Dean's World

Some years ago Meryl Yourish and I had a fight over a couple of things that, in retrospect, were pretty stupid. Still, it was funny: a year or so after those incidents she wrote me to ask for a personal favor. She was entirely nice about it. I assumed this was an olive branch and complied. Since then we've exchanged short, polite emails a couple of times over mostly blogging-related matters. I didn't think we'd ever be friends again but I thought simple civility and courtesy were now a reasonable expectation.

Apparently not. Well, live and learn I guess.

Without responding to the slime spewed by Meryl and her commenters--the sexist, misandrist garbage about me, the slanderous claims about what I supposedly think about Judaism, or the shamefully Islamophobic nonsense--let me focus once again on my exact problem with the following video:

Lettre ouverte au monde entier
Uploaded by Tazda

I agree with much of what's said in that video, as I've said from the start. I quibble with one or two things. If they weren't the words of a deplorable man, I would find nothing worth remarking negatively upon. I'd have probably posted the video on Dean's World, with a hat tip, and said little more about it.

However, the fact is that Meir Kahane was an evil man. Weak-tea statements like "I do not agree with everything he stood for" while glowingly quoting him at length strikes me as a big mistake. That opens up the Israeli people, and their supporters, to the charge that they stand by terrorism and theocratic extremism and are thus "no better than" their enemies--which is stupid garbage. But Kahane, by his life and actions, made such bullcrap harder to refute. If most Jews hadn't thoroughly rejected him he'd be the poster child for Jewish evil rather than the minor footnote he deserves to be.

I've spent too many years, too much personal time and money, and taken too much abuse for defending Israel. I will not stand by while a murdering terrorist thug and embarrassment to humanist values is approvingly quoted and treated as merely a bit controversial.

Under the assumption that we are actually talking like rational adults, let me point to a few examples that might help Meryl and her friends understand my point. I'll start with some comparatively mild objections about Kahane. I will then move up to issues that I consider felonies and not misdemeanors. So if someone tries the trick of only responding to my more mild objections, or pretending I put them all on the same level, we'll all know better.

Minor objection #1, which might be called a nitpick:

Meryl approvingly notes that Israel respects gay rights and is proud about this. She and I completely agree about this--we're both liberal humanists after all. As I noted almost three years ago, the following quiz is reason alone for tolerant people everywhere to respect Israel. You don't have to "approve" of homosexuality to note what it says about an enlightened, tolerant society not to imprison and persecute such people, to prefer to talk to them rather than stone them.

What would Rabbi Kahane have said about this? Well, he wanted to throw every non-Jew out of Israel, get rid of most of Israel's democratic institutions, and bring in traditionalist, Orthodox religious rule throughout the country. He advocated turning Israel into an officially theocratic, Orthodox regime. Furthermore, the Kahanist official line has always been that homosexuality is "detrimental to the perpetuation of Jewish life."

Update: This just in, Kahanists lionize a man for stabbing a homosexual. Nice folks, those Kahanists.

I think we are safe to assume that there would be no gay pride parades if Rabbi Kahane's Israel came into existence; indeed, the Kahanists continue to do their best best stop such things.

Minor objection #2, a bit more serious:

Ehud Sprinzak some years ago wrote an excellent expose of Rabbi Meir Kahane, detailing Kahane's theocratic views. There's lots there to read but I found this part particularly revealing:

The Arabs are, taken together, the collective entity that, for Kahane, threatens Jewish existence; and the Israeli Arabs (there is no Palestinian nation for Kahane) are a highly explosive time bomb. The Arabs claim the same land as the Jews, refuse to recognize God's biblical prescriptions and would never be ready to settle for less than the whole. This places them in the same position as the native population of Canaan at the time of the Israelite conquest, and all biblical rules and regulations adopted and applied by Joshua against the Canaanites are relevant today. Joshua, Kahane reminds us, sent the Canaanites three letters offering them three alternative courses of action: leave the land, fight for it and bear the consequences or peacefully surrender to the Jews and obtain the status of loyal "resident strangers." Any individual Arab is thus welcome to stay provided he fully accepts Jewish sovereignty, as well as the right upon which it is founded. Applying the rules of Halakha (written and oral tradition) according to his understanding, Kahane maintains that even in the case of complete submission, full rights of citizenship should not be given to "strangers." Only "strangers" who will obey the seven commandments of "Noah's sons," pay special taxes and submit to special labour regulations may remain. Following the "kingdom rules" of Maimonides, the "strangers" must also constantly be "humiliated and detested"

Does that sound like dhimmitude to you? It sure does to me.

