If you have a point to make, I'd be glad to hear it. But snotty insult + "here's a link" is of no interest to me. Especially consider (A) My post has a section specifically arguing that the hatred for Jews is not found on all campuses or in all parts of the country, and (B) The link you provided is to the New York Times--which is notoriously unreliable on these subjects.
As we say in Virginia, bless your heart. … … Your bio says you “write books.” I’m guessing that “How to Win Friends and Influence People” was not among your works. … … In fact, I did read the links as soon as you sent them. But if the best that Most Highly Esteemèd Writer of Books can say in a comment is, essentially, “Fuck you, here are some links,” I’m not going to waste my time responding. You take care, now.
“The Haredi” do not support Hamas, and saying so reveals a breathtaking lack of understanding of that community. You are likely referring to the Neturei Karta—a tiny and batshit-crazy Haredi splinter group. They regularly put their insanity on parade, including in this situation. They often show up at anti-Israel rallies out of delusional millenarian religious beliefs—not out of any sympathy for the Palestinians. Other Haredi have roundly condemned the Neturei Karta in this case and previously. In short, they are freaks—and the enemies of Israel love to trot them out to denigrate Jews in general.
As for Soros, perhaps you did not read my second section, which says, “most antisemites of the past were quite fond of Jews—as long as said Jews were sufficiently contemptuous of other Jews.” One might argue that Soros fits that mold.
The Israeli government has never “supported” Hamas. They have played tactical games in attempts to play Hamas off against Fatah. I have no difficulty saying that the Israeli government has sometimes attempted to be too clever by half in these machinations and that their decisions have sometimes badly misfired.
My blog, my life, my Judaism, my rules. Neturei Karta is a tiny, tiny, tiny band of fanatical weirdos who do not in any way, shape, or form represent me, Judaism, or even the Haredi. I didn't say they weren't Jewish. I said they are nobodies/assholes who have nearly zero support outside of their own deranged little circle.
And yes, as I said, Israel's policies toward Hamas vs Fatah under Netanyahu will likely look terrible in hindsight. But I suspect a large percentage of Israelis understand that it was a Machiavellian gamble to stave off the PA/Fatah, which many perceived as a greater danger. At present, that gamble looks to have been a case of drawing from an inside straight. But, if the end result is to trigger events that lead to the destruction of Hamas, then it may well prove to be the case where inside straight wins the day. We shall see.
But to repeat, nowhere in my writing did I EVER say that NK or Soros or others weren't Jews. I merely said that they are the sort of Jews whom Jew-haters love to parade around. Do not put words in my mouth.
Sorry folks. I rarely remove readers' comments and block the writer but made an exception in this case. This particular commenter repeatedly ascribed words and sentiments to me which I have never said and doubled down on the accusations after I corrected him. There was considerably more incivility, but I'll leave at this.
> Sorry for the good people caught up in the mess, but sometimes that happens. No doubt, Enron, FTX, and Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities had some fine, honest, dedicated employees—but that would not have justified preserving irredeemably corrupt institutions.
When I read this, the first thing that comes to mind is Genesis chapter 18, from about verse 23 on and continuing through to 19: 29.
A few thoughts: Moore is either stupid or evil. He makes the comments he does because he can confuse and distract people how are ill informed or tend to the hateful either of the west or in this case Jews. Moore isn’t stupid.
I have also used Hamasnicks to describe the people who support the murder of Jews in the Middle East and beyond. Even if they spout slogans they don’t even understand. When my son was in third grade and would call another student an a??ho?? He would get into trouble. I asked him to desist but that became futile. I told he to use the word cloaca because no one not even his teachers would know what that meant (except the science teacher) and at least I wouldn’t have to make a trip to his school. It worked until he was old enough to control himself. This kids are just as immature as my 8 year old son was but more dangerous. I don’t buy they don’t know what “from the river to the sea” means even if they can’t identify the river or the sea.
Lastly one should not feel sorry for those that are descent for losing their jobs working for a corrupt institution. The good ones will find new jobs the complicit ones should suffer.
Nicely done, Professor. So it turns out that among your many gifts is that of invective! I've seen a lot of unfavorable things written about Michael Moore but you have taken his cake. He's always reminded me of Aarfy Aardvark in Catch-22: always showing up in the way at inopportune times, and totally oblivious to the anger and scorn he provokes.
I have always assumed that Moore had a very difficult childhood of being very unliked by his peers. His response evidently was to become a raging A-hole who crapped on everything he thinks matters to them. The fact that he became a very wealthy (anti-union Marxist) pseudo-documentarian was merely icing on his cake. (Has he had a hit in the past 20 years?)
He obviously quit trying to think in any real sense, but to use what intellect he has to spit in the faces of those he dislikes.
I'm not certain he ever tried to think, but perhaps you're right. Your comment about his childhood reminds me of one of my favorite lines from the early days of "The Simpsons." It involves Roy Cohn. But I think I'll save that story for an upcoming column. :)
Ever see The Mikado? When the Lord High Executioner mentions among his list of societal undesirables who no one would ever miss "the idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this and every country but his own," it always makes me think of Moore.
I've never seen The Mikado, but I certainly know bits and pieces, including snippets of The Lord High Executioner. But somehow, this particular line escaped my notice. While I am not a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan, this particular line elevates them considerably in my esteem. :)
I'm quite fond of "Carmen," "Porgy and Bess," and "The Barber of Seville" (but only the Bugs Bunny version). I enjoy various individual tunes, such as "Nessun Dorma," "O mio babbino caro," “Vesti la giubba,”and "The Grand March" from Aida. I love the melodies from "The Umbrellas of Cherbourgh" and "Black Orpheus;" I would call those opera-adjacent, though I'm not sure anyone else would do so. I would prefer to listen to an evening of pile drivers and wood-chippers than "Carmina Burana," though "O Fortuna" has a certain charm--especially with misheard lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIwrgAnx6Q8 Beyond these, I try to limit my opera consumption to no more than one-half of my polka consumption.
