Israel = Global Pollution?
It has just come to my attention that the Green Party has recently called for a boycott of the State of Israel. Here is the wording of the resolution:
Green Party Resolution to Divest from Israel
Adopted by the Green Party of the United States,
November 21, 2005The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) publicly calls for divestment from and boycott of the State of Israel until such time as the full individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people are realized
To maximize the effect of the Green Party’s support for divestment and boycott of Israel:
The party calls on all civil society institutions and organizations around the world to implement a comprehensive divestment and boycott program. Further, the party calls on all governments to support this program and to implement state level boycotts.
The party urges the Campus Greens network to work in cooperation with other campus organizations to achieve institutional participation in this effort.
The GPUS National Committee directs the Green Peace Action Committee (GPAX) to encourage the larger anti-war movement to promote the divestment/boycott effort.
The GPUS National Committee directs the International Committee to work with our sister Green parties around the world in implementing an international boycott.
How surprised am I that a whacko lefty environmental party is profoundly ant-Semitic and considers Israel to be a form of global pollution? On a scale of zero to a hundred, with zero being not surprised at all and a hundred being surprised, shocked and stunned beyond belief, I will tell you how surprised I am.
I am minus a thousand, yes, a thousand below zero. That is, not only not surprised, but they are acting EXACTLY the way I would expect the cranks and fanatics of the left to behave. I would be surprised if they were any less anti-Semitic than they are.
And now you know why when these folks start mouthing off about global warming resource depletion arsenic in the water amerika is destroying mother earth yada yada, I take it with a great big grain of salt.
(Yeah, yeah, I know the earth is two degrees warmer than it was a hundred years ago — look at all the Age of the Earth posts — earth warms and cools over geological time with no input from humans whatsoever and will continue to do so.)
Watch out for the anti-Semites wherever they are folks, and do not assume that Christians “must” be anti-Semites or that secular lefties “must” be tolerant, warm-fuzzy harmless well-meaning folks.
It was a Rashi in last week’s parsha: Esav sonei le’Yakov. Our brother Esav tends to hate us, and anti-Semitism has a way of popping up again when and where you least expect it. Though in my case — me being a long-time student of politics — it actually tends to pop up where I most expect it.
How surprised am I that a whacko lefty environmental party is profoundly ant-Semitic and considers Israel to be a form of global pollution?
This just in: Earth round.
Maybe Toby one day you’re realize that the far left doesn’t have a monopoly on hating Israel and Jews. Stormfront and David Duke for example are no ones idea of lefties.
It was a Rashi in last week’s parsha
It’s not a “Rashi”. It’s a quote from Shimon Bar Yochai that Rashi cites, and you’ve managed to mangle it. The quote doesn’t say that Esav the nation hates Jacob the nation. It says Esav the individual hated Jacob the individual which is obvious from the context.
As usual, DovBear does what poputchiks like him have been doing for 80 years. When needing to defend the indefensible, he changes the subject to something irrelevant. In order to defend repugnunt position of mainstream lefties, he dredges up obscure website and a convicted felon.
He also writes Maasei Avos Siman L’Banim, the Tales of the Fathers are Signs for the Children, out of Torah. Esav’s hatred for Yaakov hardly died with our forefathers.
It is also a Rashi — much of Rashi’s commentary is derived (brilliantly collected, and concisely expressed) from Gemara and Medrash. And it seems impossible that DB could mention that this is from Rebbe Shimon Ben Yochai, and forget the very next words: Halacha Hee B’Yadua — it is a known law — that Esav hates Yaakov.
What sort of “known law” would it be, if it only meant that one long-dead individual hated another? Toby Katz didn’t mangle anything at all, she merely knows how to read Rashi and Medrash.
What about Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Parshat Toldot, in which he
describes what happened to the descendents of Esav? They were on
OUR side when Rome attacked us! Josephus backs this up.
Stormfront and David Duke are my- and lots of others’- ideas of lefties. Many have pointed out that fascism and Nazism are simply forms of left-wing socialism. Jonah Goldberg has a book coming out on this topic. (He plans on arguing the reverse as well, that there are certain fascistic tendencies on the left.)
This isn’t to say that there isn’t true right-wing anti-Semitism, but I leave it to Dov to find an example.
It is also a Rashi—much of Rashi’s commentary is derived (brilliantly collected, and concisely expressed) from Gemara and Medrash. And it seems impossible that DB could mention that this is from Rebbe Shimon Ben Yochai, and forget the very next words: Halacha Hee B’Yadua—it is a known law—that Esav hates Yaakov.
What sort of “known law” would it be, if it only meant that one long-dead individual hated another? Toby Katz didn’t mangle anything at all, she merely knows how to read Rashi and Medrash
You are mistranslating, and allowing your view of the world to cloud your understanding of the words as they appear on the page. The ArtScroll Saperstein Chumash translates it as I have it, not as a “known halacha” but as a “known tradition,” meaning (as the notes there explain) that though we know from our tradition that Esav (the individual) hated Jacob “his compassion was moved at that moment and he kissed him wholeheartedly.”