I thought we were all proud of the fact that Arab citizens of Israel serve in its armed forces, in its government, and enjoy almost all the same rights that everyone else in Israel does. Israeli Arabs--not the Palestinians, but the actual Israeli Arabs who stood by Israel even when they were invaded--are treated with respect and friendship, and even gratitude. I've noted this myself many times as a reason to respect Israel. Would that every one of Israel's immediate neighbors was so tolerant of religious and ethnic minorities within their borders.

But Sprinzak notes that Kahane called for even Israeli Arabs to be expelled or at least treated with contempt and loathing. As Sprinzak noted, Kahane didn't just hate the non-Jews in Israel. He wanted them all gone, and the few who might stupidly remain should be treated with utter loathing and permanent second-class citizenship.

Minor Objection #3: To Kahanists, a Jewish woman who has sex with a non-Jew is a whore and a traitor to the Jewish people. If she doesn't deserve jail then certainly the man who had sex with her does. The Kahanists openly advocate this policy. They don't just frown upon miscegenation. They don't just condemn it. They don't even limit themselves to discouraging it. They want to make it punishable by law for a Jewish woman to have sex with a non-Jew.

I admit we are still in "controversial" territory here. I can understand why a reasonable Jew would say, "well maybe I support some of those ideas, or some parts of them," or even, "well I don't support much of that but I get where it's coming from." Either way, most would say, "we have higher issues we have to deal with right now--the protection of Israel."

I get that. So:

Not-So-Minor Objection #4: Kahanism is a terrorist movement.

If you read Sprinzak's expose, you'll find it's a pretty good introduction to Kahane's actual terrorist activities. The innocent people he beat up, the everyday people his followers hit with sticks and stones, the bombs they blew up or tried to blow up, the car bombs they set, the people he and his friends threatened to kill--and some of the people they actually did kill.

The Anti-Defamation League--an organization of which I am sometimes critical, but is certainly not anti-Jewish or anti-Israel--has a lengthy look at Kahane and his movement's violence. Click "show" below to see a few selections. By the way, the Jewish Defense League, mentioned repeatedly, is a Kahanist organization:

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"We feel that [Baruch] Goldstein took a preventative measure against yet another Arab attack on Jews. We understand his motivation, his grief and his actions. And we are not ashamed to say that Goldstein was a charter member of the Jewish Defense League."

May 22, 1970: Six unidentified members of the JDL stormed into the offices of two Arab propaganda agencies in New York. Three Arab men were severely beaten with wooden clubs, and the offices were left in disarray. The three victims were hospitalized. Responding to reports that JDL literature was found at the scene of the attacks, Kahane did not take credit for the assaults but stated that "If we did [take credit], we'd be open to all sorts of problems. We obviously can't." He then proceeded to express his approval of the attacks.

November 25, 1970: At 3:20 a.m., a bomb exploded at the Manhattan offices of the Soviet airline Aeroflot and its travel agency Intourist causing extensive damage. Thirty-five minutes after the explosion of the bomb, an anonymous caller telephoned the Associated Press and declared that the bomb was in response to Soviet anti-Semitism and pronounced the JDL slogan, "Never again!" At a subsequent press conference, Kahane voiced approval of the bombing but denied responsibility for it, stating, "Any protest to help enslaved people is a legitimate form of protest - including bombing and other forms of violent action."

January 8, 1971: A bomb exploded in the pre-dawn hours of the morning outside a Soviet cultural building in Washington DC causing moderate damage. Shortly after the explosion, a woman telephoned news agencies and warned: "This is a sample of things to come. Let our people go. Never again! " Bertram Zweibon, the vice-chairman of the JDL denied the group's involvement, but declared, "We do not condemn the act."