Oh, invective has long been one of my proudest gifts. In the decades when I was in the employ of others, I resisted rolling out that talent--sometimes because I thought it prudent and other times because my employers put the kibosh on it. Now that I am self-employed, with adequate savings, prudence is an option. One of my better examples of invective was an unpublished 2007 column on Paul Krugman's attempt to dismiss all non-leftist healthcare ideas with the wave of his hand. (When my brand-new boss read it, she aborted it as swiftly as the CCP did second pregnancies in the time of the One-Child Policy. My column was titled "Mr. Krugman, Make Us a Dream"--in which I compared his logic to that of the Chordettes in their hit song "Mr. Sandman." Rather than give you a snippet here, I think I shall publish it at last--it still holds up. And to my profound amusement, I just noticed that it included the line, "Krugman hollows out his own credibility by offering high praise of Michael Moore's mambo through the gleaming facades of El Pueblo Potemkin de Habana." You shall see the column in full in a forthcoming piece.
It seems that the quality of discourse emanating from the left has seriously declined over the last few decades. While the presence of Jihadi-engineered victimhood of Palestine has been on campuses since I was an undergrad in the early 1970s, the rhetoric today is as infantile as it is despicable. One would think that being a useful idiot of unreformed seventh century Islamic Jihad and a kafir would trigger some kind of self-awareness. Perhaps this is a reason why knowledge of Islam is considered by the left to be a "hate crime". As for the oldest hatred, the progressive's "interest" in the early German national socialism going into temporary hibernation post holocaust, is Israel's existential survival now a catalyst for the resurfacing of the pathology or are todays activists just ignorant of history?
"Jihadi-engineered victimhood of Palestine" is one way to put it. But in reality, the victimhood-of-Palestine narrative was, more than anything else, a contrivance of the KGB's marketing department. They saw it as a way to demonize Israel and, through Israel, the U.S. And, as was so often the case, the KGB was highly insightful and quite successful in soiling the world with its handiwork.
No one is bringing this into the public consciousness. I believe there are receipts from the opening of the KGB files in the '90s, I don't know where or how to look. I've read that a Madison ave ad agency assisted the KGB, I don't know the name.
You impute far more intelligence to Michael Moore than he has ever evinced any evidence of possessing. There is no chance in hell that he would be aware of any of the historical or polemical points you make, nor that he would read anything at variance with his self-virtuous pretensions of reasoning. I suggest that simply pointing out he is a moron is ample. There are useful idiots, and by extension, useless idiots. I don’t think Moore rates either adjective. Arguing against him is emblematic of that old adage never try to teach a pig to sing – you will only waste your time, and you will piss off the pig.
As for the others, I will repeat what I have told countless police officers in training – if someone says he is going to kill you, it is okay to believe him. Deal with people as they are, and prove themselves to be, not what you hope they are or will become.
I have no idea what and how much goes on in his head. Figuring that out is like an astronomer struggling to obtain information on what goes on within a black hole. Your comment on "If someone says he is going to kill you, it is okay to believe him" is popular in Israel--stated as "When an enemy says he is going to kill you, believe him" by Eliyahu Ben Elissar-- the country's first ambassador to Egypt, who was himself a Holocaust survivor.
I just re-read “Antisemitism’s Sharp Left Turn: An Open Letter to My Left-of-Center Friends” (most of whom, I wager, either never read the letter or are no longer friends, not that anything in it is unfriendly). It has held up quite well to the quarter-century that has passed since last December. The one thing that struck me is that Marjorie Taylor Greene then had little influence; since then her influence waxed and almost became immense; and since that waned again, somewhat.
Glad it has held up for you. You’d be surprised how many left-of-center friends did read it and did discuss with me their own regrets and feelings of betrayal. MTG is viewed by Rs as a wacko and clown. Her equivalents on the left (the Squad) get praise and concessions from the president.
If you’re going to write that “Netanyahu is, in some respects, a problematic figure—a topic for another day.” then write on it another day..
The dislike of Bibi is hardly limited to the left-read the polls in Israel. It’s him and his coalition that have shown themselves incapable-daily- of any far reaching strategy.
Other than that, well written and appreciate your modulated outrage-of which I agree entirely..
I plan to. It may be a tad more nuanced than you might like. In brief: It's possible though as yet unproven that he's corrupt. Contrary to your comment, I think his coalition may be TOO strategic--fixed in their views and far too resistant to flexibility. Their Machiavellian tactics arguably exceed their cleverness. But, contrary to those polls, he has been the most successful politician in the country's history--leader of the right for most of the past 30 years and prime minister for a majority that time, in a notoriously chaotic parliamentary system where few if any rivals have managed to stay near the top for long. One can argue that his intransigence has been a natural response to the vicious Palestinian betrayals of his more amiable, flexible rivals. In a system with term limits, he would likely be remembered as a controversial giant, but without such guardrails, he has lingered far too long for his own good or for Israel's. But he is probably the best-situated leader to respond to October 7--defiant and determined to wipe out Hamas, despite pressure from the feckless Biden. And there is context--the Israeli and Diaspora Left and the enemies of Israel portray him as corrupt and venal and autocratic, he pales in those respects next to practically any other head of state in the region--and yet those corrupt, venal, autocratic potentates attract far less criticism (if any) from from Bernie Sanders or Chuck Schumer or Haaretz or UN factota. I will write this up in more organized fashion at some point.
