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Freak Factory - Israel Shamir

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Blond Knight [OP]

2004-02-29 05:57 | User Profile

From: We Hold These Truths [URL]whtt.org/[/URL] Freak Factory

October 17, 2002 By Israel Shamir

IsraelShamir.net

Psychologists like to offer their patients to play an allusion game in order to free imagination. They drop you a word and you should reply with the first word that comes to your mind: “bed” - “sex”, “husband” – “pay”, “drink” –“police”. These replies help the shrink to understand the works of your mind. But sit a Jew on the couch, whisper one word, “Christ”, and you will get one response: “you call us Christ killers”.

A few days ago, a nice old Jew, member of pro-Palestinian al-Awda group, wrote expectedly “Shamir called us – Christ killers”. I was rather vexed, as I know I did not say it because I do not think so. But then, I remembered, over a year ago, when I compared killing of Palestinians who are the beloved children of Christ with killing of Christ, immediately two hired boys voiced this Jewish complaint, “he called the Jews – Christ killers”. And they would not take ‘no’ for an answer.

When the Pope John Paul II visited the old capital of Umayyad Caliphate, Damascus, the young Syrian ruler reminded his audience of the transcendental meaning of the battle for Palestine. The Palestinians fight the enemy of Christ and the enemy of the Prophet, he said.

Words of Bashar Assad caused consternation of Jews. A Conrad Black newspaper, always supporting the Israeli ‘extra-judicial killings’ (read: murders), wrote indignantly: ‘this was anti-Semitism of the worst order. Down the centuries, the charge of deicide has been a pretext for persecuting Jews, who stood accused of "killing Christ."

Please re-read again. Bashar Assad did not say, nor did he imply that Jews killed Christ. Neither did I: there is no collective guilt over many generations. But the Jews know better what people are supposed to say. In the same way the Jews know better who should represent Palestinians instead of ‘irrelevant’ Arafat, they know better who should rule Iraq, they know better who attacked America and whom America should attack, and even whom should elect the Blacks instead of Cynthia McKinney, in the same way they know better: we should say, ‘they killed Christ’. They wait for it like a passionate lover for consummation of his desires, like a brave soldier for the battle call, as they know how to reply. They will insist it until we say it, like in the joke.

A Jewish joke tells of a Jew who pestered a Chinese man in New York subway, “Are you a Jew?” – “No, - replied the Chinese. But the Jew asked again and again the same question, and the exasperated Chinese gave up “Yes, I am a Jew”. The satisfied Jew smiled at him and said, “Isn’t it strange? You do not look like a Jew”.

This accusation is false; it is but an anti-Christian libel. None of the Church Fathers, none of the “right wing religious fanatics” of old, none of the Crusaders would or did condemn the present day Jews for killing Christ just because some of their ancestors killed Christ. They were not that silly: nobody is. This accusation is but a figment of Jewish imagination. The eminent scholar, professor David Flusser, was right: ‘the Jews should not be blamed for killing Christ anymore than French blamed for sending Joan of Arc to the stake, or Greeks for sentencing Socrates to death’.

Why, then, the Jews insist on the false accusation? They do it, in order to obscure the real one: of hostility to Christ, Christianity and Christians. My dear late teacher David Flusser was a very fluent and skilful Jewish apologist, who could and would justify anything done by Jews. His reasoning is correct, but it lacks sincerity. Why, indeed, the French are not blamed for the fiery death of the Maid nor considered ‘enemies of the Maid’? But for the simple reason: though the situation appears similar (foreign occupation, corrupt local judges), the French people condemned the French judges who sentenced Joan, and made her their beloved saint. The Jews of old, on the other hand, were defiantly proud of the deed of their ancestors, and the ‘Gospel according to the Jews’, Toledot Yeshu, (it could be called “How we killed Christ”) is the most frequently copied (non-Biblical) Jewish manuscript of Middle Ages.

Adepts of Judaism kept fighting Christ and Christians. Soldiers of the last Jewish king Bar Kochba massacred Christians in 135. In Yemen, a Jewish ruler Yusuf Zu Nawas burned churches and killed thousands of Christians in 519. Palestinian Christians were slaughtered in 529 and 614. Afterwards, the warfare switched to ideology. The Middle Ages are full of rather crude Jewish anti-Christian propaganda. Its examples could be found in Jesus through Jewish Eyes*, a recently published compendium of Jewish writings about Jesus, and they include infamous Toledot Yeshu and Nestor Hakomer, written in Arabic in 9th century. Even today, leaflets in Jerusalem describe Judas as ‘the Redeemer of Israel’. That is why, as a short-hand, the Jews were described as ‘enemies of Christ’.