May 24, 1972: In an apparent effort to disrupt U.S. - Soviet relations, four people, two of which were reported to be members of the JDL, were arrested and charged with bomb possession and burglary in a conspiracy to blow up the Long Island residence of the Soviet Mission to the UN. President Nixon was on an official visit to Moscow at the time. The arrests were announced by Acting Attorney General Richard Kliendienst. On August 4 1972, the two JDL members pleaded guilty and were sentenced to serve 3 years in prison for one and a year and a day for the other.

February 8, 1975: Rabbi Kahane was accused of having conspired to kidnap a Soviet diplomat, to bomb the Iraqi Embassy in Washington, and to ship arms abroad from Israel, when he was there in 1972. As a result, a federal judge scheduled a hearing on revocation of Kahane's 5-year probation, dating from a July, 1971 conviction for making a firebomb. The judge subsequently found Kahane guilty of violating his probation, and imposed a one-year prison term, which Kahane began serving on March 18 of that year.

April 25, 1975: Six JDL members, expressing dissatisfaction with the responsiveness to community needs of the San Francisco Jewish Welfare Federation, forced their way into the office of the executive vice president of the Federation, ransacked files and assaulted four staff members, including one who, according to a Federation spokesman, had been crippled as a result of having spent time in a concentration camp during World War II.

January 13, 1976: Three pipe bombs were discovered and disarmed by New York City police near the United Nations, and a fourth bomb found at the Iraqi UN Mission was later similarly disarmed. Anonymous telephone callers told the Associated Press that the bombs had been set by the Jewish Armed Resistance Strike Unit, which has been associated with the JDL. The UN bombs were found by a Transit Authority employee in a subway emergency exit shaft under an exit ramp from the FDR drive next to the UN. A UN spokesman said that fragments from the bomb could have killed or wounded anyone within 50 feet. A JDL spokesman said his organization applauded the attempted bombing.

On March 28 1976, in an article titled "Anti-Soviet Violence Here Upsets Jews in Moscow" The New York Times reported that Soviet Jewish refuseniks had publicly criticized the JDL's actions: "A number of Jewish activists refused permission to emigrate... feel that lanti-Soviet] harassment in New York hurts their cause and may give Soviet authorities an excuse to become even more intransigent." The article also quoted several Jews awaiting exit visas in Moscow as expressing opposition to violent attacks upon Soviet personnel in New York, and concluded: "Another Jewish activist feared that such actions could make authorities more unwilling to relax emigration policies for fear of losing face."

May 3, 1976: Five pipe bombs shattered windows and caused minor damage to two banks, a Russian book store, a subway exit near the UN and the national headquarters of the Communist Party. A caller to the Daily News stated that the bombs had been planted by the Jewish Armed Resistance Strike Unit, and supplied the location of a letter relating to the bombings, which was later found there by police.

Responding to the spate of violence against Soviet diplomatic personnel and property, six Orthodox rabbis and deans of Yeshivot (Jewish religious seminaries) issued a statement denouncing violence and terror by Jews against Russian officials and property in the United States as a transgression of Jewish law. The statement was released on May 14, 1976 by the Agudat Israel of America in the name of the Council of Torah Sages.

August 30, 1981: Four gasoline firebombs were hurled at the home of an accused Nazi war criminal, Boleslavs Maikovskis, in Mineola, Long Island at 2:30 a.m. There were no injuries, but slight damage to the house was reported. Within minutes of the firebombing attack, a representative of the JDL telephoned the New York Post and took responsibility for the attack.

September 6, 1981: A small bomb exploded at the Four Continent Bookstore at 1:40 a.m., causing damage to the display window of the store. The Four Continent Bookstore, which sold literature published in the Soviet Union, was targeted by what a caller identified as the "Thunder of Zion" which claimed to be a "militant faction" of the JDL. The caller stated, "Within the next two weeks they [Soviet Jews, including refuseniks Anatoly Shcharansky and Maria Tlemkin] had better be released or Russian blood will flow on New York streets. There will be blood up to your knees, including [Soviet foreign minister Andrei] Gromyko's." Arno Weinstein, the national director of the JDL, in an interview with the New York Post, said, "We do not take responsibility for this, but we applaud it. I am very happy that Jews are finally taking some action."