The idea that Shimon Bar Yochai means for this to be a lesson about Jews and Gentiles doesn’t fit the context. You can tell easily that the the subject of R’ Shimon’s observation is Ya’akov’s brother, not the nation (Edom) descended from him. (see Rashi on Gen. 34: 4) Moreover, if this was meant to be a lesson about nations and not an observation about people, the text would speak of Yisroel and Edom, not Esav and Yaakov. Anyway it’s hard to understand what kind of law this might be: The SA doesn’t discuss it, for instance.
When needing to defend the indefensible, he changes the subject to something irrelevant. In order to defend repugnunt position of mainstream lefties, he dredges up obscure website and a convicted felon.
The Green party aren’t mainstream leftires, anymore than David Duke is a mainstream rightie. So I wasn’t changing the subject, Mr. Cool, but putting Toby’s comment in context.
DovBear claims I am “mistranslating.” Since he portrays himself as familiar with Jewish texts, I find it hard to imagine that he is seriously arguing that the word “halacha” literally means tradition, rather than law. Any Israeli schoolchild can correct him on that one.
As such, any time one sees “halacha” it is not merely a story passed down, but a rule. Maasei Avos Siman L’Banim applies. The Shulchan Aruch doesn’t discuss it since it is not something we can control or change. But the Gemara, on the other hand, certainly does.
The Green party aren’t mainstream leftires, anymore than David Duke is a mainstream rightie. So I wasn’t changing the subject, Mr. Cool, but putting Toby’s comment in context.
The first time Green Party ran a candidate for president of US in all 50 states, he got nearly 3 million votes. Until recently its affiliate (Die Grünen) was part of Germany’s ruling coalition. They hold 33 seats in EU parliament and 166 in national legislatures of Europe. If that’s not mainstream, what is?
And no matter how you try to worm your way out of it, you were trying to defend the indefensible.
I am not surprised at all.
Ralph Nader first articles were published in a now defunct anti-Semitic publication.
The German Green party’s leader, Joschka Fischer, was foreign minister under the previous government. He was one of Israel’s best friends on the continent of Europe. May we have more such politicians!
The Green party in the United States has no such leader.
DovBear claims I am “mistranslating.” Since he portrays himself as familiar with Jewish texts, I find it hard to imagine that he is seriously arguing that the word “halacha” literally means tradition, rather than law. Any Israeli schoolchild can correct him on that one.
I refer you to the Saperstein edition of Rashi published by ArtScroll where this Rashi is translated as follows:
“Though is a known fact that Esav hated Ya´akov, his mercy was aroused at that moment, and he kissed him with all of his heart.”
In the notes, the editor makes it clear that the subject of R’ Shimon’s observation is Ya’akov’s brother, not the nation (Edom) descended from him. Moreover, if this was meant to be a lesson about nations and not an observation about people, the text would speak of Yisroel and Edom, not Esav and Yaakov.
(I went from memory earlier when I said Saperstein had halach translated as “tradition.” They have it as “fact” Not law, but fact. And as I said, the editors make it clear that Rav Shimon’s intention is to say that though it’s a known fact that Esav the person hated Yaakov the person, “his mercy was aroused at that moment, and he kissed him with all of his heart.”)
Is this the same DovBear who accused Artscroll of “spreading timidity, this intelectual dishonesty, this maddening fear of controversy, this closing of the Jewish mind?” Yes — until it suits him to claim otherwise, when he says they meant it to be literal.
The editors would be the last to claim it was a literal translation, for all sorts of reasons obvious to the chacham she’aynav b’rosho.
It is telling that he ignored my reference to the Gemara (Talmud), which is replete with references to Esav at later points in history. “‘And the hands are the hands of Esav’ — this is the kingdom that destroyed our House, and burned our Hall [the Temple], and exiled us from our land” (Gittin 57b). “The ‘voice of Yaakov’ cried out from what the ‘hands of Esav’ did to him in Beitar” (Jer. Taanis 4:5).
Dai. Enough. What Mrs. Katz said was a simple matter that we all know to be part of Jewish tradition, and hardly one to continue harping upon.
The German Green party’s leader, Joschka Fischer, was foreign minister under the previous government. He was one of Israel’s best friends on the continent of Europe. May we have more such politicians!
This is the same Joschka Fischer who attended a PLO solidarity rally in Algiers 1969. Please don’t have any illussions that there are any friends of Israel in any of the Green parties.
‘This is the same Joschka Fischer who attended a PLO solidarity rally in Algiers 1969. Please don’t have any illussions that there are any friends of Israel in any of the Green parties.’
That was 36 years ago. He changed. Read some of his speeches:
http://www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/conference/as_conf_fischer.asp
http://www.germany-info.org/relaunch/politics/new/pol_fischer_ME_2002_7.htm
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/ausgabe_archiv?archiv_id=7193
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/ausgabe_archiv?archiv_id=6954
You may not agree with his policies, but if after reading these you still think he is not a friend of Israel then it is probably impossible for anyone meet your standards.
Joschka Fischer strikes me as being like Tony Blair — out of synch with his own party. In general parties of the left tend to be anti-Israel and pro-Arab. Occasionally a statesman rises above his own party.
A handful of vague speeches prove nothing. He proably didn’t write them and he had to make them in order to stay in the ruling coalition. The fact is that he was a thug and a terrorist enabler (at least). He decided to go mainstream and lied to cover up his past.