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In Defense of Prejudice
Israel Shamir
If all three major-party contenders for the Presidency of the Republic go, hat in hand, to proclaim their fealty to AIPAC, if a former President is unable to express his views without being brutally abused by the ADL, America may need a revolution in order to regain its freedom to express its feelings, unless the whining lot of ADL activists is somehow reined in first.
In Defence of Prejudice
Beyond the Golden Gate, on a sandy shore of the cold North Pacific, spayed by black rocks and frequented by Sirens, lies
More than once I found myself mumbling: Northern California and its people are too good for the
Their local paper, the Coastal Post, is mind-bogglingly free from subservience to the Lobby. So free that they ran my piece Carter and Swarm, in defence of President Jimmy Carter after he crossed the line and the Lobby served him the black mark and threatened him with prosecution under a quaint law of 1799. The ferocious Jewish political police, the ADL, attacked the paper and me “objecting to unsubstantiated perpetuation of stereotypes of a malicious cabal of Jews "pushing for war," as well as Shamir’s stereotype of "Jewish media-lords" that "clinch the party line."
Here is my reply to the ADL’s attack:
In Defence of Prejudice
Stereotypes and prejudice are a legitimate part of our life. They are here to make our life easier. If you walk the dark streets of an urban ghetto and notice a gang of male teenagers without a single woman among them, your prejudice tells you to make a prudent detour. If a tramp in rags proposes to sell you a gold watch, your prejudice advises you to avoid the deal. If a charming stranger is eager to get bedded, your prejudice calls you to use a condom – or run away. ADL correctly states that there is a stereotype of a “malicious cabal of Jews” who are “pushing for war," as well as that of "Jewish media-lords" that "clinch the party line.”
A stereotype, or prejudice, usually is a result of many unpleasant experiences by persons who did not heed them. Ghetto teenagers may beat you up, the tramp is likely to unload hot goods, a brazen hussy may supply you with the clap. And organised Jewry did push for World War Two, for the Iraq War, and now for the war with
Prejudice makes life difficult for stereotyped persons, and this is sometimes unfair: the tramp may be a rightful heir and owner of the golden watch, a charming stranger may be a chaste creature swept away by your wit and looks, the teenagers may discuss Plato’s Cave, while a publicity-shy Israel Taub, an octogenarian scion of a great Hassidic dynasty, a Jewish prince, of sorts, spends his personal fortune rebuilding Palestinian houses destroyed by Israeli soldiers. Together with a Palestinian prince Nashashibi and a WASP Professor McGowan he erected a memorial to the victims of the Zionist-perpetrated Deir Yassin Massacre. For him, Jimmy Carter is right, while AIPAC is even worse than the Israeli destroyers. Still, such men are rather the exception to the rule, and in chance encounters, a prudent man will hope for best and expect the worst.
A person unhappy with a stereotype or with prejudice may fight it. There is a good, hard way to fight a stereotype you dislike: act contrary to the stereotype. At the end of 19th century, Asians were stereotyped as weaklings and walkovers, doomed to submit to the White Man’s Destiny. The Japanese did not like the stereotype, pulled up their socks and sank the Russian Navy, before doing the same trick to the American one. In 1950s, Japanese goods were stereotyped as ‘shoddy’. They did not complain, but worked harder and by the 1980s, Japan-made cars became a byword of quality.
Indeed, prejudice may be defeated. If you are a ghetto dweller, be stranger-friendly and make your ghetto a nice place to visit, proving that prejudice is baseless. This was done by the Chinese who suffered from terrible prejudice in the beginning of 20th century. They got together, eliminated petty crime, and now their ghetto,
The Jews fought against prejudice a few times and won every time. In the 18th century they were considered illiterate and to be living in the Dark Ages. In the 19th century they were considered unmanly. Each time, they listened to the received wisdom of stereotype and acted to correct their behaviour. They can do it now again. They may engage in work conducive to the general benefit, shy away from stock markets and banks, give Christmas presents, demand “troops out of
The ADL and their wealthy Jewish supporters went by an easier way: sticking to stereotypes and intimidating those who notice their relevance. Together, they fit stereotype to a tee: they are warmongering (against
Jews are usually quite happy applying stereotypes and prejudice, that is if they apply it to somebody else. Michael Kinsley, a star of Jewish punditry (Harvard,
Well, the whole life rigmarole is based on small chances, but the chances that your average Jewish pundit will be violently anti-Arab, pro-war, against
The ADL serves as a bad example to other groups. Instead of working harder or changing behaviour, they copycat Jews and moan about prejudice. If the Japanese would do that, they still would be producing shoddy cars, but the hate laws would forbid us to mention it. Hate laws and political correctness may hush up a problem but never solve it.
I know of it first-hand: my own Russian community had a bad image problem in admittedly prejudiced
People should be equal in law, this goes without saying. But stereotyping and prejudice usually correspond to reality, and they will change with the change of reality.
The ADL is not a means of prevention of the stereotype, but an important reason for its perpetuation. With their army of lawyers, their seemingly unlimited resources and their access to power they may forbid every related public expression of people’s feelings. But they can not forbid the feelings, and suppressed feelings will burst out sooner or later with greater, devastating force.
They are repeating the error of Soviet days: the Party had banned criticism, people suppressed their feelings, and their outburst swept away the Party rule. The democratic regimes allowed for free speech and criticism because this provided an outlet for people’s feelings and moderated the need for violent revolution. Now, with their supreme power of censorship and intimidation, organised Jewry has almost recovered the ground lost by the Party.
If all three major-party contenders for the Presidency of the Republic go, hat in hand, to proclaim their fealty to AIPAC, if a former President is unable to express his views without being brutally abused by the ADL, America may need a revolution in order to regain its freedom to express its feelings, unless the whining lot of ADL activists is somehow reined in first.
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