October 25, 1981: Two firebombs severely damaged the Egyptian Government Tourist Office at Rockefeller Center in New York at 4:18 a.m. There were no injuries. An anonymous caller to the New York Daily News claimed responsibility for the bombing at 4:35 a.m., stating, "This is the JDL. We have just firebombed the Egyptian government offices. We demand that the Camp David Accords be buried with Anwar Sadat, in solidarity with those against the retreat from the Israeli-liberated lands - the Sinai. Shalom. Never again!" A spokesman for the JDL later denied responsibility for the bombing, but "if this bombing was done to expose the fallacy of the Camp David Accords, we support the act. " Kahane himself was quoted by the New York Post as saying, "it could have been members of the JDL and it could have been anyone. "249 At a press conference on October 26, Kahane stated, "I would not be particularly anxious to be an Egyptian in New York City."

October 11, 1985: The West Coast headquarters of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is bombed, killing its Palestinian-American director, Alex Odeh and injuring 7 others. A JDL spokesman declared that Odeh "got exactly what he deserved."

October 27, 1987: Victor Vancier, the former National Chairman of the JDL, was sentenced to ten years in prison for bombing attacks at the Soviet diplomatic residence in New York and at Soviet cultural performances. A JDL co-defendant in the case, Jay Cohen, committed suicide on September 6 in his hotel room in the Catskill Mountains. Two other JDL members who were sentenced in the same case were Murray Young, described as a "bomb maker," who received a five-year term because he co-operated with prosecutors after his arrest. Young told the sentencing judge that he had engaged in violence because his grandfather had been beheaded in Russia. Sharon Katz was sentenced to six months house arrest and five years probation, and a $5000 fine for detonating a tear gas grenade. The three were sentenced for an incident in October of 1986 in which the opening night performance of the Soviet Union's Moiseyev Dancers was tear gassed. Vancier had previously justified the JDL's violence by saying that Jews must take extreme measures because "crazy Jews live longer.

January 5, 1994: Between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m., a bomb was placed outside a New York building that houses Americans for Peace Now, Habonim, Israel Horizons, and the Progressive Zionist Caucus. The bomb did not explode but was later defused by police . A second bomb, placed outside the building which houses the New Israel Fund, exploded but there were no injuries. Notes left with the bombs declared that an Jewish "civil war has begun. " The notes also spoke of the "spilling of blood in Israel" and criticized the Israeli Government as being "too liberal. " The notes were signed by the "Shield of David" and the "Maccabee Squad." A press release issued by Kahane Chai provided its traditional response subsequent to such incidents: the organization "denied responsibility" for the attacks, but "refused] to condemn the act."

June 9, 1995: Los Angeles, California - William Howard Ross, a member of the Jewish Defense League, was sentenced to life imprisonment for having enlisted Robert and Rochelle Manning to construct and mail a booby trap bomb to a local computer company with whom Ross had had a personal dispute. (See June 1988 and February 10, 1994 regarding the trial and sentencing of Robert Manning.)

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Those are just a few selections I chose almost at random; you should read the whole thing yourself.

Indeed, the ADL's listing isn't even complete. The Jewish Virtual Library notes one of the supreme ironies: Binyamin Zev Kahane, Rabbi Kahane's son, openly approved of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Rabin was murdered in 1995 by a Kahanist terrorist named Yigal Amir, a member of a Kahanist offshoot group known as Eyal.

Got that? No Arab, no Islamist, murdered Yitzhak Rabin. A Jew proudly affiliated with Kahane murdered Yitzhak Rabin.

Worse, the Kahane organization, in their typical fashion, denied being part of the terrorist act but then said they approved of the action anyway.

This was not the first time a Jew was terrorized by the Kahanists. But it was the final straw for most Israelis.