Christians fought back, and slaughtered quite a lot of Jews as well. It is a peculiarity of modern convoluted discourse, that Christian persecutions of Jews are well known, while persecutions of Christians by Jews are consigned to oblivion. There is ‘post-Auschwitz Christian theology’, but there is no ‘post-Mamilla Pool, or post-Deir Yassin Judaism’. This distortion of history is used by the Jewish leadership in order to induce Christians with destructive guilt feeling. That is why it is important to explain that the relations of Jews and Christians weren’t as one-sided as depicted by the Jewish apologists.

II

The millennia-old ideological warfare against Christ became the most important element of Jewishness, and it is still with us. ‘T’is better to serve Hitler than Christ”, - words to such effect said a well known Israeli Rabbi. Acceptance of Christ is the worst possible crime for a Jew, and it is felt by vast majority of the community. Jews aren’t just ‘non-Christians’, like we are ‘non-Buddhist’, they are anti-Christian. Even now, when majority of Jews ceased to practice the rules of faith, this anti-Christian streak is not gone. For instance, a baptised Jew is banned from receiving Israeli citizenship by the Law of Return. Recently, a few good Jews in America wrote to the State of Israel renouncing their right of return. There is just one way to do it: accept Christ and you would lose this right.

There are, for sure, many Jews who feel different. No group is that monolithic as to exclude dissent. Even in the leadership of the German Nazi Party, there were people who conspired against Hitler. But it does not mean there was no Nazi ideology. Among millions of Russian Communists one could find people of every possible opinion, but the Party had its structure and ideology. That is why one should not hate a man for being a Jew, or a member of Nazi Party etc, but one may reject their doctrine.

For many years, a son of enlightened parents, I could not force myself to enter a church. I did not spit at seeing church, as my great-grandfather would, but I was taught to despise Christianity, “a silly prejudice”. The Jewish faith was never considered to be a prejudice in our circles. Still, a young Jewish man could toy with Buddhism or pray in ashram, or dance with Sufis, but Christianity was beyond the pale, a totally forbidden thing. That is why many young Jews of J. Salinger’s days were looking for spirituality in foreign Buddhism: they really did not dare to embrace Christ. One could eat pork, even marry a shiksa, a slightly smaller sin, but we had imbibed hostile rejection of Christianity with our mothers’ milk.

The opinion of the Jews about Christianity would be quite irrelevant if the Jews would live on the Moon. It would be bearable if the Jews would be shoe-shiners or cotton-pickers. It was survivable while Jews were visibly separated by dress and manners, as in Middle Ages. But since the Jews became an important part of the American elites, their massive presence undermined the delicate social and spiritual fabric.

It is particularly deadly, as spirituality of our tripartite ecumene (the Western Christendom, Eastern Orthodox world and Dar al-Islam) has been built on Christ. The cathedrals of Rome, Assisi, Chartres, Köln and Canterbury, mosques of Damascus, Baghdad and Jerusalem, paintings of Botticelli, Andrei Rublev and Blake, great poetry of Rumi and Elliott, Block and Brodsky flow from this rock. It is as basic as water and earth for our civilisation. Even books arguing with Christianity: Rabelais and Voltaire, Mayakovsky and Marx still are based on it. Removal of Christ kills the Western civilisation as certainly as poisoning its air does. Human beings will not die, but the civilization will collapse after their sacred unity will be gone.

III

The scary present of the US is the result of this collapse. This neo-fascist state of billionaires and hungry children that scraps the human rights, tortures prisoners in Guantanamo, rejects all norms of the international law and plans aggression against sovereign Iraq just after devastation visited upon Afghanistan is the moral perversion built upon Christianity undermined. My friend and an important American Islamic scholar of religion Maria Hussain wrote: “Christianity has been very weak in the US. In Ann Arbor where I was raised it was understood that you do NOT mention the name of Jesus unless it is to make fun, and you do NOT publicly admit to believing in Christianity, unless you want to be avoided by your peers”.

The strange uniquely American phenomenon of Jew-worshipping Christian Zionists is but a result of social neurosis, caused by strong guilt feelings induced by the Jewish elites. These simple Christian souls try to combine their love to Christ with the society-induced adoration of Jews. They look for the Jewish approval, while sticking to the church. These opposing forces misshape their psyche like the bodies of children were misshapen by the medieval freak-makers. They should be helped to reassert their love to Christ and freed from the emotional dependency on the Jews.

Appearance of the Christian Zionists was predicted in long gone 1902 by a Viennese Jew, Solomon Ehrmann. He spoke of future when “all of mankind will have been jewified (verjudet) and joined in union with the Bnai Brith”[ii]. Now when the Bnai Brith are strong supporters of Sharon and Foxman, one understands that these Christian Zionists have been thoroughly jewified.

