Monday, September 6, 2010

Propoganda is a Form of Lying

Since Israelis are extremely adverse to boredom, here's a quick summary of one of our many exciting stories running in the background, and then a comment on how it's reported by our enemies.

The story is about a book published last year by two rabbis, Yitzchak Shapira and Yosef Elizur. Its title is Torat HaMelech, the Law of the King. The book explains the conditions in which it is permissible intentionally to kill innocent non-Jews: what we call murder. I haven't read it and have no intention of doing so, but by all accounts it's an abomination. Most book stores don't sell it, thankfully.

It clearly flirts with the limits of what is permissible to say in a democracy. Is it a literal example of shouting fire in a crowded theater? Probably not, though you'd have to read it to know, but it may fall within the metaphorical range of such a shout.

The police are looking into it. The Shabak is, too, and that's noteworthy since the Shabak, unlike it's American FBI counterpart, deals almost exclusively with security matters, not regular crime; also, the Shabak unlike the police reports directly to the prime minister. The High Court of Justice is involved, too, and last month declined to intervene for the time being after having been briefed by the Shabak about the ongoing investigation. At least one of the two authors has been arrested, and the investigation and interrogations have branched out to include rabbis who have publicly recommended the book.

This branching out has sparked a broader furor. Criminal and security investigations into arcane halachic discussions are sensitive but given the gravity of the allegations no-one objected. Calling in rabbis for participating in a halachic discussion tripped a new wire, especially at a moment when university professors have been strident in protecting their right to say whatever they wish, and artists on the public payroll likewise. So recently there was a conference in Jerusalem with some 250 participants, at which a series of rabbis, some of them quite respectable, got up and announced that while they hadn't read the book and probably wouldn't agree with it if they did, they sharply condemned the interference in rabbinical discussions.

Other rabbis, however, including some heavyweights such as Shlomo Aviner, Yuval Sherlo, Yaacov Meidan and others, have sharply castigated the book; Yaacov Meidan, head of the largest and most important yeshiva on the West Bank (Har Etzion) said the book should be burned. Otniel Schneller, a former leader of the settlers who has moved to the center and now represents Kadima in the Knesset, rejected calls for legislation that would grant rabbis the same legal status of professors, saying that professors merely talk, while rabbis have followers, they're more important than professors, and therefore must be held to higher standards.

You can find numerous links to the story, mostly in Hebrew, here, here, here, here, here etc.

So far, a reasonable, careful response to a scandalous book in a democracy.

Now, read Max Blumenthal's description, and see if you can find any similarity to the reality. Notice how he refrains from telling the parts of the story which don't fit into his malicious portrayal. He outrageously inflates the significance of the supporters of the book by repeatedly claiming that Rav Lior was once the chief rabbi of the IDF, which he never was, and on the contrary he's known for his tirades against the IDF for following government policies he doesn't like. He conflates the story of the matter of an outrageous book with the matter of Rav Ovadia Yosef's recent hope that God (not men) will punish Israel's Palestinian enemies (which I've already explained in context). He accuses that the attorney general and the prime minister are silent while rabbis call for violence, somehow overlooking their direct subordinates who are running the investigation.

The reason I've gone out of my way to refute Blumenthal, a well-known loathsome propagandist for Israel's enemies, is that a friend yesterday forwarded me an e-mail from someone who may be an ordinary, well-meaning, but seriously uninformed American Jew, who was deeply troubled by Blumenthal's report. Had he read the report on a Hamas website, he'd not even have read it. But Blumenthal can engage in Hamas-style propaganda and be listened to, at least by the uninformed, since he's Jewish, he's in Jerusalem, and he uses similar words, if not sentences, to those used by legitimate critics of Israeli actions.

10 comments:

Barry Meislin said...

A little background on Max Blumenthal.

http://newledger.com/2010/07/max-blumenthals-world/

Anonymous said...

I was a passing acquaintance of Max Blumenthal's grandparents, Hy and Claire Blumenthal. They were typical West Rogers Park (Chicago) Jews of their era, strong Democrats, but also pro-Israel. In fact, my wife and I went on a mission to Israel with them in March, 1982. Very nice people. I can only imagine what they would think knowing that their grandson is the personification of the self-hating Jew.

David

Barry Meislin said...

Must be that Jewish Gene that Thilo Sarrazin was talking about....

Sylvia said...

"But Blumenthal can engage in Hamas-style propaganda and be listened to, at least by the uninformed, since he's Jewish"

What evidence do you have that he is Jewish? Radical Leftist Uri Davis has converted to Islam, yet he still pontificates in gatherings billed as Jewish this or Jewish that.

Anonymous said...

Barry
funny that you mention Sarrazin

- Yaacov's story reminded me strongly of the abolutely ridiculous 1968ers reliving their youths debate we have about that book now.