So let's get something straight: it is not Dean Esmay who says Kahane and his followers are terrrorists. The U.S. State Department says so. The Council on Foreign Relations says so. The Israeli government says so. The Center for Defense Information's Terrorist Project says so. The Anti-Defamation League says so. Even Front Page Magazine, of all places, recognizes that Jewish terrorism is still terrorism, and notes a recent Kahanist atrocity from 2005.

"Are they as bad as bad as the Islamist terrorists?" is almost a cowardly question. Who gives a damn? Are they evil or are they not? Do you have the moral fortitude to answer that without equivocation?

I do not "think" Kahane was a terrorist, I know he was. And now everybody, including Meryl Yourish, knows it too. Kahanism = terror and oppression and barbarism. That being the case, here are a few simple questions:

Will you unequivocally denounce Rabbi Meir Kahane as the leader of a radical theocratic and terrorist movement that even Jews are not safe from being harassed, beaten, and murdered by? Or will you stick with a mealy-mouthed "well, I don't agree with everything, but..." or "yes but Dean Esmay is a bad, evil man" response?

We all make mistakes. The real question is whether we apologize for them and try to make amends.

(And by the way, see Dean Esmay, Terrorist Supporter if you're thinking I've never made the mistake of unwittingly supporting terrorists myself.)

Update: And by the way, I thought this blindingly obvious but maybe it needs to be stated: when a terrorist--a man who was a practicing terrorist before he ever even moved to Israel--takes it upon himself to speak for all of Israel, the unspoken assumptions behind his "we don't give a damn what anyone in the world thinks" rhetoric seem pretty obvious, do they not?

Related Posts (on one page):

Terrorist Apologism
Alt.muslim responds
Even more on Meir Kahane
More On Kahanism
Don't Get Fooled Again: The Reality of Kahanism
The Conversation at Meryl's Blog....
Oh, Meryl
No-Knock Police Raids
"Inspiring" Israeli Terrorist

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Dean Esmay:

Typical Kahanist (i.e. terrorist) apologist tacks when confronted with the facts:

1) Why don't you attack groups like Hezbollah and Hamas? (Non-sequitur. I do so all the time and have four years of blog archives to prove it. This is the first time in four years I've even mentioned Kahanist terrorism.)
2) The accusations are exaggerated (Really? Go and look.)
3) The terrorism was just in retaliation for earlier terrorism by others. (Really? Go and look.)
4) The State Department, the Israeli government, the ADL, the CDI, the CFR, and everyone else are just all out to get Israel and/or are just self-hating Jews.
5) No one can prove definitively that Kahane himself actually plotted most of the terrorist attacks. "He's not responsible for what his friends and followers do!" (Yeah, because you're not a terrorist if you don't personally use your own hands.)

I expect some version of all this as the wormy response. Rather than a forthright acknowledgement of the truth.

11.27.2006 12:30pm

naftali (mail):

I am far too young to know much about Kahana.But from what is written in your post , it seems to me that he would be just about the worst person in the world to determine policy for Jewish governance in the Holy land.

Later on this evening I will attempt to adress the substance of the post,namely, what is merely Kahana and what is Halacha.You,though, will not find it entirely conforting;You make moral judgements based on axioms that sometimes are and sometimes are not concurrent with Torah.

I know that this post is not an attack on Judiasm.But you must admit that halachic Judiasm as viwed through it looks pretty bad.

There is a verse in the Torah stating that Halacha is what unltimately makes Jews look wise in the eyes of the nations of the world.But there is also a Midrashic teaching (that's quoted by Rashi in his commentary to the Torah) stating that when Halacha is missrepresented, we look like fools.And it is missrepresented somewhat here.

By the way, I for one am glad you brought this up.I bet we will all gain.

11.27.2006 1:36pm

I'll be happy to read it although I do not know how much will really surprise me. I understand that there is an ongoing friction among Israelis as to how much of traditional Jewish theocratic law should be applied to Israeli political law--on how much "separation of torah and state" (if you will) there should be.