Their pitiful spiritual condition should remind us: Christianity and Judaism are NOT mirror images of each other. While the Church wants to bring every Jew to salvation, to make him equal to the rest of believers, to turn him or her into a dear brother or sister, the Jews want to turn the Christians into jewified Christian Zionists, emotional and spiritual slaves of the Jews. It means that the struggle is not over yet. It is an ideological, not a racial struggle; and the Christians of Jewish origin were always an important element, a beacon for their hesitating brethren, as it is the battle for the souls of Jews as well. But as precious as they are, they are not a bit more precious than the souls of other folks. If the spiritual and ideological struggle with the Jewish influence won’t be vigorously resumed, I am afraid the Christian Zionists will become the biggest and most powerful denomination in the US, and then seep over to Europe.

Professor David Perlmutter wrote to me: “Sure, maybe 20 years ago the "Israeli lobby" was made up mostly of Jews. And campaign donations were important. But now it's the Evangelical Christians who are dominant, and most politicians are nominally pro-Israel not because they want Jewish money but because they either believe in the "holy" cause or listen to their huge number of evangelical voters. Bush did not go easy on Sharon because of Jews, but because his own constituency rebelled. This is something that most Arabs and Israelis don't understand - but you see it here in the Churches and in DC. Every major US evangelical Christian leader is farther to right on Israel than most Jews I know, and after 9/11 they consider it their own personal crusade. The traditional Israeli Lobby (AIPAC etc.) has become almost irrelevant”.

That is why Jews are often described as ‘yeast’ – because of ability to judaise people; an ability based, in the US, on their positions in the discourse, media and universities. If the preachers would not feel the great support of media lords, probably they would not become as pro-Israeli as they are now. If the cause of Christ would not be so completely undermined, their flock would not feel obliged to support the Israeli genocidal apartheid state.

III

The accusation of trying to destroy Christianity was an important part of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But the reality is more complicated: in my opinion, Jews are not consciously aware of the damage they cause through their rejection of Christianity. In the same way, Europeans were not aware they bring various diseases to the native people of Polynesia, as they were immune to the malady. Still, the natives died in droves.

It is well felt by the Orthodox Jews, who try to minimise their interaction with the Gentile world. It is also felt by anti-Semites, who often prefer a traditional Orthodox Jew in his shtreiml and peyoth to an assimilated Jew. None of them understands, however, what is the source of trouble, why assimilated Jews unwillingly cause much damage to the national fabric.

A tragic example is provided by Leon Trotsky, a Jew by birth, who thoroughly rejected Judaism and described himself as a ‘non-Jewish Jew’, but was involved in massive destruction of Russian churches. He did not dream to destroy the church in order to rise up the banner of George Soros or Ariel Sharon. He was not a Jewish supremacist. He liked goyim and didn’t like Jews. He believed that Jews handled money for so long that their souls were almost irremediably warped. They retained, he said, petty-bourgeois consciousness, while the Jewish intellectuals were ‘fickle untrustworthy semi-foreigners’. He spoke Russian and apparently lost his command of Yiddish. He was proud of being considered a real Russian, not a Jew[iii].

Why, then, he became the soul of the campaign against the Russian church? For the best of reasons. He did it instinctively, as he felt, and quite right, that Christ stands on the way of his full integration within the Russian people. He did not rise to accepting Christ, but tried to remove the obstacle. Thousands of churches were destroyed, and the future of Russian communism was undermined. Eventually, this schism of communism and church caused the great successes of George Soros and Mark Rich in Russia after 1991.

Many good people of Jewish origin in Europe and America repeat the same error. They fight the Church as they feel it stands between them and the rest of the population. Alas, the example of Trotsky proves there is no short-cut. They have to submit, or cause irremediable damage to souls of people they care about. That is the only way to stop the freak factory, this side of conscious anti-Jewish action.

Copyright (c) 2004, Strait Gate Ministries, All Rights Reserved May be reproduced only in full. [ Home ]

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Ragnar

2004-02-29 07:31 | User Profile

[QUOTE]The strange uniquely American phenomenon of Jew-worshipping Christian Zionists is but a result of social neurosis, caused by strong guilt feelings induced by the Jewish elites.[/QUOTE]

Not sure about this. American Christian Zionists are the most unguilty segment of the population.

il ragno

2004-02-29 08:54 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Finally, does anybody know the full story about Shamir? [/QUOTE]

Several 'professional pro-Pals' (mostly Western leftists and monied,Westernized Arabs who attend/chair the conferences, head/belong to the lobbying groups, foundations and associations, and the usual smattering of self-important scholars) had begun attacking Shamir for his (wait for it) 'virulent anti-Semitism', which was kicked off by a visit to Shamir by Pal activist Hussein Ibish. Further attacks followed, primarily by one fellow with the very Spinal Tap name of Nigel Parry, who traces Shamir's anti-Semitism to his Christianity and demands that Shamir provide a gussied-up, properly spiffy resume before anyone should believe his claim that Zionists rule, and are destroying, the West. These attacks apparently prompted Shamir to provide such a c.v.; all three pieces follow in order.

