I get so tired of saying this over and over again. 70% of American Jews are against the Iraq war. The "Jewish lobby" has not organized to support invading Iraq.

Al Gore is opposed the Iraq war. He has become a favorite of The Guardian and the UK left, but they conveniently forget that he was always one of the most pro-Israel politicians in either party. Yes, one can be a vocal oppoenent of the Iraq war and still be very pro-Israel.

As someone much more famous than me once said

"There is a bouquet of roses - Jacqueline Rose, John Rose, Stephen Rose and Hilary Rose - This obnoxious floral display comprises of Jews who are proud to be ashamed that they are Jewish."

Michael Gove has a piece on the BBC's coverage of Israel-Palestine in the new issue of Prospect magazine:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/printarticle.php?id=7483

Worthwhile.

I neglected to mention the Prospect's article co-author: Mark Dooley.

"There is a bouquet of roses - Jacqueline Rose, John Rose, Stephen Rose and Hilary Rose - This obnoxious floral display comprises of Jews who are proud to be ashamed that they are Jewish"


Apart from exhibiting your own capacity to be obnoxious, what is the point you are making? Moreover,how do you know they are "proud to be ashamed they are Jewish"? It is perfectly possible to believe one's being Jewish demands that one fight injustice wherever it occurs, even, or especially, in the Jewish state.

'Apart from exhibiting your own capacity to be obnoxious, what is the point you are making? Moreover,how do you know they are "proud to be ashamed they are Jewish"? It is perfectly possible to believe one's being Jewish demands that one fight injustice wherever it occurs, even, or especially, in the Jewish state'.

Here, here!

"It is perfectly possible to believe one's being Jewish demands that one fight injustice wherever it occurs..."

Yet Steven Rose throws antisemitic abuse at UJS when they fight antisemitism and he uses the language of the Protocols to do it.

And he lies that people on campuses portray any criticism of Israel as antisemitism.

"There is a bouquet of roses - Jacqueline Rose, John Rose, Stephen Rose and Hilary Rose - This obnoxious floral display comprises of Jews who are proud to be ashamed that they are Jewish."

Here . Here.

To get the quote in context, go here
http://www.biu.ac.il/rector/academic_freedom/, click on session 5 and listen to Anthony Julius.

Alf,

Either ex maven is a therapist who has had the chance to spend a great deal of time with the four individuals he mentions and has reached the conclusion that their relationship with their religion is a cause for their support of the Palestinain cause. If that is the case,not only has he or she has breached their professional standards, he treats Jewish concern for the plight of Palestinaian as a pathology. Or, he or she has absolutely no idea what he or she is talking about, and confuses faux psychology and cheap jibes with the serious business of critique.

Yes, Steven Rose time and again draws on the arsenal of antisemitism. The question is how do you respond? Either you spend the time to point out the use of such racism and challenge him on the use of it. You may even go further, and ask those who identify with him whether they too support the use of racist rhetotric in the cause of Palestinian Solidairty and whether they think such use will benefit the cause of a just peace. Or, alternatively, maybe resorting to childish jokes that turn on someone's name is the way forward. After all, making fun of people's names - especially Jews' names - joins with a long tradition going back to at least the time when those escaping the pogroms of central and east Europe arrived in the UK. Oh, how they joined in the laughter of the customs officers sneering pronounciation.


Finally, the fact that ex maven does not recognise any difference between Steven Rose dreisable rhetoric and Jacquiline Rose's work says far more about him or her on this issue than even I could say.

Sure, we're not Steven Rose's therapist. But there must be an interesting psychology at work - even if we don't know what it is. I mean, why would a Jewish guy - and we have to assume that the big prof isn't stupid - spend his time parroting this hateful rubbish about UJS being a "highly organised Jewish lobby" that falsely cries "antisemitism" in order to drown out criticism.

We are talking about Jewish students. 18, 19, 20 year old Jewish kids - and Rose is saying that when they fight against racism they are really only pretending - that really they're defending a colonial imperialist aparthied racist Nazi occupation.

Why would a Jewish guy think that? This is not about treating concern for Palestinians as a pathology. This is about treating your own grand-children as though they were Nazis (figuratively, I don't know if he has grandchildren or not, or what their politics are if he has).