So when I said "aren't we all supposed to be proud" I got that wrong: I understand that there are traditionalist Jews who might want to mandate certain things from religious law that may not make liberals comfortable. This is why I listed it as a minor objection. Liberals like Meryl and I (if you can call her that) admire Israel for its inclusiveness on certain issues. I don't disrespect that per se, but I marvel at the hypocricy of someone who trumpets Israel for having these values, then trumpets a guy like Kahane without mentioning that he was not just moderately opposed to such things but radically so--and that much of his rhetoric about not caring what the world thought carried with it the implication that he and his followers were going to do some pretty radical, evil things and did not care who hated them for it. Which is another reason to be disturbed by the video--the instated assumptions behind many of those words.

11.27.2006 2:44pm

Ronald Coleman (mail) (www):

Meir Kahane never submitted his political platforms to bona fide religious leaders for approval or guidance. He never had their support. None of the religious parties in Israel advocates the use of coercion to enforce halacha, such as the proposed law that would punish sex between Jewish women and non-Jewish men, though I am not impressed with your source on this, Dean -- you link to a 1981 Times article which mentions this in an aside; when you claim "the Kahanists openly advocate[d] this" I'd expect a primary source. (The article is more interesting because it might be the last time the Israeli Supreme Court deferred to the Knesset.)

11.27.2006 3:06pm

I have only secondary sources on that, although I have several; I picked that one as the easiest because in other places it's buried in the middle of much lengthier articles.

I consider it a minor point (and listed it as such) because I understand that some Jews strongly oppose sex outside of marriage and also strongly oppose Jews marrying non-Jews. So that would make it one of those "borderline" things--something where I can understand someone merely saying, "I don't agree with everything, but...." in response to a Kahanist rant.

Taken as part of the overall package, however, it underscores the man and his movement's radicalism.

And you're right, by the way: of course Kahane never submitted his ideas to legitimate religious authorities. He couldn't; he'd already been condemned by most of them as a radical.

Which maybe should also be listed as yet another problem: every major Jewish religious authority (yes of course including the Orthodox) has condemned him.

One might also mention that he never much bothered to put his ideas before the Israeli elected government either. Indeed, when he won a single seat in the Israeli parliament he openly declared that he wouldn't bother even trying to join any government or be a regular member of parliament. He just got more radical. Read Sprinzak's profile/expose.

So let's see: a terrorist who's repudiated by all major Israeli religious and political authorites--yeah, but we should be quoting him approvingly without bothering to say more than "I don't agree with everything he believed but every word of this marvelous piece is absolutely true!"

Anyway I'll try to find you a direct Kahanist source on the sex thing.

11.27.2006 4:17pm

What I'm trying to do now is locate a copy of the 1981 Kach platform, in English. Most sources I have (like the New York Review of Books) say that was in their 1981 platform. There are also some nutjob sources, which makes the quest maddening. Fastest way to confirm would be to get ahold of that platform, but even kahane.org doesn't carry it.

11.27.2006 4:27pm

Interesting thing you'll note if you start doing much internet research on Kahane: neo-nazis and other anti-semitic sources loooove Kahane and his followers. They love to point to every obnoxious or vile thing they've ever done and paint it as "the true face of the Zionist entity" and other such disgusting rubbish.

Mind you, it's a minor point, because if they didn't have these guys to to point to, they'd just make stuff up. Which is what they usually do anyway. Still, I hate to see those idiots looking like they have any credibility at all.

By the way, found this while I was randomly searching. This from Ynet (a legit source I'm pretty sure): Kahane supporters praise Gaza killings as 'holy'.

The reference is to a shell that got misdirected and accidentally took out a family.

Lovely quote buried in the story on the celebration:

Activists linked his memorial to the gay pride parade and praised Yishai Schlissel, who stabbed a man at the gay pride parade in Jerusalem last year and was sentenced to 12 years in jail.

Nice people, those Kahanists...

11.27.2006 4:44pm

Dave Justus (mail) (www):

I don't understand this controversy here at all. Apparently, you are made because Meryl approved of a statement made by someone you disapprove of.

I can't see anything other than that being an ad-hominem attack. As an example, I greatly disapprove of Mao Tse-Tung, but I think his statement, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" contains a fair amount of truth nonetheless.

