JS, I find your oft-expressed hostility to the historical plight of Jews"
JS are you anti-semitic?
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One observes that people do not ask, ever, if someone is anti-Gypsy or a host of otherr things one might be, as though anti-semitism is some sort of diabolic disease, and all that profess it should be treated as lepers or worse.
The AIPAC seems to have been quite successful in tainting anyone who does not approve is everything that Israel does or opposes any part of the vast aid that the US donates to this very small middle-class country to which the US donates more than any other, is anti-semitic and should be ostracized entirely, all their ideas should be rejected. But anti-semitism as defined nowadays is defined by the AIPAC, and their contention is that anti-Zionist is equivalent to anti-semitism.
I note that they seem to have not managed to taint Jimmy Carter with this, but are still going after any academics- even Jewish ones- that disagree with Israeli policies and handouts to Israel. There must have been some interesting AIPAC committee meetings discussing Carter and others.
A person who disagrees with Israel is anti-Zionist, not anti semitic, by the way. A true anti Semite should have scribbled at least one swastika, I think.
There was a time when being Jewish in the US was a disadvantage, but that time has passed long ago. American Jews have more power and more money and more representation in Congress than damn near any other group. They are over represented in Congress and the Senate and vastly overrepresented in the bureaucracy.
This is rarely pointed out, though, because anyone doing the pointing would be accused of anti-semitism.
If I am a descendant of an Ulster Catholic, and I feel that SinnFein or the Provos have the right idea about uniting all of Eire's 33 counties, and I send them money, I will likely be jailed if caught. I am not allowed to express my political belief that all of Ireland should be united.
On the other hand, I can send all the money I wish to AIPAC, and lobby my government to subsidize Israel's colonization fo the WB and constant mistreatment of Palestinians, I will never be chastized, not even in the papers.
There is not even a word for being anti-Irish unity that I can use to lambaste my detractors like anti-Semitic.
I would like to point out that I am partly of Irish ancestry, and think that a united Ireland is a pretty good idea, especially since the Auld Sod has gotten mostly rid of the Brits as well as the insufferable wet blanket to progress that was the Holy Mother Roman Catholic Church, and is now the most prosperous nation in the EEC. I don't support the Sinn Fein or the Provos, because I think they have become counter productive and irrelevant these days. I expect that eventually the Ulster Protestants will see that union with the Euro-based EEC and the Irish Republic will be greatly to their advantage. This might take a couple of generations, but the days of suffering as Frank McCourt did in Limerick are over and the wait will not be painful at all.
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