[QUOTE]E-mail: Account of the Wednesday 4 April 2001 meeting with Israel Shamir After getting a verbal account of Hussein Ibish's meeting with Shamir prior to sending out my letter of 20 April 2001, I asked Ibish to send me a written account of the meeting. This was received on 23 April.

23 April 2001 Dear Nigel:

Here's a basic outline of what happened at my meeting with Israel Shamir a few weeks ago. I went to the meeting, which I had asked Shamir's Washington contacts to arrange, in order to try to gain some insight into a man whose work had left me both impressed and disturbed. The first two of his articles I read, "We Failed the Acid Test" and "The Rape of Dulcinea" were stylistically very impressive, but I strongly felt that subsequent offerings have tended to the crude bashing of Jews in general and the implication that the United States, if not the world, is controlled by some sort of Jewish cabal. Also, it seemed curious that no one had heard of him, if he was, as he claimed,

"one of Israel's most respected journalists." In other words I went to the meeting with serious concerns and doubts, but also with a good deal of hope that we could clear things up and lay the basis for developing a working relationship. Rather than being reassured, I was deeply alarmed by this meeting. Without going into all the details, Shamir suggested that Jews indeed do control the United States. He compared their role here with the role of Alawis in Syria, which I found to be a ridiculous comparison. He evinced no understanding of the complexities of power in this country, which he has never been to before, but seemed convinced that he knows it all. What may be even more disturbing, he absolutely dismissed the notion that Arab Americans could ever aid the cause of Palestinian liberation, since we will never be able to match the power and influence of the pro-Israel Jews and that we are totally wasting our time in even trying. He told me that I did not understand the

"way in which this community has been operating for over 1,000 years, maybe 2,000 years" and that we are helpless before them. He suggested that the only thing that would assist the cause of Palestinian liberation is the marginalization of the American Jewish community. I strongly felt that he was implying a campaign to promote mistrust of the Jewish community among the Christian majority in the United States, as he insisted that "only the majority can control this minority group." I asked him if this was the essence of his project in his writings, and he told me "it could be." I urged him to be more direct, but he declined on the grounds that we had never met before. He then told me that what he came to this country for was to find a sponsor to send him to the churches in this country on a long speaking tour. He especially seemed keen on right-wing style churches. I asked him how he would preach anti-Zionism to a dispensationalist congregation which yearns for the battle of Armageddon, and he said he would convince them that Sharon is

"the Jewish anti-Christ." He then said that what he was most looking for was a source of funding for a stipend or salary paying for these articles. He told me that it was "a sign of the immaturity" of our community that no Arab American had arranged for this yet. I spoke with him at length about the need for him to moderate his outrageous language (remember this is before the Tufts speech and the Easter Message) and to be aware of the sensitivities of political discourse in the United States. I tried to explain why I had a problem with some of his rhetoric and why it would be counterproductive to the Palestinian movement in the United States. He dismissed these concerns out of hand. It was clear to me that he had been steadily increasing this rhetoric in his articles, and I left with a sinking feeling that it was only going to get worse. The "Easter Message" was the last straw.

Yours, Hussein Ibish

(acting solely in his private capacity)

Source: The above e-mail was sent to Nigel Parry for publication and distribution on the Internet. [/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]http://www.nigelparry.com/issues/shamir/nigelletter.html Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 21:21:49 -0500 From: "Nigel Parry" Subject: The enemy of our enemy is not our friend

Dear all, I would like to comment on the Israel Shamir debate, having myself been "a friend of the Palestinians" for over a decade now. If you're reading this and don't have a clue who I am, please skip to point 9 at the end of this note and come back here when you're done.

I wish in this note to draw some lines somewhere in what oddly seems to have been confusing for many in the pro-Palestinian community.

1) PRIVATE EFFORT:

It is absolutely clear to me that Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish made all efforts to approach Israel Shamir in private, before going public.

Ibish recounted to me what happened during his 3-hour-long meeting with Shamir, during which he made every effort to deal with these issues with Shamir directly.

It is clear from the language, the tone, and the transparency of Ibish's thought process, that what he told me was a genuine account of what went on, and the subsequent Ibish/Abunimah letter was another genuine attempt to bring this matter to the attention of the community because Shamir had not treated the concerns seriously.