Why would someone who knows how Jews ended up living in Israel, who understands the complexity of the history of atrocity and counter-atrocity - who seems to be entirely inccapable of empathy with Israelis. He can empathise with Palestinians that support the antisemites of Hamas - but he can't empathise with Israelis who are afraid to go on the bus. He can empathise with the Palestinian refugees, but he can't find any empathy for the Israeli Holocaust survivors - or the Israelis who were ethnically cleansed from Baghdad or Beirut, Cairo or Tripoli - or the Israelis who spent their lives being treated like shit in the USSR. Why can't he see that some of these are likely to be Jewish nationalists?

If Sartre and Adorno can analyse the psychology of the antisemite, why can't we at least wonder about the psychology of Steven Rose?

Even if we can't know what his psychology is, surely there must be some kind of pathology there?

Well, to my mind(!), Steven Rose is merely another in a long line of unprincipled charlatans and should be treated accordingly.

Thanks to the references to Sartre and Adorno (and, because of its approach, strength and weaknesses, I would also include Jacqueline Rose's "Question of Zion" in htta tradition). I would refer you in passing also to Arendt and Bauman who are critical of such attempts.

But, Alf, it would seem we agree on one thing........that there is little room for the cheap, snide comments that brought me into this discussion in the first place.

Regards,
Dov

Oh I see Dov, its cheap and snide to say that Steven Rose is proud to be ashamed to be Jewish, but its sophisticated and intelligent to call him an unprincipled charlatan?

And Jacqueline Rose, who writes her 'sophisticated' schmaltz about Martin Buber and then votes for idiotic boycotts of Israeli writers and academics - is - what exactly? Who thinks that Israeli wickedness is caused by the trauma of the Holocaust, who thinks that ancient and arcane disputes in the Zionist movement explain today's problems, who hadn't begun to think about Israel/Palestine until a few years ago - and is now the world's greatest expert.

And we haven't even got on to the disgusting John Rose and his SWP/Respect comrades. Have you read "The Myths of Zionism"? Its kids stuff.

Or to Hilary Rose with her vicious bile about the world Zionist Lobby that organises against her and her Steven.

So why are all these big intellectuals behaving like kids? Ex-Maven gives one explanation - which is that they stand in the long tradition of Jews who keep their heads down because they are ashamed to be Jewish - and now they have found a 'reason' to be proud to be ashamed. OK so this explanation doesn't work for you, Dov. What is yours?

And you take Bauman seriously Dov? The guy who thinks that Hitler was bullied into the "final solution" by his civil servants? The guy who thinks that science is evil? The guy who thinks that morality is great but law is genocidal? The guy who thinks that modernity is so terrible because it tries to make the world better? Bauman is good fun as an intellectual exercise in masturbation, but you wouldn't want him in charge, would you?

Dov,

Why don't you direct your grizzly irritation at Dr. Anthony Julius, who coined that wonderfully apt "bouquet of roses" line.

I'm confident he'll happily elucidate what he intended by it, from the perspective of one dazzling, exceptionally vigorous Jewish fighter of "injustice wherever it occurs, even, or especially, in the Jewish state".

SBD, I agree with you that Anthony Julius had something in mind, and his line had a context that made it relevant. I was in Bar-Ilan when he delivered it, and indeed I thought it was rather clever and funny.

However, Dov is right that, if you take the quote out of its context, it is stupid and offensive. Maven probably doesn't understant what Julius mean at all, ans saw this as an opportunity to look clever. He failed.

Alf, I am not sure why the hostility, I thought we were having an interesting chat. Neither of us disagree as to the fact that Steven Rose peddles in antisemitic garbage. The phrase "unprincipled charlatan", by the way, refers to comments by Hannah Arendt.

Anyway, as the the question "Dov. What is yours?" I think I have already answered that question. The conflict in Israel and Palestine is a political and social question that can be discussed and resolved politically and socially. If someone want to "analyse" the participants, then fine. As you say, Adorno and Sartre did it in the abstract and Joachim Fest did it on particular individuals. All however, spent a great deal of time researching and thinking about the questions they asked. To fall back on some cliched notion about "finding a reason to be ashamed of being Jewish" which is, in fact, nothing other than a parody of such work. Moreover, if one hears Steven Rose speaking (or, rather hectoring), he is anything but ashamed of being Jewish.