I think even bad people can say true and useful things. Ignoring those truths, refusing to learn from them or consider them just because the person is bad is hardly a path to wisdom.

11.27.2006 4:49pm

HokiePundit (RDB) (mail):

Two thoughts:

1. I don't remember Joshua sending out three letters, but perhaps this is part of the Jewish Oral Tradition and not contained in the Old Testament. However, given that the Israelites were commanded to drive the Canaanites from the land (and, arguably, exterminate them) the option of allowing them to stay as resident strangers would seem to be a failure to obey. This third option is actually what ended up happening, to the detriment of ancient Israel. At the same time, though, the Arabs are not a Canaanite tribe and wouldn't seem to fall under the directive to cleanse the land of Canaanites.

2. We're assuming, of course, that Kahane is in the wrong. I'm not positive that what he's doing is any different from what happened in the Old Testament. If we say that what Moses, Joshua, David, and Nehemiah did was okay, then it could be argued that Kahane is no different. Two questions: Is Kahane following the commands given to Israel in the Old Testament? If so, have those commands been changed so that what he is doing is now wrong?

11.27.2006 5:06pm

Ad hominem? [rolls eyes] Take the blinders off, Dave. That is just ridiculous.

Let me reprint a lengthy rant written by Ted Bundy, speak glowingly of its contents, claim I agreed with every single word, and then say nothing more about him than I "don't agree with everything he stood for." You can suggest that's the same thing as quoting a line or two from Mao, but I find that a ridiculous comparison.

Furthermore, the ONLY person to engage in ANY ad hominem was Meryl. She chose to escalate this, and to issue a ton of ad hominem slurs at me for merely asking some polite questions and expressing concerns in an entirely respectful and non-confrontational manner. She then went on to hold court on a lengthy discussion on how awful I am as a person. I mean, that's typical for her, and unsurprising really, but even then it might end there.

But then she really put her foot in a bucket of crap and grew angry with me for saying Kahane was a terrorist, even saying that I only "think" Kahane was a terrorist.

Which now raises the entirely fair question: is she much more of a Kahane supporter than she's willing to let on? Engaging in outright denial of this man's crimes against humanity and his own people smells of subterfuge and dissembling. Now it starts to look like she knew all along and didn't really care--that all she could think to say about this terrorist and murderer is that she "didn't agree with everything" he stood for.

Anyone who knows what Kahane was actually all about would have to wince at least a little at that rant, because it's clearly not talking about the Israeli state that is, it's talking about the state that Kahane wanted Israel to be. And is it really wise for anyone to declare that Israel has the right to do anything it wants, any time, any place, no matter what--and worse, to endorse those sentiments knowing full well that they were issued by an avowed and proud terrorist who was presuming to speak for all Jewish people?

No, you defend Meryl all you want. At this point she's earned the label "Kahanist apologist." And I'm far from the only one who thinks so, now.

11.27.2006 5:25pm

Hokie: Kahane and his followers believe he is 100% justified in everything by the words of the Jewish scriptures.

You can hunt the world over, however, and will find a damned hard time finding any respectable Jewish thinkers--Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox--who agree. See the discussion with Ron above. This man is viewed as a heretic and an embarrassment by the vast majority of Jews who really know what his life was all about.

Still, if you take his twisted reading of the scriptures seriously, sure, he could find ways to rationalize his terrorism. You can do that with almost any scriptures of almost any faith (a fact that seems lost on a surprising number of people).

Read Ehud Sprinzak's excellent expose to really understand this terrorist creep.

11.27.2006 5:30pm

Okay, this isn't meant as any kind of provocation but simply an observation. I suspect I'm in danger of getting flamed out of existence, but I'll do it anyway for the sake of discussion:

Given that Christians believe that Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jewish scholars are wrong about Jesus Christ not being the Messiah, why should Christians give credence to their interpretations or anything else they believe?

Non-Christians have an easy out on this one, but I'm not sure that Christians (or Muslims, for a somewhat similar reason) do.

11.27.2006 5:40pm

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Premillennialist Christians of a fundamentalist nature do agree with Kahane, as it would conform to the idea of the rebirth of an Old Testament-style Jewish nation in Israel.

