Can You Cure David? (Or: Can You Draw Thumper?)

y friend Bernie Newman likes to argue. He likes to argue with anyone who has a modicum of debating skills. He sends me these emails intended to "engage" me on topics he knows will arouse my ire.

The other day, Bernie sent me an email with the subject line: "This is pretty interesting." The email contained a link to the following article: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/

He knew this article was a shoo-in for pissing me off.

But he was wrong.

This article was filled with so many spurious untruths that I didn't think it worth my time. I looked to see Bernie's source—the original sender of the link—and saw it had been sent to him by an acquaintance, I'm guessing a relative, named David Newman. Through the wonders of Facebook, I had read David's ranting liberal responses to Bernie's libertarian-leaning-to-conservative views. Aha! I thought. No wonder.

Bernie sends me these links with no comments. Sometimes I bother to waste my time refuting the crap he sends me, other times, I just click delete. The ideas contained in this particular article were those espoused by someone who has no interest in the truth—someone who buys propaganda hook, line and sinker—someone whose guilt has been aroused because he has been hypnotized by Jew-hating propaganda and thinks that the only way to assuage said guilt is to malign his own people. I can't do anything about David's "condition."

So, I told Bernie: "This is so filled with bullsheet I can't possibly begin to respond, nor do I wish to waste my time doing so."

Bernie tried some subtle flattery about my writing skills, having my finger on the pulse being so close to the source as I am in Israel, told me I sell myself short, and so forth.

My BS meter began to tick. It was LOUD. At last the light went on. Bernie wants me to refute David so he can rub my rebuttal in his face.

I wrote Bernie, "It occurs to me you want to have my rebuttal so you can rub it in David's face."

Bernie responded, "We-ell, I wouldn't put it just like that, but…EXACTLY!"

I'm sorry to disappoint you Bernie, but David is not interested in the facts and will blow them off and respond with more and more numerous statements from Jew-hating Jews citing these statements as though they were truths. The only way to combat this crap is to keep pointing out the lies, one at a time, as they pop up, to be vigilant and persistent. This is a national Jewish psychosis. Psychosis requires psychoanalysis, maybe drugs. Facts don't cure this malady, but can keep others from coming down with the disease.

Anyone who wants to love Israel can find ample reason to do so. But the desire has to come from inside. I can't make David love Israel. His Jewish spirit, his "neshama," is ill.

I can't cure David.It would take me maybe 20 years to sift fact from lies in that article. Still, I don't want to leave Bernie with no ammunition whatsoever. I didn't want to leave him naked in the face of his opponent or with that much egg on his face. A friend is a friend. So, I will devote just a bit of time to this. Not much. It's not worth it.

Of course, instead of picking my brains, Bernie could have done what I did and remembered that GIYF (Google is your friend). But never mind.

Let's start with this statement: "In the words of Hebrew University political scientist Yaron Ezrahi, “After decades of what came to be called a national consensus, the Zionist narrative of liberation [has] dissolved into openly contesting versions.”"

GIYF. I knew that Israeli elections are close and split right down the middle. So, I googled election history and found a site where you can see the election results for all of the elections in the history of the State of Israel: http://www.knesset.gov.il/description/eng/eng_mimshal_res.htm

If you look at the election results, you see that starting in 1977 the votes are split and the results are close. This is even more striking in the results of the 1981 elections and the pattern continues and is consistent until the most recent election of 2009. The electorate is split right down the center and whatever issue is huge at the point of election sways the vote by a few points and decides the outcome.

But even then, if the elected party can't form a majority government, the vote goes to the other party. That's what happened in 2009. Livni won, but couldn't form a government. So, Netanyahu won by default. Elections are cutthroat and close. Jews answer a question with a question, so why would anyone think there would ever be a consensus in Israel? Yes, that's a question, too.

There is no consensus in Israel. True. But it's not recent and it's not even about liberation. What does that even mean? Liberation. That's not an issue. Liberate WHOM?? This statement assumes someone is being oppressed. But there is no oppression. More propaganda. I will treat human rights and so-called oppression in the State of Israel further down the page…but meantime:

I admit it: there IS a consensus in Israel. We all want peace.

The lack of consensus is only about disagreement on how to arrive at peace. Does anyone in this day and age believe that half of the Israeli people DON'T desire peace?? C'mon…do you think we enjoy being blown up and so forth?? It's about HOW TO GET THERE. How do you arrive at peace?

Land for Peace? Didn't work, doesn't work. But half of the people are still willing to try, while others say we've gone above and beyond proving that Land for Peace is a stupid idea. We threw our own people out of their homes in Gaza, now it's a launching pad from which Arabs can target Jews and the Arabs still won't give our state recognition.
What about this statement: "Among American Jews today, there are a great many Zionists, especially in the Orthodox world, people deeply devoted to the State of Israel. And there are a great many liberals, especially in the secular Jewish world, people deeply devoted to human rights for all people, Palestinians included."

This statement implies that Zionism precludes respecting the human rights of Palestinians when nothing could be further from the truth. Israel has bent over backwards to give Arabs the same human rights it bestows upon its Jewish citizens. Instead of spouting bullcrap, David should better take a look at the truth of how Palestinians are treated in the Zionist state. I googled and found the following (David could have done the same, but doesn't care enough to do so): http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf18.html


Here's another really cute idea with no basis in fact, but must give David paroxysms of orgasmic delight: "Morally, American Zionism is in a downward spiral. If the leaders of groups like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations do not change course, they will wake up one day to find a younger, Orthodox-dominated, Zionist leadership whose naked hostility to Arabs and Palestinians scares even them, and a mass of secular American Jews who range from apathetic to appalled."

The late Rabbi Meir Kahane once said, "I don't hate Arabs. I love Jews."

You see, David, It's not about hostility, it's about being prudent. I get onto a bus in Israel and I check under my seat for suspicious objects and report them to the driver if I find them.

Fact: Arabs travel without fear on Egged buses, Egged being the Israeli bus company, but Jews do not DARE travel on the Arab-owned bus lines because they fear for their lives.

Fact: Arabs blow up buses. I am not hostile to Arabs, but I am a mother of many and a wife and I value my own life. I will let Arabs on my buses, but I will check to make sure they don't leave bombs under my seat.

I will try to avoid the social company of Arabs wherever possible because they have a known track record for violence. But I will not deny them the use of our public transportation, even though this makes taking the bus a nightmare. It also causes a disparity in who will die as a result of bus bombings. The rich have cars, so they are safe. The middle class and poor people are forced to use buses and so they are canon fodder.

And now, dear Reader, I leave it to you to continue the argument. To be frank, I have a lot to do today: laundry, cooking, and living my life as a mom, not an Israeli monster of mythic proportions. If any of you want to make the effort to use Google because David and Bernie have not, feel free!