I disagree with you on your reading of Jacquiline Rose........there is already a wide discussion on that work and I do not want to get invloved in it again. And, the same goes for Bauman.


Finally, this discussion brings to mind a line by Larry David.........
"Me, a self-hating Jew? I hate myself for lots of reasons, but for being a Jew.........."


Anyway, I am now officially bored with this discussion, but feel free to carry on without me..........
Dov

No hostility Dov.

I agree - Israel and Palestine is a political and social question. But we were discussing another question - why there are so many Jewish anti-Zionists who are so loud, so angry, so silly and so obsessive.

You say Steven Rose does not seem to be ashamed to be Jewish when you hear him speak. He is ashamed of what the vast majority of Jews do and say - including those in the Israeli peace movement, including people like Engage that fight antisemitism. He claims to be the real Jew - the one who is not corrupted by the Zionist/Nazi project. So he speaks "as a Jew" - against nearly all Jews.

And this might be fair enough - if he was consistent. If he was equally ashamed (or dismissive) of Jihadis or of antisemitic Arab nationalists or of those that shoot voters and trade unionists in Iraq.

But, as a Jew, he reserves his anger for Jews. Is it not reasonable to ask why?

Alf,
Put like that, I think there is less distance between us than we thought. I guess my point was twofold. First, ex maven's comments added nothing to a serious discussion and were, in my opinion, purile. Second, that we were substituting a political and social understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict with a "psychological" one; one, moreover, that relied on a cliched idea of the "self-hating Jew", something I have never been convinved of. I guess, also, that I think by discussing SR as much as we do, we are giving him far more time and thought than he warrants. As I said, to me he is just another "unprincipled charleten" who plays the race card as an excuse for his own failures. Unfortunately, he is not the first (Jewish or not) nor will he be the last.
Regards,
Dov

Given I have been attacked as "obnoxious" and as I am not a therapist I am being accused of having "absolutely no idea" what I am "talking about" as well as having made "cheap, snide comments" and not only that I am accused of not understanding what Julius meant at all, I am responding, although I was not originally intending to.

Firstly I fully understand what Anthony Julius meant. In fact I listened to the whole recording of that conference, I did not pull the quote out of thin air.

This was probably not the place for me to make that comment. As such I apologize as maybe it was an attack on Rose that is not in place on this thread. However that does not mean to say that I believe the attack to be unjustified as I tend to agree with the sentiment expressed by Anthony Julius. I was not going to bring the name Anthony Julius up originally and that is why I referred to someone much more famous than myself and did not quote his name, but as others have, it is now in the open.

There are a number of people (irrespective of surname) who use the fact that they are Jewish to make what I perceive to be highly offensive remarks about "Zionists", a definition which the vast majority of the Jewish population would subscribe to. It seems to me that if someone uses the fact they are Jewish, or of Jewish origin, to legitimise their attack then that is crass.

I do not need to tell any supporter of Engage about the implications for someone with the "misfortune" of being born in Israel, about the effect of the boycott irrespective of the political leaning of that Israeli.

Uri Davis is exluded from a boycott because he signed a piece of paper denouncing the State of Israel - This is my mind is appalling. In the 14th century Jews were told that they must finally accept Jesus or die. It is a shame that in the 21st Century, Jews are being forced to renounce Zionism or be excluded from British academic institutions.

Deborah, it doesn't change the fact that when Steven Rose says about the "Jewish lobby" is just not true.

There's a danger of missing the - or at least a - central point here. Steven Rose's comment is false, and pretty disgusting. What's more, he knows it is false. He knows, for example, that he wasn't able to persuade more than twenty or so members of the AUT at the Open University to support the boycott motions. So he lost the vote. In fact, the 'mobilisation' of 'Zionists' in opposition to the boycott at the OU was pretty pathetic, given that it was organised by me, and I'm not Jewish or a Zionist. I didn't hardly know any jews or zionists to mobilise. I thought the boycott was - primarily - stupid. A fair few people agreed. (I now have a rather more developed critique).