Not to get into Sarrazin's other "teachings" on genetics which are a disgrace to all of academia because how can somebody having undergone such demanding schooling come up with such nonsense, they don't get that a Bundesbanker is bound by virtue of his job to behave in certain ways. I guess they'd even explode with delight if he'd show up at a conference in shorts, Hawai-shirt and Birkenstock and defend it as his right to free expression and unbridled bankership.

While all I read in English muse on how Sarrazin's mixture of well-known uncomfortable truths, nobody knows how to fix with Mendel's teachings, endangers Axel Weber's aspirations to the Top EZB-position which by extension would mean a victory for the inflation-hawk crowd I scratch my head in disbelief at what the small remainder of German journalists are happy to write about day in day out.

Nick Cohen got it right, the generation suffers from having not lived through any heroics like the Spanish Civil war and so they have to extend their upright-fighters-for-the-good-pose into retirement age. Soon theyll hit the net in ever greater numbers eager to teach us that irresponsibility means freedom and vice versa.

Silke

Anonymous said...

In what we expect as permissible behavior, surely both Blumenthal and the Rav Shapira and his supporters are clearly to be condemned. However I do not have any expectations from Blumenthal, or any irresponsible loner or blogger who has no credentials at all except his soapbox.
(Present company excepted!)

But I am completely at a loss in trying to comprehend the actions or words of Rabbis, Heads of Educational Institutions, who after all should be cautious and imbued with a spirit of Tikkun Olam or Sekhel Tov, - ונמצא חן ושכל טוב בעיני : --- אלהים
- ואדם which message I thought Judaism conveyed.
And I cannot judge the Rabbis and Blumenthal by the same yardstick at all.
And if a person whether he is the eponymous Busaglo, or a Cabinet Minister, or a dweller in Shomron, or a plain man on the Rehavia omnibus,refuses and flouts a Police summons, that is an invitation to civil disobedience.
So your apologetic:
"It clearly flirts with the limits of what is permissible to say in a democracy. Is it a literal example of shouting fire in a crowded theater? Probably not,.......................etc " is not valid in my opinion.
And both the Rabbis Lior and Shapira are in positions of authority, One as Rav of Kiryat Arba and one as Rav of a reputable Yeshiva in Yizhar - not of Zahal but still.....

As Melanie Philips of London might conclude: "So that's alright then..."

G

Anonymous said...

In what we expect as permissible behavior, surely both Blumenthal and the Rav Shapira and his supporters are clearly to be condemned. However I do not have any expectations from Blumenthal, or any irresponsible loner or blogger who has no credentials at all except his soapbox.
(Present company excepted!)

But I am completely at a loss in trying to comprehend the actions or words of Rabbis, Heads of Educational Institutions, who after all should be cautious and imbued with a spirit of Tikkun Olam or Sekhel Tov, - ונמצא חן ושכל טוב בעיני : --- אלהים
- ואדם which message I thought Judaism conveyed.
And I cannot judge the Rabbis and Blumenthal by the same yardstick at all.
And if a person whether he is the eponymous Busaglo, or a Cabinet Minister, or a dweller in Shomron, or a plain man on the Rehavia omnibus,refuses and flouts a Police summons, that is an invitation to civil disobedience.
So your apologetic:
"It clearly flirts with the limits of what is permissible to say in a democracy. Is it a literal example of shouting fire in a crowded theater? Probably not,.......................etc " is not valid in my opinion.
And both the Rabbis Lior and Shapira are in positions of authority, One as Rav of Kiryat Arba and one as Rav of a reputable Yeshiva in Yizhar - not of Zahal but still.....

As Melanie Philips of London might conclude: "So that's alright then..."

G

zalman said...

I have also not read the book but I still have a quibble with most of the articles I have read about the book.
The real issue is not what is actually stated in the book but that the book might lead certain readers to take some dangerous leaps from what was actually (and perhaps recklessly or willfully) stated.
But most commenters take a shortcut and misquote or mischaracterize statements in the book.

Lee Ratner said...

Again, as anybody did any serious research on why the Jewish people suffer from self-haters like Max Blumenthal, Norman Finkelstein, the Mondoweiss Duo, and others. By serious, I mean based on at least something is rigorous as psychology and sociology if not harder science. David Mamet took a stab at it but from a literary angle. I'd really like to know if there was a more materialistic explanation behind Jewish self-hatred.

Sylvia said...

Only in literature and from a historical perspective can you identify what you call a "self-hating Jew." In order to do so, you must first ascertain that they are indeed Jewish. Do you know for a fact that Weiss is a Jew? Usually, these people either have already bailed out of Judaism or have made a conscious choice early on to eventually do so. Only from a distance or if indicated in a literary context, do we know if they were indeed Jewish or if they were merely expressing their new creed's hatred of Jews while feeling "sheltered" by their Jewish sounding name.
And you must also define "who is a Jew" in the context of that particular research.

And that's only for starters.

Although "they" all have exhibited the same MO throughout the centuries, the phenomenon must be studied in context of its time.