Gerald Posner: Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza
Good luck with that. The vast vast majority of people who say that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza are immune to any facts to the contrary. It’s partly a case of not being able to reason people out of something they weren’t reasoned into in the first place. It’s also that what drives the genocide claims about Israel is the desire to claim an Orwellian reversal in which the Jews have become the Nazis.
And what drives that? Leftist hatred of Israel and decades of Soviet-generated and Arab-spread Jew-hatred and Israel-hatred. In Europe, the desire to be let off the hook for the Holocaust. In the US on the right – which is hardly immune – it’s good old-fashioned Holocaust denial and Jews-run-the-world-and-are-responsible-for-everything-bad-in-it sentiment. There’s also religious hatred among both Muslims and “Christian” nationalists of the Tucker variety. China also drives it internationally with TikTok algorithms favoring the promotion of anti-Israel anti-Jewish myths.
As noted by many philosophers over the centuries, guilt makes a person angry at the victim. Given the thousands of years of brutal persecution showered on Jews by European Christians, their guilt is truly immense, which has driven their consequent anger into the realm of psychotic rage.
As noted by many philosophers over the centuries, guilt makes a person angry at the victim. Given the thousands of years of brutal persecution showered on Jews by European Christians, their guilt is truly immense, which has driven their consequent anger into the realm of psychotic rage. You can’t reason this away.
“Genocide” has become another term emptied of any actual meaning, like “racism.”
No, of course it isn’t. One thing we face in our time is constant lying and gaslighting. It seems to get more brazen every year. (The career of Jason Arday and the reaction to his death provide sterling examples).
As noted by many philosophers over the centuries, guilt makes a person angry at the victim.
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I don’t think the characters propagating this meme are the source that experience guilt.
As noted by many philosophers over the centuries, guilt makes a person angry at the victim.
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I don’t think the characters propagating this meme are the sort that experience guilt.
Far as I can tell, most denominations of the NCCNGTA (National Council of Churches Nobody Goes To Anymore) hold that view. I suspect, having talked to some at the hither reaches, that the bigs know they’re lying. But the pew-dwellers, looking for another hit of righteousness, slurp it up.
Art Deco:
It would be more accurate to say that sometimes the desire to avoid feeling guilty makes a person angry at the victim. Much of Europe cooperated in the Holocaust, and now teaches its younger generations about Europe’s guilt in the atrocities, and many people are not interested in feeling guilty about that. What better way to not feel guilty than to make the Jews the real Nazis?
Nobody should ever be expected to feel guilty for anything that happened before they were born. There are people who assert that they should, and people who at least say that they do, but I’m skeptical that anyone really feels guilt for something done before they were born. Guilt implies agency.
Being told that you are indeed guilty, or ought to feel so, for something done before you were born, can provoke resentment in those told that. Almost any white American of the Right feels this way when the topic is race or slavery or the way America was settled.
The number of people still alive in the United States who were responsible for slavery, or were directly victimized by it, is almost certainly zero. This is not quite true yet of the Holocaust in Europe but will be so in twenty or thirty years. Future generations have much they should learn from the Holocaust but guilt ought not to be one of them. Nobody can be guilty of anything that happened before they were born.
I’m skeptical that personal feelings of guilt about the Holocaust are in any way driving the perception of Israel in Europe, because there simply aren’t enough people remaining alive who could be personally guilty. The infant born in 1946 is 80 this year. There might be those who resent an implication that they are guilty and blame Israel or Jews for that, however unreasonably, since they are getting that from their own governments and institutions. But I’d be surprised if it’s even that.
I’m pretty sure among Leftists it’s the same kind of Goldsteinization that the Left always does, Israel happens to be “Goldstein” right now, that may switch to some other country at any time, perhaps the United States-they have always been at war with Eastasia. European institutions were captured by the Left long ago. Aside from whatever goes on with Leftists, it’s not as though antisemitism ever went away. A great number of those who are most loud in condemning Israel are the types who minimize or disbelieve in the Holocaust and so wouldn’t think there would be anything to feel guilty about.
NIketas:
Hatred of Israel and false accusations towards it have been popular in Europe for many many decades, when many of the people living had been very much alive during the actual Holocaust. It’s not something new. It has become even more popular, however, because of course younger people bear no guilt for something they had nothing to do with and yet think that by being taught the history they are being told somehow to feel guilty. So – as I stated – in order to avoid any feelings of guilt (not that they should feel guilty) they are quite happy to believe lies about Israel and Jews.
@neo:So – as I stated – in order to avoid any feelings of guilt (not that they should feel guilty) they are quite happy to believe lies about Israel and Jews.
Not too dissimilar from what I said, about being told they should feel guilty for something they know cannot be guilty of provoking resentment. I’m not sure we’re saying the same thing in different ways, exactly. I guess I don’t think it makes sense to talk about avoiding an emotion that I don’t believe genuinely exists, but maybe this is just different words to say the same thing.
Might not be a good analogy but take “stolen land”. I’m supposed to feel guilty about how the chain of title to my property got started. No one is ever going to succeed in making me feel guilty. If they threaten me in the right way, I might say the words. If I’m a preening Leftist I might say the words voluntarily. And it would just be words. I resent the attempt to make me feel guilty, and it never occurs to me to believe lies about American Indians to avoid a feeling I will never experience. If I don’t think hard about it I might blame them for the messaging even if it’s not really from them, though.
