Torossian Channels Zabotinsky and Dylan about Israel and the Jewish People

originally posted at Israel Thrives

Read today a post by Ronn Torossian at FrontPage entitled, "To Roger Waters of Pink Floyd & Other Israel Haters."  It's a post I highly recommend, especially for those who reflexively disparage FrontPage as extremist and not to be included in discussion. Yes, these people do exist.

Although Torossian directs his post to Roger Waters and the Israel haters, so many of whom profess allegiance to human rights, yet act like imposters, the message he relates through those he quotes, may have greater applicability to the indifferent, ignorant and apathetic among us. They, too, bear responsibility for the state of what has been, what is, and most importantly what will be.

Ze’ev Zabotinsky said that Jews have nothing to prove to our critics. If anyone needs to apologize for overt persecution and continued bigotry and discrimination still practiced, is it the Jews, and by extension Israel? The critics tolerate conduct by others that make Jewish misdeeds seem paltry. Can they explain why?

Bob Dylan is no firebrand like Zabotinsky, and universally recognized in the eyes of the the indifferent, ignorant and apathetic among us. Dylan cannot be demonized and therefore dismissed like Zabotinsky, even as he communicates a similar message, in his 1983 song "Neighborhood Bully," unknown to this writer until today. Using a poetic form that the indifferent, ignorant and apathetic among us can relate, he provides a context and reality where nothing has changed.

Dylan's lyrics are partially quoted by Torossian, but are worth reading in full.

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
He’s the neighborhood bully

He got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bully

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
He’s the neighborhood bully

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He’s the neighborhood bully

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bully

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully

Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music

Those who judge the Jews, and by extension Israel, and particularly the people who live by the double standard, like Waters and other imposters, should look at themselves and take accountability, first, by making full recognition that the non-Jewish world has, in fact, behaved far worse against the perceived "Neighborhood Bully" and telling us why they allowed this to happen.

The "Jewish Incinerator" comes to America

originally posted at Israel Thrives

There are many people, too many, more than can be counted, that don't acknowledge the extent to which Jews are subjected to bigotry in society.

Among the non-believers are those who say claims about antisemitism are only made for political purposes, to silence criticism of Israel, often from themselves, often with antisemitic effect. That does not mean they refrain from being political when it suits their needs, as the use of "Islamophobia" is rampant to chill the slightest criticism in the face of Muslim violence, toward women, homosexuals, non-believers, or even other Muslims (see here and here).

Much present day strategy of antisemitism comes from people who claim to be THE voice of human rights. Opposing Jew-hatred, to them, seems not included in the protection of human rights, and Jewish advocacy is merely a ploy to support Israel and perpetuate Zionism, the external self-determination for Jews.

A main strategy adopted by illiberal humanitarians in the name of human rights is based on a model used in the case of South Africa, to help eliminate Apartheid, an international crime. To these selective, even sanctimonious arbiters of morality and justice, Zionism is also an international crime. The strategy was largely developed in South Africa, in 2001, a few days before 9-11. As a result, the Durban Conference of 2001 (see here and here), never received the notoriety it deserved. It was a reiteration of the infamous 1975 declaration that Zionism is racism (see here and here), a malicious concept that persists to this day, under different cover, particularly on college campuses (see here and here) where activities like Israel Apartheid Week and BDS occur.

Most of these illiberals are a lost cause. Yet they are outnumbered by others that are well-intentioned, insulated from the fray, whose ignorance or misinformation becomes evident on discussion. How many who believe antisemitism is not a real problem know anything about Durban? Or the agenda of those that seek to delegitimize Israel, which happens to be the ONLY Jewish state, but no other states? As if that in itself is not antisemitic in principle and in effect. To all of these people on the periphery: WAKE UP! 

It is not just over Zionism or at the universities, however, pronounced as these are. Here we find the case of the "Jewish Incinerator." It has been reported (also here and here) that at a Chicago high school, a Jewish student was verbally attacked by classmates for months. His mother finally contacted school officials after discovering some of the students were further attacking her son and all Jewish people through a popular video-game app called Clash of Clans, and even created an antisemitic gaming group to play. In her words:

So I look down, I see it says Jewish Incinerator with their one goal is to gather all the Jews, put them in an army camp and dispose of them. I’m 42-years-old. I’m not new to this world. I didn’t become Jewish yesterday. I felt naive and shocked. We are in the year 2014. Really? At a school that my son has gone to? And I shake because I watched this group grow literally from four. Kids were just joining and joining.

In Europe, it is now common to see violence directed to Jews (see here and here and here). Hopefully the USA will never evolve so far down this road. Vigilance is necessary to weed out the poison because we have seen where it has lead. Which is why it is important not to act as if there is no problem, when evidence is seen almost every day that antisemitism, often posing as something else, remains a persistent evil, not a phobia. This is so even if some Jewish friends say it's all about Israeli actions like the "expansion" of settlements on Arab land, when construction is almost entirely the addition of housing units in what already exists. Before that Arabs, not to mention Christians, were Jew-lovers, don't you see?