2) RESPECT OF THE BOUNDARIES OF DEBATE:

It is also absolutely clear that the Ibish/Abunimah letter dealt solely with, and remained within the boundaries of what Shamir had published and what Shamir was reported as having said publicly.

It can never be wrong to disagree with the content of public statements or to ask someone to explain their reaction or non-reaction to public statements made about them, which was all that was done.

In the response from Shamir, those boundaries were not adhered to by him. If Shamir wishes to increase the scope of the debate, that seems fine to me. There is much more to the story.

3) PREVAILING RESPONSE FROM THE COMMUNITY:

It is also absolutely clear that the prevailing reaction to the Ibish/Abunimah letter from pro-Palestinian activists has been to systematically excuse and explain away each of the various issues that were brought up.

In many cases, while claiming to deride "the McCarthite tactics of the Jewish Lobby" purportedly employed by Abunimah and Ibish, many seem to have accepted Shamir's response that contained exactly that kind of unsubstantiated accusations. Some even repeated these accusations themselves.

Over the last few days, Abunimah's e-mail account has been deluged with what can only be described as "hate mail" from many in the pro-Palestinian community, mostly Palestinians.

Hate mail is nothing new to any of us, but in this case, it is all backwards.

How easy we forget that both of these activists have a very long and public track record in thoughtful, constructive work on behalf of the Palestinians, based on a clear and transparent set of universal moral principles. Thanks to them, many people have been educated who would not have otherwise been.

Ali's archive of several years' letters to the media, for example, -- found on his website at [url]http://abunimah.org[/url] -- demonstrate a very fair-minded and constructive approach to one of the most frustrating aspects of our work.

I do not believe any 'dark motives' spurred their letter as suggested by some. Neither Abunimah nor Ibish have a history of leveling accusations at members of the pro-Palestinian community with whom they disagree or find objectionable.

And looking at the continually accumulating and unanswered questions many of us have about Shamir, I strongly believe they acted in the best interests of the community.

That people have been so quick to dismiss both them and their concerns is shameful and that so many have stayed silent while Abunimah and Ibish have been demeaned by undiscerning members of our community (while claiming to be acting in to stop someone being demeaned) is also shameful. Their record is not in question.

Clearly solid activist records built up over years and years of hard work have a half-life of mere minutes in this Internet age.

4) DEFENDED BY WHO?

It is worth noting that, in Shamir's response to their letter, one of the people Shamir called in his defence was Christopher Bollyn of The SPOTLIGHT, who informs us that "Christ killers" was a perfectly acceptable characterisation of Jews.

We had just misunderstood it, that was all, because we're just not "steeped" in Christianity like he is.

Speaking as someone who has been steeped, boiled, and occasionally roasted in Christianity for over a decade now, it strikes me as incredible that any purported Christian could be unaware of the historical implications and inappropriateness of using the term "Christ killers" to describe Jews.

I fully expect that next Bollyn will be assuring us that "sand niggers" is a perfectly acceptable term to use to describe Arabs. Would we accept that?

Needless to say, if you go to [url]http://www.spotlight.org[/url], home of the Liberty Lobby [sic], "the voice of the American Majority", we are only one click away (see "TBR Suppressed History" in the right column) from common garden variety Holocaust denial:

"...a plethora of documentary evidence, long suppressed, shows that [concentration camp Jewish] prisoners were relatively well-treated, compensated for their hard work and allowed to purchase luxuries to which even the German public did not have ready access. This is not the image of abject deprivation that the Holocaust lobby would like you to entertain." (from "Concentration Camp Money," by Jennifer White, The Barnes Review).

Browsing through the various sections of the rest of the Liberty Lobby's website, there is much along the same line, including articles calling for an end to "the flow of immigrants", lurid tales of the secret cabal that are ushering in the new UN/NATO-led One World Government, and about the press conspiracy to cover all of this up.

At best, Shamir displays extremely poor judgement in trying to deflect what he characterised as the "silly" charge of anti-Semitism in turning to these people to defend him.

These people are not our friends.

5) OTHER FAR RIGHT EXTREMIST LINKS:

It is also worth noting the following e-mail exchange on the website of yet another far right organisation strongly associated in the average mind with Holocaust denial and racism.

In the exchange, we see Shamir trying to sell apparently stolen Nazi memorabilia to David Irving, who is arguably the most famous Holocaust denier of our times: [url]http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/98/09/Shamir020998.html[/url]

Ironically, even the odious Irving ultimately refuses to deal with Shamir.

Elsewhere on the Internet -- in an interview with Stanley Heller archived at [url]http://www.TheStruggle.org/interview.html[/url] -- we see Shamir describe another Holocaust denier, Roger Garaudy, as "a great man."

