French Forces in World War II.