The Israeli parties now attacking him for insufficient suspicion of Hamas and other enemies spent the previous ten years attacking him for too much suspicion of Hamas and other enemies. Their message may be right, but they’re precisely the wrong people to have it—including Blue and White.
It’s lazy to compare Bibi to the sheiks or dictators. What IS worth comparing is the Stare of Israel to its surrounding neighbours of kingdoms and autocracies.
It’s an important distinction. As the only democratic state, the only country with an educational infrastructure, R&D, high enough income and GDP relative to elsewhere in the ME, it’s a gem.
But that’s separate from the puerile comments Bibi and his unctuous coalition spews.
Bibi needs to go-the sooner the better, and stop extending his middle finger to the only (now wobbly) ally on the planet, and stop with the ‘total victory’ blather-which his own countrymen no longer believe.
Note on decorum: If you wish to say that my comparison of Bibi is inappropriate or wrongheaded, that's fine. If you want to say that I'm being lazy, I'll save my conversation for others.
When people like Chuck Schumer rail against Netanyahu and not against the tinpot tyrants in the surrounding countries, he gives the false impression that Israeli is a uniquely terrible country. That impression is exploited by antisemites and parroted by low-information readers/viewers/voters. In this case, the author of the Atlantic piece also chose to repeat a libelous accusation made against Isaac Herzog--one that falsely portrays him and Israel as utterly immoral.
My objection to left-wingers' compulsion to condemn Netanyahu in every article, interview, and conversation is that Netanyahu is a non sequitur, and the criticism of him offers the other side a convenient way to evade substantive discussion of the actual matters at hand--in this case, the single-minded, eternal barbarity of Hamas.
Netanyahu is a non sequitur in that Hamas and the PA do not wish to destroy Israel because of Netanyahu. Had he vanished from the scene a decade ago, October 7 still would have happened. As my article noted, the Second Intifada occurred under the watch of Ehud Barak--who ousted Netanyahu from the premiership and was everything that Netanyahu-haters dreamed of. Ariel Sharon went to great lengths to give the Gazans everything they wanted and more--and the reward was 18 years of constant missile barrage and October 7.
I am neither pro- nor anti-Netanyahu. I'm not Israeli and do not vote in their elections. But the leftist diatribes against him at inappropriate moments are overblown and profoundly destructive to the interests of Israel. He definitely has his downsides. But he has also be instrumental in modernizing and liberalizing the Israeli economy in a way that none of his predecessors ever did. The high GDP that you extol is in no small Netanyahu's legacy. Netanyahu--not his predecessors--signed peace treaties with Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Sudan. He visited Oman and has brought the Saudis to the edge of diplomatic recognition. With him as prime minister, Saudi Arabia and Jordan effectively formed a military alliance with Israel to stave off the Iranian attack on Israel.
You cite "polls" as proof that his countrymen have rejected him. But they keep electing his party and its partners to office, and those parties keep choosing him as prime minister. And he has presided over a remarkably single-minded war cabinet that includes his bitterest foes.
It is striking that you consider Netanyahu's demand for total victory to be "blather." On that one point, I am 100% in agreement that there is no viable alternative to total victory over Hamas. He rightfully refuses to buckle under to the American left's demands that Israel walk away and leave Hamas intact and in charge; is that the "middle finger" to which you refer? I see a great many American middle fingers pointed toward Netanyahu--primarily extending from left hands.
And to repeat--I am not a Netanyahu partisan. Merely one who sees the same self-harming tendencies in the Israeli left as I see in the American left.
Well noted on decorum, and will certainly be more circumspect in my future comments. I have no interest in ping-pong-ing back and forth. You've clearly articulated your opinion on Bibi; that you're neither pro or con but feel the criticism of him (from the 'left') is destructive for Israel.
I don't agree. That's what a democracy does-and should do; hold the government accountable. And Lord knows he has a lot to account for. They keep choosing him because the options have been appallingly bad for the most part. He'll be gone whenever they hold the next election.
Enoch Powell's famous quote is applicable here. Regardless of how much he may have enriched Israelis in the past, his legacy of Oct 7 is what he will be remembered for.
Thank you for your thoughtful and measured reply, much appreciated.
You wrote: “You've clearly articulated your opinion on Bibi; that you're neither pro or con but feel the criticism of him (from the 'left') is destructive for Israel.”
NOOOOPE!!!!! That’s not at all what I’m saying.
I’m saying there’s a time and a place to criticize Netanyahu. He deserves plenty of criticism. But when you have violent, menacing antisemitism spreading like cancer over the world, it’s not helpful to interrupt every single conversation on Israel with an I-hate-Bibi self-flagellation. And especially not if, as the writer did in The Atlantic, you toss in a blood libel fabrication against President Herzog to boot. When you gratuitously insert intramural politics in such an article, you grant license for readers to focus on that, rather than on your principal point—which is the presence of antisemitic goons preaching extermination on campuses.
If it is 1938, the morning after Kristallnacht, and The Atlantic invites you to write a big article on the rising terror felt by German Jews, you’d be extremely foolish to insert a paragraph saying, “By the way, I think David ben Gurion is a TERRIBLE representative of the Jews of Palestine. His Soviet-influenced ideology is EXTREMELY damaging to the people of the area, and he will be remembered as one of the WORST leaders in Jewish history.” And you would be recklessly self-destructive to add in that “Ze’ev Jabotinsky thinks there are NO innocent, decent Germans”--especially if the statement was a falsehood spread by some League of Nations functionary.
The Atlantic writer said, in effect, “Netanyahu is an immoral horror story of historic proportions." And you've said he keeps getting re-elected because the other options are worse. Those statements confirm the worst impressions of Israel. And you say you’re sure he’ll be gone after the next election, to which any critic can say, "I've heard that for 28 years."