6) THE PRIVATE MEETING - SHAMIR TO IBISH:

Shamir presents himself as a left wing Jew, but often sounds quite different.

Indeed, Ibish relates from his meeting with Shamir that Shamir absolutely dismissed the notion that Arab Americans could ever aid the cause of Palestinian liberation, and would never be able to match the power and influence of the pro-Israel lobby and are totally wasting their time by even trying.

Ibish reports that Shamir said Arab Americans do not understand the "way in which this [Jewish] community has been operating for over 1,000 years, maybe 2,000 years" and that Arab Americans are helpless before them.

Ibish also reports that Shamir suggested that the only thing that would assist the cause of Palestinian liberation is the denigration and marginalization of the American Jewish community, and would not deny that this was the main purpose of his articles.

Needless to say, both this analysis of the supposed problem and solution is intellectually and morally bankrupt.

7) NO DENIAL OF ANTI-SEMITISM

It is worth noting that Shamir's response to the Abunimah/Ibish letter contains no actual denial of anti-Semitism.

"Any irrational aversion to Jews should be certainly eradicated and condemned," is the closest he got.

Not "I am not anti-Semitic" or any formulation so simple.

Of all the things that Shamir may be guilty of, one of them very clearly is not any weakness in his capacity to use language, which has been the main appeal he seems to have had.

Are we therefore supposed to deduce from his precise formulation above that there is a "rational aversion to Jews" that is acceptable?

It occured to me at this point in the saga that one explanation for all this might be that Shamir might not be strictly Jewish in all the senses of the word, although he did emphasise the phrase "as a Jew" several times in his response to the original letter when his words were under attack.

Let's look at it:

i) A clear pattern of an increasing anti-Semitic repertoire in Shamir's writings and more overt anti-Semitism in his private conversations with people who are not Jewish, who he perceives as allies.

ii) Shamir has both documented and admitted links with the extreme-right, Holocaust denial community -- from 1998 to the present day -- that would seem to fundamentally contradict (at least on the surface) his portrayal of himself as left-wing.

iii) An Easter message, but no Passover message?

Has anyone considered, in light of the above and in light of Shamir's Russian background -- which is not disputed -- that he is one of the x-many thousands of Russian immigrants to Israel who may be ethnically Jewish, but in actuality are culturally Christians?

According to Ha'aretz of 27 October 1998, 27 percent of Russian immigrants to Israel are not Jewish. It went on to say that 50.1 percent of the Russians who arrived in Israel between January and October 1998 were not considered halachically Jewish and only 7.8 percent had Jewish grandparents.

Indeed, in a restaurant dinner following one of Shamir's recent public meetings at Columbia University, he answered a question as to whether he considered himself as a Christian or a Jew, with the answer "both."

Now I'll be the first to say that this is no crime but I'll also say that it clears up two points of confusion.

Firstly, it explains a lot about this whole saga: how we could end up in a strange situation where a Jew appears to be anti-Semitic; why Shamir sent out an Easter but not a Passover message; and, of course, his readiness to associate himself with those motivated by anti-Jewish feeling.

Secondly, it renders him about as representative of any major strata of Jewish opinion in Israel -- which is the core reason we have fawned over him so -- as Joseph Farah is representative of Arab Americans in the United States.

8) WHY THIS WAS AND REMAINS IMPORTANT TO DEAL WITH:

In light of the widespread and uncritical acceptance of Israel Shamir by many in the pro-Palestinian activist scene -- which if anything has a tendency to extinguish the burning lights in our midst through infighting, as has been witnessed on some levels this last week -- is it not right to demand that Shamir furnish -- at the very least -- a full CV and references before hosting him at symposiums and other public meetings with some of the leading lights of our movement?

These appearances are our affirmation of both people and their messages, and are signals to the outside world that these people hold views that we respect and share.

It seems to me that this has arisen out of far too much desperation in the community for validification of the universal justice of the Palestinian cause outside of the Palestinian community. And this is especially true when the person who appears to be a dissenter is from the Israeli camp.

This is insulting to the genuine friends of Palestinians from Israel: the Allegra Pachecos, the Lea Tsemels, and the Andre Rosenthals who struggle in the Israel legal system on behalf of Palestinian rights; or the Gila Svirskys, the Uri Avnerys, the Uri Davis', the Roni Ben-Efrats, and the Mikado Warshawskis who struggle among the Israeli public and in front of Israeli bulldozers on behalf of Palestinian rights; or the Amira Hass' and the Gideon Levys who struggle in the Israeli media on behalf of Palestinian rights....

