The 'Semitic Controversies' Thread

[Karl Radl]

Rather than post a new topic for each essay or article that I write on the jewish question (and I am trying to write a new one each day). I thought to create a general thread for essays and articles that do not; in my opinion, really merit their own stand-alone thread so that those who wish to do so can easily follow my writing on VNN. It also serves to collect them in one place so that if anything untoward happens they are preserved in an easy to use format.

This thread will be updated regularly and preferably daily with new material.

If you have any comments, questions, responsa or anything like that then please send me an email at: [email protected].

[Karl Radl]

Hypocrisy 2.0

A Book Review of Denis MacShane’s, 2008, ‘Globalising Hatred: The New Anti-Semitism’, 1st Edition, Weidenfeld & Nicholson: London

Denis MacShane is a person that if you don’t follow British politics with a particular interest in anti-Semitism and the jews you wouldn’t even know existed. MacShane is currently the Labour Member of Parliament for Rotherham and something of a philo-Semite par extraordinaire. He chaired the 2006 ‘All-Party Parliamentary Group against Anti-Semitism’, which produced a report that might as well have come from Tel Aviv as it showed little to no critical understanding of jewish claims and reports regarding ‘anti-Semitic incidents’ and in fact showed an extreme bias in simply accepting whatever it was told by jews. (1)

It was due to his sterling service to the jews; and particularly to the British ‘Israel Lobby’ (so-called), that the jews gave MacShane the chairmanship of a favourite jewish mouthpiece on the subject of anti-Semitism: ‘the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism’, which predictably conflates anything that could be considered as detrimental towards jews (such as somebody chucking a bucket of water over a jew by mistake causing the jew to be late to Shul) and actual anti-Semitism (i.e. actual opposition to jews). MacShane is also an advisory board member for the adjunct Israeli organisation ‘Just Journalism’, which ‘monitors’ the British media and howls with rage whenever anything remotely critical; or even neutral, about Israel is written by a British journalist.

MacShane’s personal character is rather shady as well as since the 2009 Expenses scandal he is alleged, by ‘The Daily Mail’, to have claimed £125,000 over 7 years for his garage, which he claims he uses as an office. An expensive office indeed! MacShane was also caught lying outright on British television when he claimed to not have described Gordon Brown’s ‘five economic tests’ as a ‘red herring’, but was actually recorded on a Dictaphone doing so (which was played back to him to his great embarrassment). MacShane then amusingly publicly wondered why on earth he had been removed from the top post as ‘he hadn’t done anything wrong’. It is also worth noting that MacShane’s father; Jan Matyjaszek, was supposedly Polish, but given MacShane’s almost inexplicable unconditional love for Israel and the jews (despite being on the political left who are normally critical of Israel and the jews) we are forced to wonder if there isn’t a jew or two hiding in his father’s family tree.

MacShane’s 2008 book is really just a statement of his own personal convictions and is only interesting because of the prominence of the author rather than because of its actual intellectual content (or rather lack of it). Although that said we should note that MacShane seems to have deliberately made it semi-impossible to look up the sourcing for his claims as either he or his; jewish, publisher; Weidenfeld & Nicholson, have decided to not use footnotes or a conventional sourcing system, but rather have put their notes at the back of the book with only references to page numbers beside each without elaborating on what specific point they are supposed to evidence. This makes it rather difficult to expose what I suspect MacShane has been up to this work: systematically misrepresenting the literature to make it seem to be much more supportive of his general thesis than it is. As it is MacShane almost exclusively uses popular pro-Israeli and pro-jewish sources and cites basically no academic literature. Rather MacShane prefers to lose himself in making the most pointless remarks about his opponents or creating the rather novel thesis that there is an anti-Semitic conspiracy against the jews. That said this thesis isn’t exactly new as it is has other notable advocates who are often just as silly and absurd as MacShane such as the corpulent John Loftus and Mark Aarons. (2)

Perhaps the reader may think I am being overly harsh and it is probably true that in some respects I am, but my reason for being so is rather simply that MacShane should firstly know better than to make the dozens of breathtakingly stupid claims and arguments and secondly that MacShane as an individual sheds a foul light upon his distortions, half-truths and outright fabrications in ‘Globalising Hatred’. In so far as he is not some bamboozled stuffed shirt with about as much common sense as your average wooden plank, but rather a slimy little toad who dresses his self-importance and outright egocentrism up as some sort of original and thought-provoking treatise.

MacShane begins his ‘book’ with the following statement of his ‘intellectual’ position, which amounts to little more than philo-Semitic filibustering and blathering:

‘Organised neo-antisemitism is like a rat in our entrails preventing just and equitable solutions to key world problems and replacing hope with hate. Combating neo-antisemitism should now be a major political priority for progressive politics. I am neither Jewish nor does the politics of ‘Israel, right or wrong’ make any sense to me. But I have spent my political life fighting racism, intolerance, hate and denial of a people’s or a state’s right to exist. I am intolerant of intolerance.’ (3)

This is obviously a piece of absurd rhetoric as opposed to the statement of an intellectually valid position on MacShane’s part. As firstly his politics are ‘Israel, right or wrong’, which can be shown by pointing to his uncontested involvement in adjunct Israeli organisations like ‘Just Journalism’, his quoting ‘right-wing’ Israeli sources; such as MEMRI, (4) without even the pretence of any criticism or filibustering about ‘taking a critical view’ and his extremely lavish praise upon Phyllis Chesler’s rather absurd and poorly received book: ‘The New Anti-Semitism’. (5) One is left wondering just how much of the substantial literature on the subject of anti-Semitism that MacShane has actually read and what he seems to have read is only what one can only class as ‘hard-line Zionist’ material of which Chesler can be considered a second tier proponent. (6)