If Bibi presides over the utter destruction of Hamas—which is his aim—his legacy will be nothing like that of Enoch Powell. He would almost certainly be re-elected and lionized in history.
By all means, write scathing criticisms of Netanyahu. Just don’t insert a preview of them in every article published. And maybe, just maybe, hold off submitting them till the bloodthirsty mobs have been cleared off the campuses.
Thanks for the nod on decorum. I sometimes step over the line, too. I aspire to be as gracious as you when I’m called on it.
My mother lived through Kristallnacht in Vienna, and she was just speaking about it recently to a Sunday school group, as her father was interned in Dachau ( I still have his postcards with the barrack number..)
Criticism can certainly make things difficult for Bibi, but much of it is within Israel, not simply op-ed pieces. And I cannot prevent the histrionics of anti-Semitism which always lurks close by, but can level my ire at a government.
George Bush was roundly criticised by fellow Americans and reelected under the premise of‘finishing the job.’ We know how that turned out.
I’ll take your counsel and hold off on any further comments in print for a while. But being a scared Jew, and worried about the ‘bloodthirsty mobs’ dispersing does me no good either.
I have not mentioned the pro Hamas protesters as that’s a different topic rather than a governmental pivot in war time, and how they choose to react and fight.
Since none of the anti-Israel protesters on American college campuses are in any danger from Hamas, it seems to me obvious hypocrisy on their part to attack Israelis who are. It reminds me of George Orwell's biting reply to Alex Comfort's pacifism during the Second World War:
The Progressive/Commie Democrats have kicked Jews out of the party. That’s what is going on.If you want to stay at the party, it’s dhimmitude for you. Most of this is to help Obama save Iran and destroy America. He’s a clever social engineer, who pits everybody against each other. If you’re a Jew who keeps voting for Democrats at this point, you’re an imbecille and I don’t have anything else to tell you. Trump is the best answer. I don’t care if you have disdain for him. He’s on your side and his policies are generally beneficial to American citizens and Israelis.
There's a peculiar asymmetry. Trump voters I know seem uniformly aware that he is an utter asshole; they either like that aspect of him, are indifferent to it, or tolerate it because the only alternative is Biden and the Democrats. On the other hand, Biden voters I know seem utterly mystified when I decline to agree with their insistence that Biden is *obviously* superior to Trump.
Most of the student protesters have no idea what it means to be hated or to see your friends and family murdered. To them, protesting what they've been told to protest, is just what good people do.
Their professors, who should have taught them to think about those things, are part of the problem. Therefore, I agree with you. Columbia - and all the ivies - delenda est.
As for the students, they fit the Eric Hoffer mold that I often mention--bored affluent underachievers who become fanatics in order to give their sorry lives some purpose. As for the professors, after WWII, the US government sent a psychiatrist Leo Alexander to Germany to investigate why German doctors hadn't done more to stop the medical horrors associated with the Holocaust. The reason, he discovered, was that those doctors were the ones thinking up those medical horrors in the first place.
My mind immediately went to the medical horrors inflicted on adolescents regarding gender re-assignment (or better known as mutilation) currently inflicted by doctors who have abandoned any notion of ‘do no harm’. How will history record this travesty.
Prof. Graboyes, if the student protestors took up the pro-Hamas cause in pursuit of purpose in their lives, then won't they go on to future causes no matter how inane when this one peters out? And if so, how can I make some money out of it?
Yes. I frequently mention Eric Hoffer's THE TRUE BELIEVER: THOUGHTS ON THE NATURE OF MASS MOVEMENTS. Mass movements, he argued, are populated by bored, well-to-do underachievers who become adherents to fanatical movements as a way of giving purpose to their useless existences. The specific movement that such a person joins is unimportant. Hoffer said, "When people are ripe for a mass movement, they are usually ripe for any effective movement, and not solely for one with a particular doctrine or program. In pre-Hitlerian Germany it was often a toss up whether a restless youth would join the Communists or the Nazis."
If you want to make money out of them, sell mass movement swag (e.g., pup tents, jumbo cans of spray paint, knockoff ethnic headgear, flags whose foreign script is unreadable to those who carry them, pre-packaged vegan meals).
A poor business plan, Professor. If I sold tents, cans of paint and protest merch, all I could get would be the mark-up on the tents, cans of paint, and protest merch. Yet, if I could sell racial indulgences as Black Lives Matter does, the product would cost me nothing so the revenue would be pure profit. Instead of selling tents to campus campers for pennies on the dollar, wouldn't it be more effective to sell absolution to the guilty liberal program directors at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation?
Thanks for the well-crafted explanation. And particularly your mention of Biden’s fecklessness on these matters.
If you have a point to make, I'd be glad to hear it. But snotty insult + "here's a link" is of no interest to me. Especially consider (A) My post has a section specifically arguing that the hatred for Jews is not found on all campuses or in all parts of the country, and (B) The link you provided is to the New York Times--which is notoriously unreliable on these subjects.
As we say in Virginia, bless your heart. … … Your bio says you “write books.” I’m guessing that “How to Win Friends and Influence People” was not among your works. … … In fact, I did read the links as soon as you sent them. But if the best that Most Highly Esteemèd Writer of Books can say in a comment is, essentially, “Fuck you, here are some links,” I’m not going to waste my time responding. You take care, now.
“The Haredi” do not support Hamas, and saying so reveals a breathtaking lack of understanding of that community. You are likely referring to the Neturei Karta—a tiny and batshit-crazy Haredi splinter group. They regularly put their insanity on parade, including in this situation. They often show up at anti-Israel rallies out of delusional millenarian religious beliefs—not out of any sympathy for the Palestinians. Other Haredi have roundly condemned the Neturei Karta in this case and previously. In short, they are freaks—and the enemies of Israel love to trot them out to denigrate Jews in general.