Again, please note, this is not my theological position. I'm not even a Premillennialist.

11.27.2006 5:42pm

Given that most Christians don't even agree with each other on what the various parts of the Bible mean, your question is all but unanswerable. It would depend on what your flavor of Christianity held to. And even then, just to decide you would need to learn a lot more about Kahane.

I suggest you read this article. Then just see if you think the behavior is entirely consistent with what you think the Christian Old Testament teaches.

11.27.2006 5:43pm

I would think you're right, Hokie: there are almost certainly Christian radicals who think the Kahanists are right on the money. You can find some way to interpret all sorts of parts of the Torah and the Tanakh ("Old Testament") to justify all kinds of behavior most people would consider violent and evil. Especially if you insist upon a primitivist reading and then just find some way to rationalize away the parts that would refute your reading.

The Kahanists seem to see Rabbi Kahane as much akin to the judges of old, especially Samson. Hey, he and his followers didn't do anything Samson wouldn't have done to the Philistines, right?

Even killing one's fellow Jews is okay because after all they were traitors so...

11.27.2006 6:19pm

"Let me reprint a lengthy rant written by Ted Bundy, speak glowingly of its contents, claim I agreed with every single word, and then say nothing more about him than I "don't agree with everything he stood for." You can suggest that's the same thing as quoting a line or two from Mao, but I find that a ridiculous comparison."

By using the term 'rant' here you seem to be changing the subject. Here is another comparison, I don't know if you have read the unibomber's manifesto or not. I don't agree with everything he writes, and I certainly disagree most stridently with his terrorist actions, but I do think that their is a lot in their that provides food for thought. I would not necessarily feel required to make a long rant about how bad Ted Kaczynki was if I wanted to write about some of the things that he discussed, using his manifesto as a spring board.

Of course other, examples apply as well. Some hold that we cannot cite approvingly of the writings of Thomas Jefferson because he had slaves. I expect that while you strongly disapprove of slavery, you don't feel a need to put out a long disertation of that any time you quote Jefferson, or talk about the declaration of indepencence. It is a particularly modern argument that says the merits of what is said can only be as relevant as the merits of the sayer, and one that I strongly disagree with.

In many ways, this arguement strikes me as quite similar to things arguements you have made concerning CAIR. Some say that because CAIR has some links to terror groups, anything it publishes is fruit of the poisoned tree and supporting anything CAIR says is supporting terror and terrorists. I agree with you position that this is bunk, so I find it perplexing that you seem to take the exact opposite stance here.

As to the back and forth with Meryl and ensuing nastiness there, I only skimmed breifly through that and your counter points. I don't think either of you did yourselves much credit or has a firm standing on painting themselves as the innocent and pure victim.

11.28.2006 3:23pm

If a jew puts forth a Kahanist manifesto and claims to agree with every single word of it, and can find nothing else to say about its author besides "I don't agree with all he stood for," she is entirely opening herself (and all other pro-Israel supporters) to the charge that the "true" Zionist agenda is Kahane's agenda.

Especially if another Israel supporter, in as non-confrontational a manner as possible, basically says, "Dude, are you sure you want to be associating yourself with this guy? Isn't that at least incautious?" and the response is to attack the questioner.

It could not possibly be more clear what Kahane meant when he wrote those words: that Israel should cleanse itself of the evil Arab, Christian, Muslim, etc. entities within their borders, using assassination and oppression unapologetically, to create a state of Greater Israel, without worrying about what anyone else in the world thought of whatever methods they used.

This is beyond merely stating, "I don't agree with the guy, BUT..." rationalizations.

Kahane was a killer even before he got to Israel, and he was a killer once he got to Israel.

If I try to draw any analogies then I will be pummelled for such analogies. But the vast majority of Israelis long ago rejected this guy as an embarrassment. Now some 20-30 years later, he said some things that, out of context, seem cool? And all you can say is "well I don't agree with everything, but...?"

Yes, let us allow a murdering pseudo-fascist thug speak for the people of Israel. This is such a good idea.

11.29.2006 11:25pm