When someone unknown and untested appears in our midst, we need to be patient and thoughtful. Seeing as quoting the Bible seems to be all the rage these days, we should be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.

We have stayed clear of people with such associations effectively enough in the past. Why the sudden change of tack?

For the majority of Westerners, who remain our primary target audience these days in activist work outside the country, any linking of any of our most effective commentators and spokespersons -- or ourselves -- with people bearing a message like that which Shamir has increasingly borne and appears affiliated with, is a step that we will pay for dearly in the future.

Watching the obvious delight at Shamir's appearance on the scene, divorced from any critical analysis of his writing has made me uncomfortable. Watching otherwise thoughtful activists make excuses for him even though he has not addressed the charges in any satisfactory way has made me more uncomfortable.

This acceptance of any old message from any apparent supporters of the Palestinians denigrates the real solidarity from those of us who are not Palestinian, yet have stood with the Palestinians for decades.

Are the principles that we have stood by in the midst of opprobrium from our own communities really that valueless to the pro-Palestinian community?

Is it therefore only the quantity of our support that matters, or does the quality of our message play any part in acceptance?

Let me assure you that for our primary target audience -- the Western public -- it matters a great deal.

As we listen to you, can you please listen to us?

We do not stand with the Palestinians on the basis of any ethnic connection with the conflict, but rather on the universal principles of a belief in humanity and human rights and the desire to see no person or people subjected to oppression or discrimination. Integrity is our best weapon.

Associating ourselves with any elements that preach racism and intolerance undermines that stance, and undermines the Palestinian cause.

If the rejection of these concepts and the refusal to critique people's messages on the basis of these concepts becomes the norm among us, then I'm afraid that the community will lose many of its supporters. It cannot afford to.

To stay silent is to give consent. This is true for us as historical witnesses of the Palestinian tragedy -- something which few will have issue with -- but it is also true for us when our organisations, our publications, and our community begins to preach by its acceptance, any repertoire of discrimination that is normally preached by those against whose repression we struggle.

Our enemy's enemy is not our friend. Our friends are our friends.

9) Those of you know me, most likely do so from my time at Birzeit University, where I worked from 1994-1998, launching and building the university's website found at [url]http://www.birzeit.edu/[/url], or for "A Personal Diary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict", found at [url]http://nigelparry.com/diary/[/url].

Prior to that I first travelled to the West Bank and Gaza in 1989 on a Friends of Birzeit University (FoBZU) study tour. Again in 1993, while working for FoBZU, I organised and lead a similar tour.

Since leaving the West Bank in mid-1998, I have been involved with the activist scene in the US, mostly helping organisations build their Internet capacity as well as on personal and collective projects, most recently The Electronic Intifada, found at [url]http://electronicIntifada.net/[/url].

My short CV can be found at [url]http://nigelparry.com/diary/author.html[/url]. My Web design CV can be found at [url]http://nigelparry.com/web/[/url].

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See how easy it is to put these CV things together? Whatever is ultimately decided about Shamir, make sure you get one of these from him as a first step.

The Ibish/Abunimah letter was a call for us to think critically about what we let in our front doors. It would be delinquent of me to finish in any other way than underlining their important message.

Thank you,

Nigel Parry[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]http://shamir.mediamonitors.net/index.html

Israel Shamir is a leading Russian-Israeli intellectual, writer, translator and journalist.

Shamir was born in Novosibirsk, Siberia, a grandson of a professor of mathematics and a descendant of a Rabbi from Tiberias, Palestine. He studied at the prestigious School of the Academy of Sciences, and read Math and Law at Novosibirsk University. In 1969, He moved to Israel, served as paratrooper in the army and fought in the 1973 war. After the army, he resumed his study of Law at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but abandoned the legal profession in pursuit of a career as a journalist and writer.

He got his first taste of journalism with Israel Radio. As a freelance, his varied assignments included covering Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the last stages of the war in South East Asia. In 1975, Shamir joined the BBC and moved to London. In 1977-79 he wrote for Maariv and other papers from Japan. While in Tokyo, he wrote ‘Travels With My Son’, his first novel. He also managed to find time to translate a number of Japanese classics.

After returning to Israel in 1980, Shamir wrote for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz and Al Hamishmar newspapers and worked in the Knesset as the spokesman for the Israel Socialist Party (Mapam). He translated the works of SY Agnon, the only Hebrew Nobel Prize winning writer, from the original Hebrew to Russian. His work was published and reprinted many times in both Israel and in Russia. He also translated selected chapters of Joyce’s Ulysses, which were well received by publishers in Moscow, Tel Aviv, New York and Austin, Texas. Another of his translations, the Israeli-Arab Wars by President Herzog, was published in London.