As for Soros, perhaps you did not read my second section, which says, “most antisemites of the past were quite fond of Jews—as long as said Jews were sufficiently contemptuous of other Jews.” One might argue that Soros fits that mold.
The Israeli government has never “supported” Hamas. They have played tactical games in attempts to play Hamas off against Fatah. I have no difficulty saying that the Israeli government has sometimes attempted to be too clever by half in these machinations and that their decisions have sometimes badly misfired.
My blog, my life, my Judaism, my rules. Neturei Karta is a tiny, tiny, tiny band of fanatical weirdos who do not in any way, shape, or form represent me, Judaism, or even the Haredi. I didn't say they weren't Jewish. I said they are nobodies/assholes who have nearly zero support outside of their own deranged little circle.
And yes, as I said, Israel's policies toward Hamas vs Fatah under Netanyahu will likely look terrible in hindsight. But I suspect a large percentage of Israelis understand that it was a Machiavellian gamble to stave off the PA/Fatah, which many perceived as a greater danger. At present, that gamble looks to have been a case of drawing from an inside straight. But, if the end result is to trigger events that lead to the destruction of Hamas, then it may well prove to be the case where inside straight wins the day. We shall see.
But to repeat, nowhere in my writing did I EVER say that NK or Soros or others weren't Jews. I merely said that they are the sort of Jews whom Jew-haters love to parade around. Do not put words in my mouth.
Your reading comprehension is poor. And your smarmy efforts at verbal ju-jitsu unconvincing and tedious. Good-bye.
Sorry folks. I rarely remove readers' comments and block the writer but made an exception in this case. This particular commenter repeatedly ascribed words and sentiments to me which I have never said and doubled down on the accusations after I corrected him. There was considerably more incivility, but I'll leave at this.
Thank you for explaining what these groups are really saying.
> Sorry for the good people caught up in the mess, but sometimes that happens. No doubt, Enron, FTX, and Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities had some fine, honest, dedicated employees—but that would not have justified preserving irredeemably corrupt institutions.
When I read this, the first thing that comes to mind is Genesis chapter 18, from about verse 23 on and continuing through to 19: 29.
I'll admit that I had thought of the same thing, but left it out. :)
Great Article.
A few thoughts: Moore is either stupid or evil. He makes the comments he does because he can confuse and distract people how are ill informed or tend to the hateful either of the west or in this case Jews. Moore isn’t stupid.
I have also used Hamasnicks to describe the people who support the murder of Jews in the Middle East and beyond. Even if they spout slogans they don’t even understand. When my son was in third grade and would call another student an a??ho?? He would get into trouble. I asked him to desist but that became futile. I told he to use the word cloaca because no one not even his teachers would know what that meant (except the science teacher) and at least I wouldn’t have to make a trip to his school. It worked until he was old enough to control himself. This kids are just as immature as my 8 year old son was but more dangerous. I don’t buy they don’t know what “from the river to the sea” means even if they can’t identify the river or the sea.
Lastly one should not feel sorry for those that are descent for losing their jobs working for a corrupt institution. The good ones will find new jobs the complicit ones should suffer.
Not for those that are ascent, either.
Now, now.
> A few thoughts: Moore is either stupid or evil.
[insert "why not both?" meme here]
My favorite version is "Embrace the healing power of AND."
Nicely done, Professor. So it turns out that among your many gifts is that of invective! I've seen a lot of unfavorable things written about Michael Moore but you have taken his cake. He's always reminded me of Aarfy Aardvark in Catch-22: always showing up in the way at inopportune times, and totally oblivious to the anger and scorn he provokes.
I have always assumed that Moore had a very difficult childhood of being very unliked by his peers. His response evidently was to become a raging A-hole who crapped on everything he thinks matters to them. The fact that he became a very wealthy (anti-union Marxist) pseudo-documentarian was merely icing on his cake. (Has he had a hit in the past 20 years?)
He obviously quit trying to think in any real sense, but to use what intellect he has to spit in the faces of those he dislikes.
I'm not certain he ever tried to think, but perhaps you're right. Your comment about his childhood reminds me of one of my favorite lines from the early days of "The Simpsons." It involves Roy Cohn. But I think I'll save that story for an upcoming column. :)
Ever see The Mikado? When the Lord High Executioner mentions among his list of societal undesirables who no one would ever miss "the idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this and every country but his own," it always makes me think of Moore.
I've never seen The Mikado, but I certainly know bits and pieces, including snippets of The Lord High Executioner. But somehow, this particular line escaped my notice. While I am not a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan, this particular line elevates them considerably in my esteem. :)
You must. It is the finest opera of the Nineteenth Century.
I'm quite fond of "Carmen," "Porgy and Bess," and "The Barber of Seville" (but only the Bugs Bunny version). I enjoy various individual tunes, such as "Nessun Dorma," "O mio babbino caro," “Vesti la giubba,”and "The Grand March" from Aida. I love the melodies from "The Umbrellas of Cherbourgh" and "Black Orpheus;" I would call those opera-adjacent, though I'm not sure anyone else would do so. I would prefer to listen to an evening of pile drivers and wood-chippers than "Carmina Burana," though "O Fortuna" has a certain charm--especially with misheard lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIwrgAnx6Q8 Beyond these, I try to limit my opera consumption to no more than one-half of my polka consumption.
The Mikado gets four Michelin stars: worth the trip. And I stand by what I said.