We are thus within reason to meet MacShane’s assertion that the intellectual left; which is predictably undefined by MacShane (being the rather deceitful character that he seems to be), with outright laughter in regards to its sheer absurdity. I quote:

‘Many French intellectuals and political activists on the left suspend critical judgement when it comes to the Middle East.’ (7)

Here MacShane shows his utter hypocrisy by accusing French ‘left wing’ intellectuals and political activists of ‘suspending critical judgement’ on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but yet we find MacShane obviously suspending his own critical judgement; assuming that he has the ability to do so, when it comes to pro-jewish and pro-Israeli sources, but being overly critical of anti-jewish and anti-Israeli sources. One would be within reason to ask MacShane on what basis he has ‘taken a side’ and why on earth he is pretending to be ‘objective’ on the conflict when it is painfully obvious to any reader from either side of the debate that he is not and belongs to the ‘hard-line Zionist’; if you will, camp.

This can be illustrated simply by pointing out that MacShane does not even mention the jewish terrorism that was the foundation of the state of Israel or that these terrorist attacks were specifically targeted against British soldiers and civilians (whose descendents he supposedly represents in the British parliament). Instead MacShane simply makes the standard vapid claim; which is made by just about every Zionist and professional or amateur apologist for Israel in world, that Israel is justified in existing, because the Arabs already have plenty of land for themselves. (8) So therefore would MacShane support a policy of say Londoners from Britain re-colonising New York State, because there is plenty of space in the rest of the United States for the Americans from New York to go live? I think not, but then this simple logical problem with his argument doesn’t even seem to enter MacShane’s head and he is much too busy copying the argument; without obvious attribution I might add (which as they say constitutes plagiarism as it occupies intellectual ground that is already occupied [ironic: isn’t it?]), to give any critical consideration to his own; often wild and obviously untrue, statements.

One prominent example of where MacShane’s ‘hard-line Zionist’ nature comes to the fore is on the subject of Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer’s famous 2008 book: ‘The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy’, which MacShane dismisses in a few paragraphs that could well be out of an Alan Dershowitz book or Israeli Foreign Policy brief. I quote the most pertinent passage of MacShane’s claimed ‘demolition’ of Walt and Mearsheimer’s work:

‘The article and the book made allegations that American Jews decided US foreign policy on Iran, Iraq and Syria, and both the article and subsequent book were entirely solipsistic. There is not a single reference to any of the European policy discussions on the Middle East or a book published in a European language.’ (9)

This is truly rather pathetic as I am sure even someone as apparently incapable of rational cognition as MacShane; in spite of his academic doctorate, would realise as MacShane is criticising a book about United States Foreign Policy (i.e. focusing on the Anglophone world not any other bits of this planet) for not including reference to European policy discussions or having included non-English language literature. This is obviously absurd. We can realise this by simply giving an alternative example: if you wrote a book about say modern English social history and you only used English language sources then MacShane is asserting that your work would simply be an ‘invention of your own mind’ (the meaning of ‘solipsism’) and that it would simply be intellectually invalid, because it didn’t include German language reference materials regarding German social history.

MacShane is hardly making sense intellectually let alone logically now is he?

As we have discussed MacShane shows his deceitful side in the passage just quoted in so far as he presents an obviously ludicrous argument to his reader as ‘the truth’ knowing full well that it completely false, but yet because he doesn’t want to break his argument down into a convincing case he hides his meaning in ‘big, scary intellectual-sounding words’ (if you will). If MacShane had a real intellectual case: I would imagine (or rather I’d like to; as otherwise MacShane’s mindset beggars belief) he would make it openly and simply without plagiarising Israeli propaganda or profusely blustering amateurish rhetoric in place of a sound detailed intellectual argument.

We further see MacShane malicious and deceitful side in another; this time veiled but obviously partisan, reference to Walt and Mearsheimer’s work:

‘I go to a bookshop in Paris and there is a French translation of a book by two American professors claiming to reveal that American foreign policy is controlled by Jews.’ (10)

This obviously refers to Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer as there were no two other American professors who had just authored a book in 2008 that would have got quick translation and also argued that jews had a significant (as opposed to complete) say in American foreign policy. Of course MacShane knows he is lying by deliberately distorting Walt and Mearsheimer’s thesis given that they make it explicitly clear on numerous occasions that their use of the term ‘Israel Lobby’ includes both jews and non-jews as well as that the latter have a significant role to play in said lobby.

MacShane’s lying takes on a whole new dimension in other places since he isn’t just sneering at people he doesn’t like, but actually outright making up insane claims that have no basis in historical fact what-so-ever. For example on page sixty-six MacShane claims that jews have never had any legal rights in the gentile world. This is simply absurd as of course they have had legal rights as that was the very basis of the contract between the jews and the state and is covered in detail by any good history of the jews.

