Ariadna Theokopoulos: Anti-semitism — an Eroded Democracy

 

Sunday, October 21, 2012 at 7:39PM Gilad Atzmon

http://www.deliberation.info

 

 

 

Although a lot of research has been devoted by distinguished institutions (e.g., ADL) to defining anti-semitism and providing detailed classifications of its forms of manifestation, the field has grown so much that it is hard now to encompass it in one discipline.
 
Abe Foxman, the head of ADL, has come up with a short test, now known as Foxman’s Five, on which even one check mark ensures certification as an anti-semite:

1. Criticism of Israel
2. Denial of the Holocaust, or (new!) ‘relativism’ on the issue
3. Criticism of the Jewish lobby/claims of Jewish global political power
4. Claiming that Jews own banking/media
5. Criticism of Jewish tribal behavior (“Jewish identity politics”)

 

The Anti-Anti-semitic Association (AAA), which accredits anti-semites, has lowered the bar so much that the anti-semite certfication is now available to anyone simply on the recommendation of two AAA experts.

 

The Holocaust criterion has been enlarged too: it used to include only “denial” but experience has shown that such a classification left a lot of desirable candidates without accreditation so, with the advent of Sophia Rosenthal and her staff of six at the State Department’s aptly named Bureau of Democracy, an addition was made:

“holocaust relativism,” i.e., quibbling with any detail in Holocaustology. This measure helped to democratize anti-semitism to some extent, opening the gates wider.

 

Nevertheless, interestingly, at the same time that the membership has grown by leaps and bounds into a vast, diverse, and vibrant community, an elite group of anti-semites has formed at the top.
The criteria by which special status is accorded to those few are not always clear. Needlessly to say, few anti-semitic plebeians would invidiously begrudge the VIP status to people like these (examples in alph order):

• Gilad Atzmon
• Paul Eisen
• John Meerscheimer
• Israel Shamir
• Stephen Walt

all of whom, armed with impressive bibliographies and CVs, ice Foxman’s test, and some of them score off the charts.
 

Perhaps it is not out of snobbery but from sincere conviction and respect for integrity that some of these high achievers oppose the induction into the ranks of anti-semites of new members like Greta Berlin and Ann Wright. They seem to reject the AAA’s argument of “Direct Contamination” as a sufficient admission criterion (i.e., Great Berlin “supports” Atzmon) as well as the “Secondary Contamination” criterion (Ann Wright supports Greta who supports Atzmon).

 

There is, however, something of a push towards exclusivism among the top stars in the anti-semites’ galaxy (e.g., Atzmon’s loud self-promotion as “Israel’s #1 enemy,” which is intimidating to those of whom Israel is not even aware).

 

Not all VIP members exhibit these anti-democratic tendencies, however. A pull in the opposite direction was seen in Eisen’s call: “We are all anti-semites now,” although he, too, succumbed to vanity and self-promotion by putting on his own site the link showing his VIP acceptance by one of the AAA agencies.

 

(On his site, greenie also touchingly
has his mother’s picture):

In the most recent article by Roy Bard, in which he details the support he received from an AAA officer nicknamed greenie, Roy inadvertently reveals that he contacted greenie hoping for a stronger endorsement:
 
Tony

 You’ve publicly declared me to be an anti-semite (http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2011/07/indymedia-uk-three-years-on.html) and yet I am absolutely clear that people of Jewish origin are not a mono-thought clique, and that there is no common position shared by all Jews on any issue whatsoever.
So, what it is that makes me a racist?

 Note: The endorsement Roy was seeking was in fact modest: racism is a lower grade rubric than anti-semitism.
 
Nevertheless, even so, greenie, although helpful to him in the past through clumsily written but seemingly sincere endorsements, was either unwilling to give it to him this time or too inarticulate to express it properly, so all he offered was a second-tier certification:

“Yes I probably did declare you were an anti-Semite on the basis of an unqualified support for Gilad Atzmon who certainly generalises about Jews.”

In other words, “anti-semite by contamination.” Still, I find it interesting that greenie offered Roy another bite at the apple:

“Do you also find Israel Shamir an inspiring figure, because he was/is a full blooded anti-Semite and fascist.”

Is it possible to be promoted to VIP anti-semite status by proving double contamination? Perhaps there is hope there.
 
It appears that although the AAA has thrown wide open the gates to anti-semitic certification, within the certified community itself there is a nascent anti-democratic tendency while the dream of upward mobility of the middle-visibility anti-semitic class endures.
 
Nevertheless, irrespective of the stratification among the anti-semites already certified, if the accelerated admission process by AAA, ADL and other anti-semitism certificators continues at the present pace, soon we shall indeed be all “anti-semites,” and AAA will be out of business. The only things left to deal with will be:

1. Israel
2. The Holocaust lies
3. The Jewish lobby/Jewish global political power
4. Jewish ownership of global banking/media
5. Jewish tribal behavior (“Jewish identity politics”)

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