I’ll see it as long as they don’t sing. :)
Oh, invective has long been one of my proudest gifts. In the decades when I was in the employ of others, I resisted rolling out that talent--sometimes because I thought it prudent and other times because my employers put the kibosh on it. Now that I am self-employed, with adequate savings, prudence is an option. One of my better examples of invective was an unpublished 2007 column on Paul Krugman's attempt to dismiss all non-leftist healthcare ideas with the wave of his hand. (When my brand-new boss read it, she aborted it as swiftly as the CCP did second pregnancies in the time of the One-Child Policy. My column was titled "Mr. Krugman, Make Us a Dream"--in which I compared his logic to that of the Chordettes in their hit song "Mr. Sandman." Rather than give you a snippet here, I think I shall publish it at last--it still holds up. And to my profound amusement, I just noticed that it included the line, "Krugman hollows out his own credibility by offering high praise of Michael Moore's mambo through the gleaming facades of El Pueblo Potemkin de Habana." You shall see the column in full in a forthcoming piece.
The main differences between Moore and Krugman are size and the possession of a PhD.
Big differences!
It seems that the quality of discourse emanating from the left has seriously declined over the last few decades. While the presence of Jihadi-engineered victimhood of Palestine has been on campuses since I was an undergrad in the early 1970s, the rhetoric today is as infantile as it is despicable. One would think that being a useful idiot of unreformed seventh century Islamic Jihad and a kafir would trigger some kind of self-awareness. Perhaps this is a reason why knowledge of Islam is considered by the left to be a "hate crime". As for the oldest hatred, the progressive's "interest" in the early German national socialism going into temporary hibernation post holocaust, is Israel's existential survival now a catalyst for the resurfacing of the pathology or are todays activists just ignorant of history?
Some of each.
Quite a bit of each, actually.
"Jihadi-engineered victimhood of Palestine" is one way to put it. But in reality, the victimhood-of-Palestine narrative was, more than anything else, a contrivance of the KGB's marketing department. They saw it as a way to demonize Israel and, through Israel, the U.S. And, as was so often the case, the KGB was highly insightful and quite successful in soiling the world with its handiwork.
No one is bringing this into the public consciousness. I believe there are receipts from the opening of the KGB files in the '90s, I don't know where or how to look. I've read that a Madison ave ad agency assisted the KGB, I don't know the name.
Can you do a post on this with footnotes etc?
You can get a pretty good idea by Googling
"palestinian people" KGB
But, yes, I do plan to do something in the near future on the subject.
You impute far more intelligence to Michael Moore than he has ever evinced any evidence of possessing. There is no chance in hell that he would be aware of any of the historical or polemical points you make, nor that he would read anything at variance with his self-virtuous pretensions of reasoning. I suggest that simply pointing out he is a moron is ample. There are useful idiots, and by extension, useless idiots. I don’t think Moore rates either adjective. Arguing against him is emblematic of that old adage never try to teach a pig to sing – you will only waste your time, and you will piss off the pig.
As for the others, I will repeat what I have told countless police officers in training – if someone says he is going to kill you, it is okay to believe him. Deal with people as they are, and prove themselves to be, not what you hope they are or will become.
I have no idea what and how much goes on in his head. Figuring that out is like an astronomer struggling to obtain information on what goes on within a black hole. Your comment on "If someone says he is going to kill you, it is okay to believe him" is popular in Israel--stated as "When an enemy says he is going to kill you, believe him" by Eliyahu Ben Elissar-- the country's first ambassador to Egypt, who was himself a Holocaust survivor.
I just re-read “Antisemitism’s Sharp Left Turn: An Open Letter to My Left-of-Center Friends” (most of whom, I wager, either never read the letter or are no longer friends, not that anything in it is unfriendly). It has held up quite well to the quarter-century that has passed since last December. The one thing that struck me is that Marjorie Taylor Greene then had little influence; since then her influence waxed and almost became immense; and since that waned again, somewhat.
Glad it has held up for you. You’d be surprised how many left-of-center friends did read it and did discuss with me their own regrets and feelings of betrayal. MTG is viewed by Rs as a wacko and clown. Her equivalents on the left (the Squad) get praise and concessions from the president.
I probably *would* be surprised.
MTG was, briefly, a mightily influential wacko and clown.
The Squad are not her equivalents: simplifying slightly but not significantly, she’s in it just for chaos, whereas they’re actually devoted to evil.
The leftward responses have been gratifying. And I agree with you on MTG vs Squad.
If you’re going to write that “Netanyahu is, in some respects, a problematic figure—a topic for another day.” then write on it another day..
The dislike of Bibi is hardly limited to the left-read the polls in Israel. It’s him and his coalition that have shown themselves incapable-daily- of any far reaching strategy.
Other than that, well written and appreciate your modulated outrage-of which I agree entirely..
I plan to. It may be a tad more nuanced than you might like. In brief: It's possible though as yet unproven that he's corrupt. Contrary to your comment, I think his coalition may be TOO strategic--fixed in their views and far too resistant to flexibility. Their Machiavellian tactics arguably exceed their cleverness. But, contrary to those polls, he has been the most successful politician in the country's history--leader of the right for most of the past 30 years and prime minister for a majority that time, in a notoriously chaotic parliamentary system where few if any rivals have managed to stay near the top for long. One can argue that his intransigence has been a natural response to the vicious Palestinian betrayals of his more amiable, flexible rivals. In a system with term limits, he would likely be remembered as a controversial giant, but without such guardrails, he has lingered far too long for his own good or for Israel's. But he is probably the best-situated leader to respond to October 7--defiant and determined to wipe out Hamas, despite pressure from the feckless Biden. And there is context--the Israeli and Diaspora Left and the enemies of Israel portray him as corrupt and venal and autocratic, he pales in those respects next to practically any other head of state in the region--and yet those corrupt, venal, autocratic potentates attract far less criticism (if any) from from Bernie Sanders or Chuck Schumer or Haaretz or UN factota. I will write this up in more organized fashion at some point.