There was a mobilisation in support of the boycott. Posters went up saying 'Come and hear Steven Rose denounce Israeli Univerisities' (This conjures up in my mind the thoughts of a bemused OU academic in front of this poster, considering her lunchtime options. Shall I go for a walk? Shall I linger over my coffee? No, what I want is a stinging denunciation! Thank God Steven's performing!)

The argument was about academic freedom, consistency and McCarthyite political tests. Loads, really loads, really the vast majority of British academics think this stuff is just stupid. Lots aren't, I'm afraid, in the union, lots don't think the union should posture on international matters, lots support the Palestinians in some sense, but think the boycott is just dumb. Probably a fair few think that ENGAGE is a bit over the top. But the vast majority of british academics think that a boycott of Israeli colleagues is stupid and wrong. Steven Rose knows this. Yet he portrays disagreement in the most vile conspiratorial terms. It seems I and many others who thought this was a stupid move, are somehow manipulated by the 'Jewish lobby.' This is a projection of bad faith on a grand scale on Rose's part. Concern for consistency, concern about academic freedom, even, at the most minimal level, granting almost everything to Rose, disagreement about tactics, gets pitched as the influence of the 'Jewish lobby'

It's vile stuff. Shame and discredit on Rose for his comments. Shame and discredit on the Guardian for printing them without a critical view.

Why he said it? I don't have a clue. Not my problem, not my field, not the point.

Jon,

I must say, you have done a great job so far and no doubt will continue to do so. It is a shame that I often feel that the only people out there prepared to go to any length to defend any Jewish interest are Jews themselves. Whilst I know that this feeling is wrong, it is still a feeling I often have.However your own work, and not only yours, but also other non Jews such as Jane Ashworth involved in Engage, not only proves me wrong, but humbles me.

Well done and thank you.

Mikey

I'd just add this - I first saw it on:
www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001535.html

but the original is at:

www.hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2006/01/02/leading_thinkers.php

Jacqueline Rose spoke last week on her book the Question of Zion, where she takes a Freudian approach. She prescribes a process of recognition by Jews and Israelis of the pain they have caused the Palestinians, (fair enough- and already many do) which she knows will be painful as they have suppressed this knowledge all along, but really it will be very therapeutic.Sure enough, she referred anon to the Palestinian Other.

She also made the point that the hostility to the Jews who came to establish the Jewish state was not against them as Jews, but was hostility to Europeans coming to create a European colony.

I commented that her whole analysis was Eurocentric and ignored a huge component of this Arab Jew psychic drama she had described- i.e the effect on both players of 1000 years of dhimmitude. She had not recognised the Arab objection not just to a European state, or a Jewish state, but to the fact that it was a dhimmi state. The audience applauded and she looked blank and slightly panicked, asking " a what state?" from which I deduced that this term, the big Other, the dhimmi, had no resonance for her at all.

I had said that this suppressed history needed recognising, even more so than that of the Palestinians- meaning that there was already some recognition by Jews of the suffering of the Palestinians (whatever the contention over causality) whereas there was still almost total flat denial of the history and true nature of the dhimmi regime among Arab historians. She misunderstood and began berating me heatedly for valuing Jewish suffering above that of Palestinians, and calling shame on the audience for applauding my points. I approached her after the session ended to explain my point about the suppression of dhimmi history. If that were the case, she said (indicating thereby this was not something she knew about) then it should be spoken of, but not, she emphasised vehemently, at the expense of the Palestinians. Which means again she has not understood why it is important for her to understand the whole history and dynamic for a proper context, before pontificating on the remedy for healing this great guilt trauma on the Jewish psyche, let alone writing a book on Zionism.

We have previously clashed on the pages of the LRB when I pointed out, and she conceded, that she had repeated without checking, a factually inaccurate account of a particular incident in mandate Palestine which traduced Jewish attitudes during the struggle.
Posted by: ami at January 2, 2006 06:23 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If this is true, she needs to read a bit more widely. She could start with "Ibn Warraq", move on to Mervyn Hiskett, and perhaps take in Irshad Manji (if anyone wants the titles, I'll give them, but you probably know them).