Two prominent examples of well-known scholarly works that directly address this topic in detail are Benjamin Ginsberg’s ‘The Fatal Embrace’ (which deals with jewish legal status in relation to the state generally) (11) and Guido Kisch’s ‘The Jews in Medieval Germany’ (which deals specifically and in great detail with the legal status of jews within medieval Germany). (12) Both are standard works written by jewish academics on this subject, but yet MacShane simply ignores them and lies through his teeth to his reader in asserting that the jew has always; by implication, been mistreated and is really just a misunderstood poor darling of a creature.

Yes: I think we have gathered now that MacShane’s projection of what the jew is really what is solipsistic here, but then one doubts whether MacShane really understands the actual application of all the ‘big words’ he likes to throw into the mix to distract the reader from his lack of intellectual rigour.

We could go further into the huge number of factual and intellectual errors, which veritably howl from the pages of ‘Globalising Hatred’, but to prevent the reader becoming bored: we shall stop our amusing gander at the diseased mind of an ‘intellectual’ philo-Semite there.

What is Denis MacShane? Is he a liar, cheat and a sophist? Yes: he is all of those things and more, but the most damning thing we can note about Denis MacShane is that he advocates complete and utter subservience to jews as the supreme arbiters of truth and to that affect we quote MacShane:

‘The right wing Jew-baiter, the Islamist Jew-hater or all those liberal-leftists who proclaim they are not antisemitic but who deny Jews their Jewishness in the full sense of being Jewish, including their affection for the one state in the world where by definition antisemitism cannot exist, now have to come to terms with antisemitism being what Jews feel and say it is.’

That about sums up the extreme intellectually-absurd philo-Semitism of Denis MacShane: don’t you think?

I do.

References

(1) All the information that I present by way of biographical detail can be easily found as uncontested facts on Denis MacShane’s Wikipedia page, which can be found at the following address:

Wikipedia (Links)

Denis_MacShane

.
(2) Mark Aarons, John Loftus, 1994, ‘The Secret War against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People’, 1st Edition, St. Martin’s Press: New York
(3) Denis MacShane’s, 2008, ‘Globalising Hatred: The New Anti-Semitism’, 1st Edition, Weidenfeld & Nicholson: London, pp. viii-ix
(4) Ibid, p. 90
(5) Ibid, p. 63. The full reference for Chesler’s ‘book’ is as follows: Phyllis Chesler, 2005, ‘The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It’, 2nd Edition, Jossey-Bass: New York
(6) Chesler can be simply evidenced to be ‘hard-line Zionist’ in the fact she collaborates and works closely with Alan Dershowitz (who incidentally endorsed ‘The New Anti-Semitism’) despite the two being as disparate in political and intellectual ideology as it is possible to be (Chesler is a radical leftist and feminist and Dershowitz is a hawkish conservative). One would also get this impression by reading Chesler’s ‘book’ and ascertaining for one’s self the scale of her ‘intellectual’ depravity.
(7) MacShane, Op. Cit., p. 46
(8) Ibid, p. 66
(9) Ibid, p. 128
(10) Ibid, p. 3
(11) Benjamin Ginsberg, 1993, ‘The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State’, 1st Edition, University of Chicago Press: Chicago
(12) Guido Kisch, 1949, ‘The Jews in Medieval Germany: A Study of their Legal and Social Status’, 1st Edition, University of Chicago Press: Chicago
(13) MacShane, Op. Cit., p. 5

This was originally published at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...ocrisy-20.html

[Karl Radl]

In Brief: The ‘An Anti-Semite is someone who is hated by Jews’ Argument

Over the last few years I have observed that an increasing number of self-described critics of jews have begun to use the rhetorical phrase to the effect that an anti-Semite is someone who is hated by jews as an explanation of and non-rhetorical argument for anti-Semitism. To simplify this slightly: rather than using this rhetorical phrase which aptly characterises jewish accusations of anti-Semitism some anti-Semites have begun to use this phrase to explain anti-Semitism as a point of ideology. This is both dangerous and absurd and we may reasonably assert that those wielding such ideas are probably not the best and brightest anti-Semitism has to offer, but in fact are co-opting a piece of rhetoric to give them an excuse to not seek a greater understanding of what they profess to believe. We must now consider the logic behind this new idea within anti-Semitism and briefly discuss just how problematic it is.

The idea that an ‘anti-Semite is somebody who jews don’t like’ (or a variant to that effect) is a good rhetorical position as it intellectually counter-weaponizes the cat-calls and character assassination that jews and their lackeys tend to use, but at the same time it is a fundamental denial of what we are. I mean; it is lovely rhetoric and all that, but it isn’t doing anything about the problem of the fact that we are anti-Semites and that anti-Semitism is seen as a ‘bad thing’ by most of our folk. That said this isn’t set in stone as so many seem to assume: just look at the word ‘fag’ as a derogatory term for homosexual. Homosexuals have now appropriated and turned it into something good and less harmful to their interests. It is possible and it is very do-able with anti-Semitism as well as faggotry, but it is going to take anti-Semites to deal with reality and use their collective and individual abilities to push forward a new highly rational form of anti-Semitism based on the principles of Jacques Ellul’s theory of propaganda, intellectual rigour and the use of strong emotive and cause celebre themes to achieve its ends.