The Israeli parties now attacking him for insufficient suspicion of Hamas and other enemies spent the previous ten years attacking him for too much suspicion of Hamas and other enemies. Their message may be right, but they’re precisely the wrong people to have it—including Blue and White.
It’s lazy to compare Bibi to the sheiks or dictators. What IS worth comparing is the Stare of Israel to its surrounding neighbours of kingdoms and autocracies.
It’s an important distinction. As the only democratic state, the only country with an educational infrastructure, R&D, high enough income and GDP relative to elsewhere in the ME, it’s a gem.
But that’s separate from the puerile comments Bibi and his unctuous coalition spews.
Bibi needs to go-the sooner the better, and stop extending his middle finger to the only (now wobbly) ally on the planet, and stop with the ‘total victory’ blather-which his own countrymen no longer believe.
Note on decorum: If you wish to say that my comparison of Bibi is inappropriate or wrongheaded, that's fine. If you want to say that I'm being lazy, I'll save my conversation for others.
When people like Chuck Schumer rail against Netanyahu and not against the tinpot tyrants in the surrounding countries, he gives the false impression that Israeli is a uniquely terrible country. That impression is exploited by antisemites and parroted by low-information readers/viewers/voters. In this case, the author of the Atlantic piece also chose to repeat a libelous accusation made against Isaac Herzog--one that falsely portrays him and Israel as utterly immoral.
My objection to left-wingers' compulsion to condemn Netanyahu in every article, interview, and conversation is that Netanyahu is a non sequitur, and the criticism of him offers the other side a convenient way to evade substantive discussion of the actual matters at hand--in this case, the single-minded, eternal barbarity of Hamas.
Netanyahu is a non sequitur in that Hamas and the PA do not wish to destroy Israel because of Netanyahu. Had he vanished from the scene a decade ago, October 7 still would have happened. As my article noted, the Second Intifada occurred under the watch of Ehud Barak--who ousted Netanyahu from the premiership and was everything that Netanyahu-haters dreamed of. Ariel Sharon went to great lengths to give the Gazans everything they wanted and more--and the reward was 18 years of constant missile barrage and October 7.
I am neither pro- nor anti-Netanyahu. I'm not Israeli and do not vote in their elections. But the leftist diatribes against him at inappropriate moments are overblown and profoundly destructive to the interests of Israel. He definitely has his downsides. But he has also be instrumental in modernizing and liberalizing the Israeli economy in a way that none of his predecessors ever did. The high GDP that you extol is in no small Netanyahu's legacy. Netanyahu--not his predecessors--signed peace treaties with Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Sudan. He visited Oman and has brought the Saudis to the edge of diplomatic recognition. With him as prime minister, Saudi Arabia and Jordan effectively formed a military alliance with Israel to stave off the Iranian attack on Israel.
You cite "polls" as proof that his countrymen have rejected him. But they keep electing his party and its partners to office, and those parties keep choosing him as prime minister. And he has presided over a remarkably single-minded war cabinet that includes his bitterest foes.
It is striking that you consider Netanyahu's demand for total victory to be "blather." On that one point, I am 100% in agreement that there is no viable alternative to total victory over Hamas. He rightfully refuses to buckle under to the American left's demands that Israel walk away and leave Hamas intact and in charge; is that the "middle finger" to which you refer? I see a great many American middle fingers pointed toward Netanyahu--primarily extending from left hands.
And to repeat--I am not a Netanyahu partisan. Merely one who sees the same self-harming tendencies in the Israeli left as I see in the American left.
Well noted on decorum, and will certainly be more circumspect in my future comments. I have no interest in ping-pong-ing back and forth. You've clearly articulated your opinion on Bibi; that you're neither pro or con but feel the criticism of him (from the 'left') is destructive for Israel.
I don't agree. That's what a democracy does-and should do; hold the government accountable. And Lord knows he has a lot to account for. They keep choosing him because the options have been appallingly bad for the most part. He'll be gone whenever they hold the next election.
Enoch Powell's famous quote is applicable here. Regardless of how much he may have enriched Israelis in the past, his legacy of Oct 7 is what he will be remembered for.
Thank you for your thoughtful and measured reply, much appreciated.
You wrote: “You've clearly articulated your opinion on Bibi; that you're neither pro or con but feel the criticism of him (from the 'left') is destructive for Israel.”
NOOOOPE!!!!! That’s not at all what I’m saying.
I’m saying there’s a time and a place to criticize Netanyahu. He deserves plenty of criticism. But when you have violent, menacing antisemitism spreading like cancer over the world, it’s not helpful to interrupt every single conversation on Israel with an I-hate-Bibi self-flagellation. And especially not if, as the writer did in The Atlantic, you toss in a blood libel fabrication against President Herzog to boot. When you gratuitously insert intramural politics in such an article, you grant license for readers to focus on that, rather than on your principal point—which is the presence of antisemitic goons preaching extermination on campuses.
If it is 1938, the morning after Kristallnacht, and The Atlantic invites you to write a big article on the rising terror felt by German Jews, you’d be extremely foolish to insert a paragraph saying, “By the way, I think David ben Gurion is a TERRIBLE representative of the Jews of Palestine. His Soviet-influenced ideology is EXTREMELY damaging to the people of the area, and he will be remembered as one of the WORST leaders in Jewish history.” And you would be recklessly self-destructive to add in that “Ze’ev Jabotinsky thinks there are NO innocent, decent Germans”--especially if the statement was a falsehood spread by some League of Nations functionary.