His most popular work, the Pine and the Olive, the story of Palestine/Israel, was published in 1988. Its cover carried a painting by the Ramallah painter, Nabil Anani. As the first Palestinian Intifada began, Shamir had left Israel for Russia, where he covered the eventful years 1989-1993. While in Moscow, he reported for Haaretz, but was sacked for publishing an article calling to the return the Palestinian refugees and the rebuilding of their ruined villages. He wrote for various Russian newspapers and magazines, including Pravda and Zavtra weekly. In 1993, he returned to Israel and settled in Jaffa. He wrote for Russian newspapers both in Israel and Russia and contributed to various literary magazines. During this period, he also worked on a new translation of the Odyssey, which was published in 2000 in St. Petersburg, Russia. His next big project was translating a Hebrew medieval Talmudic manuscript into Russian.

In response to the second Palestinian uprising in thirteen years, Shamir has temporarily abandoned his literary occupation and resumed his work as a journalist. In the midst of all the endless talk of a "Two State solution", Shamir, along with Edward Said, has become a leading champion of the ‘One Man, One Vote, One State’ solution in all of Palestine/Israel. His most recent essays have been circulating widely on the Internet and are now posted on many prominent media sites. With every new article, Shamir is establishing himself as a journalist whose work speaks to the aspirations of both the Israelis and the Palestinians. His most recent works include Acid Test, Rape of Dulcinea, Galilee Flowers, Joseph Revisited and Kid Sister.

Shamir (50) lives in Jaffa, he is father of two sons.

Why I Support The Return of Palestinians

Palestine is not a dead object, it is a living country. Palestinians are her soul. Palestine is what Palestinians are re-creating in real time, in the same way that France is what the French create and re-create every day. It is a vast confusion of mind, to presume one can love France and abhor French, as what kind of France would exist without the French soul. Only silly tourists from rich countries, pestered by beggars, prefer to stay in reclusive posh hotels where they can enjoy the country without encountering the natives. It is like loving a beautiful lady but hating her character and her very essence. To love a country and wish away her inhabitants is the kind of romance that can only appeal to those who have a passion for necrophilia.

The late Russian thinker Lev Gumilev described a country as a symbiosis of people and landscape. Palestine and Palestinians are inseparable, the peasants and their olives and springs of water and the mountains and the domes of the ancestral sepulchres on the hill-tops need each other and have grown to complement each other.

The Palestinians are not an obscure mean folk. They created the Star of Ghassul, wrote the Bible, built the temples of Jerusalem and Garizim, the palaces of Jericho and Samaria, the churches of the Holy Sepulchre and Nativity, the mosques of Haram a-Sharif, the harbours of Caesarea and Akka, the castles of Monfort and Belvoir. They walked with Jesus, defeated Napoleon and bravely fought at Karameh. In their veins, the blood of Aegean warriors, Bene Israel, David's heroes, the first Apostles of Christ and Companions of the Prophet, of Arab riders, Norman Crusaders and Turkmen chieftains blended in the unique composition. Its spark did not run out: the poetry of Mahmud Darwish, the wisdom of Edward Said, the perfect olive oil, the fervour of prayers and the valiant courage of intifada prove it.

Without the Palestinians, Palestine dies. Her rivers run poisoned water, the sources dry out, the hills and valleys are disfigured, her fields are worked by imported Chinese, while her sons are imprisoned in ghetto. The idea of a separate Jewish state collapsed. During last ten years, the mad policies of Israeli government imported over a million of Romanians, Russians, Ukrainians, Thai and African laborers. Some of them claim Jewish descent: Peruvian tribes, Indians from Assam and the endless refugees from the Soviet Union moved in. Now the Jewish Agency plans to import a Lembda tribe from the South Africa, in order to ensure the Jewish character of the state. Paradoxically, those who still bear some part of the Jewish traditions are isolated in the Jewish state, as late Dr Yeshayahu Leibovich or imprisoned as the Moroccan Jewish Rabbi Arie Der'i.

The fantasy of the Jewish ingathering has collided with the reality. We must end the delusion. Let the sons and daughters of Palestine come back and rebuild Suba and Kakun, Jaffa and Akka. Instead of consecrating the Green Line, let us erase it and live together, the children of Palestine, of first settlers, of Moroccans and Russians.

We should live in one state, not only because of the blatant failure of Oslo. The very idea of partition is wrong. We can follow the example of New Zealand, where the European incomers live together with the native Maori, the example of Mandela's South Africa, the example of Caribbean, where children of Spanish settlers, African slaves and native Amerindians blended into the beautiful new race. Let us tear up our Declarations of false Independence and write a new one, of mutual dependence and love.

Israel Shamir[/QUOTE]