Using the rhetorical phrase an ‘anti-Semite is somebody who jews don’t like’ (or a variant to that effect) is essentially an anti-Semite or merely someone who is critical of jews trying to run away from his or her responsibility as an anti-Semite or critic of the jews. If you want to carry on the failures that anti-Semitism has suffered over the last three to four decades then you can just can keep on going as you are, but if you want to change and to create a new rational anti-Semitism; an anti-Semitism 2.0 if I was to be a touch cliché, then you have to take responsibility to use your knowledge and abilities in anti-Semitism’s best interests not whatever you feel like doing or not doing. For that latter kind of thinking is what got us into this mess in the first place and it certainly won’t get us out of the huge hole that two generations of anti-Semites have managed to dig for themselves. We need change in anti-Semitism and we need it badly.

Now to come back to my original point again: if we were to argue ‘anti-Semitism is merely a charge jews make against people they don’t like’ (or a variant of that position) as the anti-Semitic answer to the standard jewish argument that anti-Semitism and anti-jewish sentiment is everywhere and is ipso facto irrational. Then we simply concede that anti-Semitism is just as the jews say; i.e. irrational, and that the only rational position is philo-Semitic sentiment. This is obviously rather dangerous as it leaves anti-Semites utterly exposed intellectually to attack and confirms to our potential friends all across the board that what we have to say about the jew is irrational and completely unfounded.

Obviously we have to challenge these assumptions and seek to recruit out potential friends into actively helping our cause and/or passively supporting it by not condemning or taking any demanded action against active anti-Semites otherwise we may as well pack our bags and go home. Can any proponent of this view give any cogent argument of its intellectual or strategic veracity? I doubt it, but many will no doubt whine that it has value; to which we must reply that it does indeed have some value rhetorically but as with any rhetoric that rhetorical value must not deceive us of a rhetorical argument factual and intellectual veracity. Otherwise we can only ever end up arguing absurdities within absurdities, which is about as useful to the anti-Semitic cause as a plot of land on the surface of the sun.

In summary then if you use the ‘anti-Semitism is merely a charge jews make against people they don’t like’ argument as anything more than a useful rhetorical tool; which is limited not universal in its useful application, then you merely argue by implication that anti-Semitism and criticism of the jews is simply irrational and that therefore your own criticisms of jews; however strong or mild, are also irrational and intellectually and evidentially unfounded.

So please, please stop using this argument, because against most opponents capable of rational cognition you will become a cropper when they point out the logical implications of your own arguments to you in a reduction to absurdity.

This was originally posted at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...meone-who.html

[Karl Radl]

A Pleasant Surprise: John Beaty's 'The Iron Curtain over America'

John Beaty’s ‘The Iron Curtain over America’, which was published in 1951 and which has been reissued in new editions at least five times and had been reprinted eleven times between 1951 and 1954 according to the undated 5th edition that I have acquired in PDF (hence the lack of a full reference), is unusual in English-language anti-Semitic literature and especially so in that genre after the conclusion of the Second World War. What makes it unusual is firstly the obvious erudition of the author, in that Beaty himself had acquired a PhD before the outbreak of said war and the amount of research that went into and is evident in ‘The Iron Curtain over America’ is considerable. Most post-Second World War anti-Semitic treatises are largely unreferenced and obviously lack any serious research into their subject matter in that they make use of commonly known anti-Semitic charges and the evidence to support them without trying to innovate or check their case only contributing at maximum a few newspaper references or reproductions in an attempt to appeal to the contemporary reader.

Beaty is decidedly different thoughout ‘The Iron Curtain over America’. I was surprised, and rather pleased, to find that Beaty had used excellent sources for his case in so far as he quotes standard works such as the jewish Encyclopedias, authoritative books on everything from the history of Russia and the Ukraine to the Haskalah movement and he doesn’t make any charges that he does not substantiate with some evidence. It is also of note that Beaty does not simply drag out old accusations, but rather creates a new thesis using parts of old evidence combined with new evidence. Whether we believe those charges nearly sixty years on is quite another matter, but Beaty has shown himself truly worthy of some attention because he bucks the trend for post-war English language anti-Semitic literature.

The key to Beaty’s thesis is simple in that he believes and offers evidence for the theory that firstly the Ashkenazi jews are not really Semites at all, but rather descendents of the Khazar Khanate (what we generally call Kharazia) which in Beaty’s opinion means that Zionism’s case for the creation of Israel boiled down to a historical fabrication at best and an outright lie at worst. Secondly Beaty asserts, using Robert Wilton (as cited by Denis Fahey) and Nesta Webster [who may have also relied partly on Wilton and who certainly relied on sources similar to Wilton], that the Bolshevik revolution was almost entirely dominated by Ashkenazi jews and therefore can be considered a jewish revolution. Then Beaty moves onto the third part of his thesis and offers evidence, if at times somewhat thin, that Ashkenazi jews are heavily involved in working for the Soviet Union in the United States and are therefore a subversive threat to the United States and need to be dealt with accordingly where he concludes his thesis not taking it any further. Beaty also asserts, as an ancillary point, that US involvement in the Second World War was contrived and forced upon the country by Franklin D. Roosevelt and his cronies to support which he uses several published memories by senior members of Roosevelt’s administration, such as those by James Forrestal, as well as several works by leading historians of the time such as Charles Beard and Harry Elmer Barnes.

When Beaty wrote ‘The Iron Curtain over America’ the Khazar thesis was a somewhat esoteric idea among scholars of the jewish question and had been debated for many years in both the philo-Semitic and the anti-Semitic literature (at both the popular and academic levels). The Khazar thesis at the time that Beaty wrote was not a mainstay of anti-Semitic literature precisely (although it was part of the strongly Christian sub-genre), because it was viewed as rather irrelevant and it also suggested, in an age when intellectuals in general didn’t ignore the direct implications of evolution on humanity, that the [Ashkenazi] jews were just a bunch of either Slavs, Turks or Tartars. The Khazar thesis began to gain popularity from the formation of Israel in 1948 to provide anti-Semites with a way of attacking the jewish right to colonise Palestine and change it from an Arab country to a jewish country.