The Atlantic writer said, in effect, “Netanyahu is an immoral horror story of historic proportions." And you've said he keeps getting re-elected because the other options are worse. Those statements confirm the worst impressions of Israel. And you say you’re sure he’ll be gone after the next election, to which any critic can say, "I've heard that for 28 years."
If Bibi presides over the utter destruction of Hamas—which is his aim—his legacy will be nothing like that of Enoch Powell. He would almost certainly be re-elected and lionized in history.
By all means, write scathing criticisms of Netanyahu. Just don’t insert a preview of them in every article published. And maybe, just maybe, hold off submitting them till the bloodthirsty mobs have been cleared off the campuses.
Thanks for the nod on decorum. I sometimes step over the line, too. I aspire to be as gracious as you when I’m called on it.
My mother lived through Kristallnacht in Vienna, and she was just speaking about it recently to a Sunday school group, as her father was interned in Dachau ( I still have his postcards with the barrack number..)
Criticism can certainly make things difficult for Bibi, but much of it is within Israel, not simply op-ed pieces. And I cannot prevent the histrionics of anti-Semitism which always lurks close by, but can level my ire at a government.
George Bush was roundly criticised by fellow Americans and reelected under the premise of‘finishing the job.’ We know how that turned out.
I’ll take your counsel and hold off on any further comments in print for a while. But being a scared Jew, and worried about the ‘bloodthirsty mobs’ dispersing does me no good either.
Zay gesundt..
Sorry, didn’t finish that previous comment.
I have not mentioned the pro Hamas protesters as that’s a different topic rather than a governmental pivot in war time, and how they choose to react and fight.
My thanks again for your well framed replies
Mutual, my friend.
Spot on.
Since none of the anti-Israel protesters on American college campuses are in any danger from Hamas, it seems to me obvious hypocrisy on their part to attack Israelis who are. It reminds me of George Orwell's biting reply to Alex Comfort's pacifism during the Second World War:
"And in the drowsy freedom of this island
You're free to shout that England isn't free;
They even chuck you cash, as bears get buns,
For crying 'Peace' behind a screen of guns."
Love that.
The Progressive/Commie Democrats have kicked Jews out of the party. That’s what is going on.If you want to stay at the party, it’s dhimmitude for you. Most of this is to help Obama save Iran and destroy America. He’s a clever social engineer, who pits everybody against each other. If you’re a Jew who keeps voting for Democrats at this point, you’re an imbecille and I don’t have anything else to tell you. Trump is the best answer. I don’t care if you have disdain for him. He’s on your side and his policies are generally beneficial to American citizens and Israelis.
Thanks much.
The thing I most admire admire about Trump supporters, I think, is the judicious moderation of their thought and expression.
This is without prejudice to which evil I judge to be lesser, which catastrophe less total.
Very droll and simultaneously irrelevant to the point being made. Mazeltov.
There's a peculiar asymmetry. Trump voters I know seem uniformly aware that he is an utter asshole; they either like that aspect of him, are indifferent to it, or tolerate it because the only alternative is Biden and the Democrats. On the other hand, Biden voters I know seem utterly mystified when I decline to agree with their insistence that Biden is *obviously* superior to Trump.
I know only a couple or three (of the latter) who can even bear to hear it mentioned. This doesn’t seem to me to betoken unshakable confidence.
Most of the student protesters have no idea what it means to be hated or to see your friends and family murdered. To them, protesting what they've been told to protest, is just what good people do.
Their professors, who should have taught them to think about those things, are part of the problem. Therefore, I agree with you. Columbia - and all the ivies - delenda est.
As for the students, they fit the Eric Hoffer mold that I often mention--bored affluent underachievers who become fanatics in order to give their sorry lives some purpose. As for the professors, after WWII, the US government sent a psychiatrist Leo Alexander to Germany to investigate why German doctors hadn't done more to stop the medical horrors associated with the Holocaust. The reason, he discovered, was that those doctors were the ones thinking up those medical horrors in the first place.
My mind immediately went to the medical horrors inflicted on adolescents regarding gender re-assignment (or better known as mutilation) currently inflicted by doctors who have abandoned any notion of ‘do no harm’. How will history record this travesty.
Prof. Graboyes, if the student protestors took up the pro-Hamas cause in pursuit of purpose in their lives, then won't they go on to future causes no matter how inane when this one peters out? And if so, how can I make some money out of it?
Yes. I frequently mention Eric Hoffer's THE TRUE BELIEVER: THOUGHTS ON THE NATURE OF MASS MOVEMENTS. Mass movements, he argued, are populated by bored, well-to-do underachievers who become adherents to fanatical movements as a way of giving purpose to their useless existences. The specific movement that such a person joins is unimportant. Hoffer said, "When people are ripe for a mass movement, they are usually ripe for any effective movement, and not solely for one with a particular doctrine or program. In pre-Hitlerian Germany it was often a toss up whether a restless youth would join the Communists or the Nazis."
If you want to make money out of them, sell mass movement swag (e.g., pup tents, jumbo cans of spray paint, knockoff ethnic headgear, flags whose foreign script is unreadable to those who carry them, pre-packaged vegan meals).
A poor business plan, Professor. If I sold tents, cans of paint and protest merch, all I could get would be the mark-up on the tents, cans of paint, and protest merch. Yet, if I could sell racial indulgences as Black Lives Matter does, the product would cost me nothing so the revenue would be pure profit. Instead of selling tents to campus campers for pennies on the dollar, wouldn't it be more effective to sell absolution to the guilty liberal program directors at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation?
Go for it. They might like the idea.