Ran out of time to finish the thought. It’s not American Indians who are behind the “stolen land” thing though some of them are of course getting what they can out of it. It’s people like me but with more power who are using it to achieve their own ends, some of which might benefit some American Indians but probably won’t. Not everyone sees that and would blame the wrong people. Israel is not in charge of their school systems, their own people are. But some would reach the wrong conclusion, that Israel and/or Jews collectively are the ones trying to make them feel guilty.
Here’s another
https://henmazzig.substack.com/p/there-is-no-genocide-in-honduras
Leftists blame their crimes on opponents
And the Muslims are Leftists.
I see nothing that says Israelis are committed any human crimes.
Nothing new here, many people, perhaps most, need a scapegoat.
Scapegoat: “The word comes from an old religious tradition on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). According to the Book of Leviticus, a priest would symbolically place the sins of the community onto a live goat.”
The Jewish people committed the unforgivable sin of declaring to humanity that we are a ‘fallen’ race. Using a computer metaphor, our ‘operating system’ is dysfunctional, which is why it is not our sins that pave the road to hell but our ‘good intentions’.
There is a multi-national outbreak of anti-semitism, which strikes me as a coordinated campaign. Plus the anti-Israel hostility, which seems to be everywhere, especially on the Left.
Hmm … so this is the same Gerald Posner who wrote “Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK” (1993), one of the first books after Oliver Stone’s film, “JFK” (1991), which started to turn the tide against the JFK conspiracy theories.
Posner (b. 1954) is only two years younger than I am. So his image attached to the linked article is either based on an old photo or Posner has dyed his hair and had a lot of work done.
@Cicero: There is a multi-national outbreak of anti-semitism, which strikes me as a coordinated campaign.
Indeed. In the case of the US I imagine the large sums of money contributed by Arabs to our iniversities and political organizations has had more effects than commonly acknowledged.
I further imagine the Chinese have gotten into the act too to destabilize the US and Israel.
“In the US on the right – which is hardly immune – it’s good old-fashioned Holocaust denial and Jews-run-the-world-and-are-responsible-for-everything-bad-in-it sentiment.”
So the entire Right is anti-Jewish, anti-Israel and Hoclocaust deniers.
Posner – You are a P.O.S. moron if you belivee anything close to that.
From Wiki: “Posner supported Al Gore during the 2000 presidential election”
As I said, he’s a moron.
John Galt III:
Obviously that’s not what that statement means. Why would you misinterpret it that way? After all, I’m on the right. Most of the commenters here are on the right. I don’t see a whole lot of anti-Semitism here.
I believe it’s quite apparent that in that quote of mine – it’s mine, by the way, not Posner’s – I was comparing Jew-haters on the left to Jew-haters on the right, and describing their differences. There are Jew-haters on the right and left.
And the first time I ever voted for a Republican was in 2004. Till then, Democrats all the way.
huxley:
Hmm, maybe work done. He kind of looks the same in all his photos.
That guy at Cambridge became cannon-fodder.
The hyperbole says it all:
“Trump Envoy Barrack Says Israel Risked ‘World War III’…”—
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/barrack-trump-turkey/2026/08/22/id/1267003/
Barry Meislin:
Looks like we have “our” own turkey (Barrack) representing Erdogan in Turkey.
It appears that campus anti-Semitism stops as you cross the Ohio River going south. Which, as the left would have it, puts you in right-wing, redneck, bitter clinger, irredeemable deplorable territory. How’s that supposed to work again?
Barrack wouldn’t be the first US envoy to “go native”.
I live in southern, rural, Ohio. But the closest town in a university town, and the net vote from faculty and students makes it a solid D voting district.
I also raise bees, which have to be registered with the state department of agriculture so they can be inspected every year.
Yesterday the bee inspector came around. Nice guy, not connected to the university, no reason to believe he votes one way or the other. He determined my bees had not laid in enough honey to hold them over winter and suggested I feed them (sugar dissolved in water).
Then he likened them to the Palestinians, starving because Israel won’t let food trucks cross into Palestinian. I didn’t answer.
I was surprised by his comment. He doesn’t strike me as particularly partisan, but I took this as him being swayed by the mentality of the gown, not the town. That surprised me because I’ve always thought of him as one of the “good ol’ boys,” who was not influenced by the local university liberals. I would have been as surprised if the guy who mixes up animal feed in the local feed store. Curious.
@F:That surprised me because I’ve always thought of him as one of the “good ol’ boys,” who was not influenced by the local university liberals.
Even good ol’ boys can spend too much time online, and antisemites of the old school persuasion (as opposed to academic leftists) also blame Israel for maltreating Palestinians.
Speaking a little broader, thanks to the Internet country people can also jump on The Current Thing. Even in little rural towns you’ll find the transgendered and people with anti-Trump or pro-Palestine signs. Used to be such people had to move to town if they wanted to join in on stuff like that, now they can do it without having to move.
But always remember for a critical mass of stupid
after spending last weekend in Gig Harbour.
Somewhat related:
A perceptive, in-depth overview: Israel’s absurd effort to formulate a coherent defense policy over the past two-or-so decades, why it failed to do so, and what it means for the upcoming October elections:
“Trotsky, Lenin, and Gaza;
“The crucible of Israel’s next prime minister.”—
https://mefinsider.meforum.org/p/special-edition-trotsky-lenin-and-gaza
H/T Powerline blog.