In effect anti-Semites realised that the basis of all Zionist ideology was the link between their Semitic heritage and the territory of Palestine so in order to attack this anti-Semites began switching to the Khazaria thesis for the origins of the Ashkenazim. It should also be noted that since before the Second World War anti-Semites had begun to largely ignore the two other major parts of the jewish community: the Sephardim and the Mizrahim.

This habit of focusing, to the exclusion of other jewish groups, on the Ashkenazim is of uncertain origin (as no author I have read or heard of has commented on this particular point), but is very likely the result of the reports of the jewish origin of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia combined with the large emigration of Ashkenazim from the Russian Empire from 1881 to 1914, which placed the Ashkenazim both at the centre of a shocking event [communist revolution and the destruction of the old order as well as a challenge to Western destiny] and also as an alien and often subversive mass at home (i.e. the habit of jews of confining themselves in self-created ghettos as well as providing considerable numbers of communist and left-wing activists and supporters). This combined with the lack of Mizrahim in Europe and the highly assimilated nature of the Sephardim lead to the focus being distorted and wholly aimed at the Ashkenazim who, although the largest of the jewish groups, were only part of the problem.

Once this focus became established in anti-Semitic thought the path was laid for anti-Semites to be able to adopt the Khazaria thesis without compromising their logic or focus (since the Sephardim and Mizrahim are of uncontested Semitic origin) to attack Israel. It is quite probable that with the lucid presentation of the Khazaria thesis, the link with communism (at a time when strong anti-Communism was expected among the ‘right wing’ in general and there was a strong belief in the conspiratorial nature of communism) and the large circulation of ‘The Iron Curtain over America’ that Beaty played a significant, perhaps key, part in spreading the Khazaria thesis among English-speaking anti-Semites. This is suggested by the fact that non-English language post Second World War anti-Semitic literature has far less of a focus on the Khazaria thesis and often doesn’t mention it at all. Like English language anti-Semitic literature before the Second World War there is a sub-genre of Christian anti-Semitic literature where mentions are more frequent (i.e. because the Khazaria thesis can be used to attack the notion that the [Ashkenazi] jews are ‘the Chosen people’ of YHWH/Hashem). As I have encountered (or have heard of) no major anti-Semitic treatises, let alone popular ones, that were purporting the Khazaria thesis: I am forced to conclude that Beaty must have had a significant role in popularising this argument among anti-Semites particularly in relation to their arguments regarding the Ashkenazim and Israel.

The Khazar thesis continues to this day to be a standard anti-Semitic argument used particularly against the Ashkenazim and Israel, but unfortunately the Khazaria thesis for the origin of the Ashkenazim after a period of scholarly controversy from the 1960s to the 1980s has largely been discarded on the basis that genetic studies of Ashkenazim show little or no trace of potential Khazar genetic material, but rather a clear majority of Semitic genetic material (to the extent that some have asserted that the Ashkenazim are the genetic cousins of the Arabs of Palestine, which is a fairly logical position). This has all been neatly and ably summarised by the lay authority on the Khazars; Kevin Alan Brook, who concludes, in his authoritative summary work on Khazaria (1), that there is very little real evidence for this thesis beyond the original cause of its creation: i.e. scholarly conjecture concerning the historical documents, which the genetic evidence has discredited (as well as fresh scholarly analysis which has, persuasively, argued that the Khazar conversion to Judaism only affected the elite and that the population in general maintained their beliefs, which were largely pagan but Islam and Nestorian Christianity were also strongly represented). Brook states this in spite of his overt sympathy for the Khazaria thesis for the origin of the Ashkenazim and as any good scholar: he refuses to let his personal feelings get in the way of his scholarship (an all too common occurrence among the slums of academia).

Unfortunately modern anti-Semites in general are not as intellectually rigorous as Beaty was in his time, we after all cannot blame him for using the Khazaria thesis since it was a valid intellectual position that could be supported by the academic research of the time, and have not investigated what they purport as thoroughly as Beaty looked into his arguments before he made them. Had they done so then they would look to evolve their arguments in the face of the literature that had discredited the Khazaria thesis and sought instead to deal with the scholarly reality rather than try to use Arthur Koestler’s ‘The Thirteenth Tribe’ (which Brook often addresses in his ‘The Jews of Khazaria’) and the jew Benjamin Freedman’s ‘Facts are Facts’, which is largely just a rehash of the Khazaria thesis that predates Beaty by four years but was not as popular or as mainstream [i.e. Freedman’s work at this time was largely circulated around Conde McGinley’s ‘Common Sense’ milieu of which he was a financial supporter as a so-called ‘former jew’], as evidence. Freedman’s work in particular relies not on the presentation of evidence, but rather on his habit of claiming that as a jew and ‘insider in the jewish conspiracy’ he had a particular authority to comment on such matters (without evidence and often strangely [yes I am being sarcastic] rehashing and giving credence to old, often incorrect, anti-Semitic arguments against the Babylonian Talmud).

