To get a sense of Daily Kos's fixation on the Jewish state one need only compare tag searches. In the last week, for example, between August 15 and today, Fri August 21, there were 21 diaries concerned with Israel.
http://www.dailykos.com/tag/Israel
An average of about 3 per day.
Israel, of course, is a tiny country with about 7 million people, 80 percent of whom are Jewish. It contains about 40 percent of the small world Jewish population of approximately 13 million people. Yet Israel is entirely under the spotlight. There is far, far more concern about the doings of Israel on Daily Kos than virtually any other country on the planet.
China, as an illustration, contains about 1.3 billion people and its influence, ultimately, is considerably more important to the well-being of the United States than is Israel's. China's human rights abuses, furthermore, are in many respects considerably worse than Israel's. The Chinese regime regularly jails its own citizens for criticism of the government and the Dalai Lama has stated that Chinese settlers in Tibet were creating "Chinese Apartheid." Given Daily Kos's alleged interest in human rights abuses you would think that they might have an interest in discussing China, yet in the past week there have been a grand total of two diaries concerning that country, with a total of 39 comments between them and neither of those diaries are about human rights abuses. In contrast, the 21 diaries concerned with Israel contain, as of this moment, 2,981 comments.
2,981!
http://www.dailykos.com/tag/China
As another illustration one might consider the case of Darfur. Estimates of the death toll there due to genocide vary from about 50,000 to over 300,000 in recent years, compared to the 1,400 dead in "Cast Lead." Despite the fact that the tragedy in Darfur is much worse than what has happened in Gaza there is virtually zero interest in the Sudan on Daily Kos. A simple tag search shows that no one has written a diary tagged "Darfur" since late June and even that diary received all of 3 comments. If you tag search "Sudan" you will see that there was exactly one diary written this entire month.
http://www.dailykos.com/tag/Darfur
http://www.dailykos.com/tag/Sudan
When queried about this fixation on Israel, Kossacks usually claim that the reason is because of US aid to that country, as if their concern for human rights only extends to their wallets, yet the fact is that left-liberal European fixation on Israel is even more pronounced than the American left's fixation, yet the European countries do not proffer aid to Israel. One might assume that the fixation is a fixation with the Middle East, more generally. This, of course, makes sense given the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. However, if that were the case one would think that Egypt, which is not exactly a human rights shangri-la and that is also responsible for the blockade of Gaza, would come in for scrutiny, but it does not. A tag search of "Egypt" reveals three diaries for the entire month of August, one of which is actually an I-P diary. The other two contain a whopping 37 comments.
http://www.dailykos.com/tag/Egypt
So.... Why the fixation on the one, small, lone Jewish state?
I have yet to see a satisfactory explanation.
Posted by Karmafish
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I have an explanation: It's the cause of the kooky fringe. Ever notice that the same people who hate Israel so much are in the same circles as those who believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories, Mumia's innocence, etc.? And where do most conspiracy theories end back up? Israel and the Jews.
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ReplyDeleteI think part of its the blame-America-first crowd (it does exist on the far-left) thought this time, it was "lets blame Israel for all our woes and how they and their existence determine everything else." Then Mearsheimer/Walt's hate book, loved by far-leftists (and David Duke who is far-right) came out, which they definitely only wrote for money to sell in Arab and European countries, and they felt legitimized. The anti-i posters were able to hide their anti-semitism with "concern" trolling. They think if the I/P situation went away, we'd be loved in the world.
ReplyDeleteToo bad the truth is laid out in Dennis Ross' new book, but oh yea, he's a neo-con since he doesn't blame America or Israel first. Israel is a massive counterbalance to Islamic extremism in the ME, after being our Cold War ally. If Israel went away, the ME, in fact, would be a massive disaster due to the power vacuum, and a possible Islamic caliphate due to extreme emboldening of Islamists. Israel must never be the new Czechoslovakia. Ross also rebuts neo-conservatives too. But oh yea, because he's a not a complete "anti-imperialist" whatever that means, he's still a "neo-con" tho he bashes them in his book too, along with "realists."
The far-left in both the US and Europe who hate Israel, really, in fact, simply dislike, or sometimes hate America as well as Jews. I read an article in the American Thinker, called "why does the left hates Israel?" I think that article says it best, and it doesn't talk about "liberals" necessarily, as much as "the left." I think the idea may be "America runs everything and the Jews run America" which is why so many Euro-leftists bash Israel. Tho it makes no sense logically, not to mention it was America who saved them from fascism and communism!
Also, what about human rights abuses in Venezuela? Why the silence there? because Chavez hated Bush, he must be good? Chavez is far worse than Bush(at home at least), in that he shuts down opposition and arrests them. If Chavez were in charge of a superpower (which is the only reason he doesn't have an Iraq), I hate to know what would be. He's already stretching his imperialist arm into Honduras, Bolivia, Cuba, and trying with Colombia. Plus, he's friends with Ahmadinejad and praised his "re-election."
You know, I notice there are a ton of Arabs, some of who are not US citizens, who post on Daily Kos I/P. Not to stereotype them all, (I met a really cool one on the Lebanese Forces forum tho he calls himself a Phoenician), but I do not like that so many possible non-American nationals post on Daily Kos I/P, as their views are already likely to be slanted, and serve an agenda. I don't like when non-Americans post on Kos in general like LibDem, because its about American politics with American voters.
I think, Karma, its anti-semitism and anti-Americanism with many of these people, and as has been pointed out, the two hatreds usually go together with similar people. With the other countries, because Sudan doesn't like America, China is cool at best, and Egypt is cool too tho kind of an "ally," its a-okay.
Krissy, I find myself very wary of constructions like "blame America first crowd" because it was used by the right-wing to castigate the American anti-war movement, which I supported. It is certainly true that there are some on the "far left," or whatever, who think of the US as a nefarious imperialist country exploiting the world's resources to the detriment of indigenous people around the globe and, needless to say, I believe there is a measure of truth to this, but only a measure.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, tho, to note that many of the people who think like this also tend to think of Israel as having either undue influence, via AIPAC, on US foreign policy or, conversely, think of Israel as an imperialist tool of the US in the ME. Neither of those ideas are true and they obviously cannot both be true at the same time.
The problem comes, it seems to me, when we allow ideology to blinker ourselves to more nuanced views or when we insist on ignoring inconvenient facts that fail to fit our ideology.
This is something that pro-I people do, as well.
Who else would it be politically correct to hate?
ReplyDeleteRepublicans. The New York Yankees. Michael Vick.
ReplyDeletelol
ReplyDeleteI weary of this ongoing, never-ending Yankee-Semitism.
ReplyDeleteNeed to placate rest of the Middle East because they control all the oil?
ReplyDelete