I am tempted to think that modern anti-Semites are just incredibly lazy and don’t want to do serious research into the jewish question. As if they weren’t lazy then they wouldn’t still be producing the same old arguments with the same evidence as was innovated in some cases as long ago as the early 18th century [I am specifically thinking of the old anti-Babylonian Talmud arguments here, which were originally made by the learned Johann Andreas Eisenmenger in his ‘Entdectkes Judenthum’ and then popularised over a century later by August Roehling in his ‘Der Talmudjude’]! However then I remember that even in earlier epochs when serious research was more common among anti-Semites: the majority of anti-Semitic works simply repeated old charges, particularly those deriving from Christianity, such as deicide [not that I am unsympathetic to the charge, but it isn’t exactly a useful argument in this day and age], and did not innovate new ones. The ones that innovated were the ones we tend to remember and that receive prominence in the discussions of anti-Semitic literature that are so common today in academia: what do not receive prominence at those works that simply repeated old arguments that were so common in Germany and France in the 19th century. It therefore seems that anti-Semites throughout the ages rely on a relative few to do the research, while they bawl out their old arguments and a few new ones at the top of their lungs.

We have a similar issue when we come to the second part of Beaty’s thesis in that much of his argument, although sourced, is dubious in the light of modern research. The ‘jewish bolshevik’ lists of Wilton have been addressed by Semitic Controversies at an earlier date (2): hence there is a need to go back over them in detail with the exception of saying that prior to previous assertions Lenin does indeed appear to have been part jewish on his mother’s side (his maternal grandfather to be precise). They are however completely unreliable as they bring together large amounts of individuals from different time periods between 1917-1921 without putting them in the context of their individual administration, invent ministries and individuals and misstate the activity, position and/or importance of many of the individuals that did in fact exist.

This doesn’t stop these lists of being a normal anti-Semitic argument and being used as ‘proof’ of the ‘jewish nature’ of bolshevism. This rather obscures the intellectually valid that jews were significantly overrepresented in the both the Russian revolutions of 1917 and has allowed numerous jewish academics writing on the subject in detail or in passing to assert that jewish involvement was minimal, which has been put down rather generously by Erich Haberer to be a reaction to ‘anti-Semitic demagoguery’ (3). Where-as on a personal level I would ascribe it in part to this, but more to the conscious need to reduce the role of the jews in such a controversial event to prevent harm from coming to the jewish academics themselves as well as the additional consideration of providing a way to promote their work as being ‘anti-anti-Semitic’ (and hence being cited, lauded and purchased by those seeking to discredit the anti-Semitic arguments and evidence on this point).

Beaty here is simply repeating what had been argued for over thirty years before the publication of ‘The Iron Curtain over America’ and was then still regarded as quite probably true given that the information was from eyewitnesses who had been there at the time (4) and the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin wasn’t exactly forthcoming about the role of jews in the Bolshevik revolution. It also worth noting that Beaty’s book was published just before the beginning of the ‘purge’ trials of 1952-53, which were directly towards ‘rootless cosmopolitans’, which included a significant proportion of communist jews. Therefore we cannot blame Beaty for giving credence to these assertions as the sources he cites were good quality at the time (as both Denis Fahey and Nesta Webster were amongst the minority of anti-Semitic authors who spent a considerable amount of time meticulously researching their work [and hence should be respected for doing so]), but their evidence has only been called into question and debunked in the decades after Beaty published ‘The Iron Curtain over America’ in 1951.

Therefore although we can’t fault Beaty for his assertion: we can fault those who would use Beaty or his sources, Fahey and Webster (both of whom are regularly read and cited by anti-Semites), as ‘proof’ of the ‘jewish bolshevik’ thesis. Perhaps it is easier to cite such lists than to have to sit down and read around the area and come up with a water-tight case? Whatever the reasons for their use: these lists should not be used in any way, shape or form to make an anti-Semitic argument: the result will only be to discredit anti-Semitism as an intellectually valid position and open yourself up to attack.

The third part of Beaty’s thesis that large numbers of jews were involved in working for the Soviet Union against the United States is on far safer ground as we need only recall the espionage trials of the 1940s and 50s to realise that numerous jews did indeed work for the Soviet Union as spies in the United States. Names such as Judith Coplon, Morris and Lona Cohen, David and Ruth Greenglass, Harry Gold, George Koval, Morton and Helen Sobell, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg etc are not uncommon (and all of whom were jewish by-the-way), but we also note that this thesis is slightly overstated by Beaty in so far as yes a significant number of those spying for the Soviet Union in the United States were jews, but there were also numerous spies who were not jewish or had any connection to jews such as Alan Nunn May, Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald McClean etc (all four of whom were British, but served the Soviet Union in part in the United States).

It is also undeniable that many non-jewish spies did have close contact with jews as for example Whittaker Chambers’ wife, Esther Shemitz, was jewish and Klaus Fuchs’ (who was German not jewish as often alleged) Soviet handler, Ruth Kuczynski, was also jewish. It is also worth noting that Kim Philby’s first wife, Alice ‘Litzi’ Friedman, was jewish (as well as a Soviet agent), but she and Philby split up when Philby buried his past to allow himself to become part of British Intelligence although they didn’t officially divorce till 1946 and were friends for years afterwards (hence why I have included Philby as not having any important connection with jews in regards to his espionage activities in the United States). However this does not concur wholly with Beaty’s position that jews were necessarily a threat as Soviet spies since there were many prominent anti-Communist jews at this time of which Roy Cohn, the famous associate of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the probable cause of McCarthy’s attack on the army and his ultimate downfall, and Isaac Don Levine (the editor of ‘Plain Talk’, which claimed among other dubious things that Karl Marx was an anti-Semite (5)) are perhaps the best known along with former jewish communists turned strong anti-communists such as the previously mentioned Arthur Koestler.

In essence Beaty’s argument is that because many of the communists who came to the United States from the 1880s to the 1940s were jewish: therefore we must see the jewish community as being a threat because it has provided a disproportionate amount of these recruits. This however is not cogent in so far as many of the spies were also of Russian or German origin, if one is determining origin by country of birth, and that therefore Beaty’s pro-German hymn, which forms Chapter I of ‘The Iron Curtain over America’, is hypocritical for one could easily label many of Soviet agents as German and/or jewish. So should the United States have taken special action against the German-American or Russian-American community accordingly? The answer is of course no, but what is cogent about Beaty’s thesis on this point is that it assumes that jews are biologically different to Europeans and therefore think differently.

Therefore Beaty implies that we cannot consider them to be of the same mental processes as say a German or a Russian (although Beaty believes, for unknown reasons, that the Rus and the Slavs were both Aryan peoples [the Rus are debatable, but the Slavs are agreed not to be by everyone but Slavs]). Beaty never goes into this in detail, but if he had done so then his thesis would have been far more cogent (if perhaps less popular) in so far as it would have offered a rationale as to why the jews should receive special attention from the intelligence and security services and for why the German or Russian communities should not receive the same. That said however one cannot tar the jews with all being communists or all communists being jews (as Nesta Webster herself rightly pointed out), but rather one can notice that a significantly disproportionate amount of Soviet agents were jewish and that communism, or rather marxism in general, was one of the two most important political movements inside the jewish community, along with Zionism and various points in-between, in both the United States and abroad. However Beaty did not argue this in detail so to go into it beyond what has been said would be beyond the scope of this discussion. It should not be said I am not sympathetic to this thesis, because I am, but I find it to be intellectually incorrect, which is why it requires criticism.

So although we can say that jews were significantly and disproportionally involved in sabotage and espionage for the Soviet Union: we cannot hold the equation that Beaty tries to make, i.e. of communism and bolshevism being jewish phenomena, as being valid. That said however we can reasonably argue that jews have historically formed a ‘fifth column’ in their host society and that the significant and disproportionate amount of Soviet agents of jewish origin can be held to be an extension of this.

In summary then Beaty’s ‘The Iron Curtain over America’ is an excellent example of what anti-Semitic literature should be: it is well-researched and well thought out. It is written in a clear and concise style that makes it very readable and it doesn’t sacrifice much content to maintain its flow. That is what anti-Semitic literature should be like and I can well imagine that in 1951, when it was first published, ‘The Iron Curtain over America’ would have made very convincing reading and that is as it should be (this is indicated by the fact that it went through eleven printings in three years, which is without doubt close to a best seller). However in 2010 we cannot hold Beaty’s thesis to be cogent any longer, because much of its facts and arguments have been discredited by scholarly research that Beaty himself could not have possibly predicted and Beaty thesis itself is rather overstretched in terms of the evidence he presents to support. However when all is said and done: Beaty’s ‘The Iron Curtain over America’ is truly an admirable bit of work that we cannot help but admire the author, John Beaty, for producing and doing so well out of.

References

(1) Kevin Alan Brook, 2006, ‘The Jews of Khazaria’, 2nd Edition, Rowman & Littlefield: New York
(2) http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...k-debacle.html
(3) Erich Haberer, 2004, ‘Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth Century Russia’, 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York, p. xi
(4) I have provided numerous quotations to this effect in my ongoing ‘Sources on Jews and Communism’ series on Semitic Controversies.
(5) Zygmund Dobbs, 1949, ‘Karl Marx: Father of Modern Anti-Semitism’ in Isaac Don Levine (Ed.), 1976, ‘Plain Talk: An Anthology from the Leading Anti-Communist Magazine of the 40s’, 1st Edition, Arlington House: New York, pp. 400-404

This was originally published at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...atys-iron.html

[Karl Radl]

Challenging Rabbi David Eidensohn to a Debate

I wrote the below letter to Rabbi David Eidensohn (alternatively Dovid Eidensohn, which he prefers) of ‘jewhaters’ (http://www.jewhaters.com/) several months ago challenging him to a frank and open debate that would be published on Semitic Controversies and ‘jewhaters’. I thought it apt to publish it to serve a specimen letter to jews if one wishes to challenge them to debate. As in it I qualify what I specifically know about and what I can and cannot reasonably discuss, which is an important part of the beginning of any anti-Semitic debate.

Unfortunately Rabbi Eidensohn; although initially accepted my invitation, he refused to get into specific issues despite my best efforts to do so and was far more interested in learning more about me than he was in the ‘frank debate’ his website promised. Eventually Rabbi Eidensohn claimed; in effect, that I was so evil that he wouldn’t debate me (an extremely bad cop-out to be sure) and made death threats against me. I have already written about my encounter with Eidensohn in some detail (this can be found at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...ith-rabbi.html), but I thought that my open letter would help the anti-Semitic community construct their own such letters of challenge if that is their wish.

If any other jew wishes to debate me in Rabbi Eidensohn's absense then they are more than welcome and an email to [email protected] will do the trick to begin such an exchange.

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Rabbi Eidensohn,

After a short correspondence on this subject with my good friend; Lionaxe (a sometime correspondent of yours), I thought it apt to write you a note to the effect that I would like to propose a duologue on the subject on jewish history and the role of the jew in history. My friend informs me that you are open to debate and having read ‘jewhaters’ I thought it might be an idea to write to you.

I write to you as what would be characterised as an ‘anti-Semite’ in the strongest sense of that word as it is usually applied; disregarding the intellectual worth or preciseness of the term here, with the view to understanding the subject of my research; the jewish question, from a new angle (i.e. discussing ideas with a learned jew rather than the rabid and overly-paranoid zealots [secular or religious] found in the general jewish Diaspora). However; I would distinguish my own thoughts and cognitive frameworks as regards the jewish question from those commonly labelled as ‘anti-Semites’ since; as you might appreciate, that label stretches out a long way over various schools of thought in regards to jewry. It also; as you are I am sure aware, is always being distorted and many (unsuccessful) attempts have been made to extend this term to encompass critical positions on Israel and any discussion of what can only be described as jewish ethnocentrism, but what would be more accurately described as the jewish racial consciousness. In this I consider myself; and am considered by many others of my acquaintance, as an informed; but rational, critic of jews and jewry.

However I should like to make it clear that my interest and area of knowledge is heavily based in the historical arena and does not overlap very much beyond a general; and in some cases specific, understanding of Judaism, the Torah commentaries, religious notables and jewish mysticism. What I mean by this is that I comprehend Talmudic discussion but have not devoted myself to a minute study of (the immense) literature there-of and nor do I intend to, but I am very aware of the historical details surrounding specific religious figures. For example Sabbatai Zvi and the sect of loyal followers; known as the Donmeh as well as the Sabbatians who returned to what was to become the Pale (and who ultimately Bakan argues became the precursors of Sigmund Freud and ‘psychoanalysis’).

If you would like to discuss anti-Semitism in terms of common myths then I would also be happy to oblige since in order to come to a rational criticism of jews and jewry: I insist that a study of all anti-jewish arguments made throughout the considerable literature on the subject be studied and either accepted, partially accepted, tentatively accepted or rejected.

I would like to discuss; as before stated, jewish history and the role of the jew in history: in so far that history can only be properly be understood my understanding the material upon which actions in time are based. Since I consider jewry to be one of the major forces in history it would be folly not to undertake a through and critical examination of them. I don’t promise that you will like my conclusions or my arguments, but I do promise an educated duologue where we will both learn something even if that is just that we have confirmed both of our positions since we can never be a-like since we are opposites on that most important level: race.

Perhaps an apt place to begin such a discussion would be to ask: how do you as a learned jew account for the persecution you have received throughout history regardless of where you have gone? Do you subscribe to the thesis that anti-Semitism is economically motivated which would seem based on the assumption that the jewish people must therefore have some kind of superior business acumen?

Or do you perhaps take a broader view of the subject matter. As in do you account that in some cases jews were themselves responsible for their own persecution (for example in the infamous Reuchlinist/anti-Reuchlinist debates just before the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation caused by a jewish man named Pfefferkorn denouncing the Talmuds)? Do you consider anti-Semitism (and ergo by current Israel/jewish definition anti-Zionism) as inherently irrational; as many of your kinsfolk have maintained, or do you perhaps again take a broader view and maintain that ‘anti-Semitism’ is rational in some instances and irrational in others?

You are; of course, free to decline this invitation: if you would like to do so please communicate this as soon as is convenient. I would; of course, be happy to accommodate your schedule (having looked into you a little bit) since I also have periods when I am extremely busy and others when I have less required of me.

Yours respectfully,

Karl Radl,

This was originally posted at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...ensohn-to.html

[Karl Radl]

In Brief: Socialism before Jews?

Unfortunately this evening I don't have time enough to write anything particularly substantive for Semitic Controversies, but I thought what I would present to you is an indicative quote from an old pro-jewish history of socialism in Britain. It indicates that socialism as an intellectual and political position was not always based on the ravings of the diseased minds of its jewish ‘prophets’. I quote:

‘Quite different from the attitude of the rebellious aristocrat was that of the fighting democrat, William Cobbett. Though in his cheap weekly edition of the Register, begun in the autumn, 1816, he represented Labour as the creator of all wealth and the foundation of the State (Political Register, November 2, 1816), he soon appealed to the Luddites to desist from destroying machinery, and to join, instead, the movement for Parliamentary reform. Not machinery, but oligarchic rule, the debased state of currency, the heavy load of taxation consequent upon the enormous expenditure for war, pensions and sinecures, borough mongering and Jewish Stock Exchange jobbery, were at the bottom of the misery of the working classes.’ (1)

This suggests to us that at least some socialists were aware of the problem posed by the jews and their habit of exploiting the nations, which give them shelter from the last nation they exploited. This suggests that pursing further research in the nature of this early anti-Semitic socialism would be of interest to the anti-Semites of today and tomorrow. I will be undertaking such research in the near future, but I cannot promise a series of articles upon the subject until I have gained an understanding of what the scale of this anti-Semitic feeling in socialism was.

References

(1) Max Beer, 1929, [1919], ‘A History of British Socialism’, Vol. I, 2nd Edition, G. Bell and Sons: London, p. 135

This was originally posted at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...fore-jews.html