Every Mushroom Cloud Has a Silverstein Lining
A few days ago, I posted this humorous commercial for Israeli cable provider HOT (now with captions!).
Granted, the captions are clumsy, but you get the drift.
But guess who thinks this is not only not funny, but actually racist.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/01/17/popular-culture-exposes-racism-that-enables-israeli-war-fever/
There’s always a fine line between political parody and racism. It’s often hard to say where one bleeds into another. But the humor of this commercial exposes the moral anaesthesia Israelis undergo, which allows them to be isolated from the impact of the acts of their military and intelligence forces in the region. Instead of a conscious act of sabotage, a bumbling Israeli intelligence agent clicks a button on a tablet application and–Oops!–there goes another Iranian nuclear facility. More Keystone Cops than Mossad cloak and dagger.
At the conclusion, another Israeli swats and kills an insect pest called a Khomeini. The irony of the term and racial hostility inherent in it is self-evident. Yet another marker for the anti-Muslim hate afflicting contemporary Israel. Yes, a nation has to laugh at itself especially in times of tension. But laughter of the sort in this commercial doesn’t encourage thought or introspection. It doesn’t probe reality. It allows Israelis to sink back in their economic largess, to luxuriate in the consumer options (like HOT cable service) available to them, while the harmless bumblers of the Mossad go around blowing up Iranian nuclear plants almost by accident.
It all ends with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink that would be fitting for a Monty Python routine, except the Pythons would’ve been savaging cultural norms instead of laughing about them. Israelis, unfortunately, don’t have that distance from the crimes done in their name.
Silverstein’s claims of racism are ridiculous, as the majority of the commenters to his post point out. I won’t republish the entire thread here, but suffice to say, Silverstein is ripped a new one.
If you read the comments, you’ll notice:
1. Silverstein displays his utter ignorance of Israeli culture
2. Silverstein cannot respond to any dissent without hurling insults
3. Silverstein cannot hide is utter contempt for Israelis
And if you are wondering when I’ll stop posting about this nasty piece of work, the answer is when the Israeli and international media stop citing him as a credible source for anything.
About the Author
An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.Filed Under: General
Pathetic. So labeling a beetle after a leader is racism? How about the bigotry of Khomeini? Is his popularity among a few sub-communities a sign of their racism? Oh, wait, only Israel is at fault for everything in the Middle-East in Dickie’s little head; the Muslims can’t help themselves.
check out the latest on Dickie at www kapodickie blogspot com
The Pythons are British. Shall we discuss all of the British Empires many centuries of crimes in their names? Or perhaps we should just limit ourselves to the post 1945 era?
I suppose we could also say that every single act of Islamic terrorism committed over the last sixty odd years was done in Richard Silverstein’s name.
EVERY
ONE,
R
This was pretty low, even for a Scheisskopf like Sliverschwanz, but hardly in “his” Bottom 10. I hereby nominate this thread, dated 1/18/12, in which Sliverschwanz conflates David Ben-Gurion with Pol Pot and, of course, Adolf Hitler:
Secret National Security Council Panel ‘Nominates’ U.S. Citizens, Foreign Militants for Murder
January 18th, 2012 Last October, Reuters published news about a secret U.S. government panel which “nominated” militants for murder or capture, including U.S. citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki. The story peered into the opaque process by which a government bureaucracy decides to take a human life. And it was disturbing:
…Targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC “principals,” meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval. The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said.
The names suggested are then brought before the president, who may veto them.
What’s astonishing about all this is that the names of those on the panel are unknown, how they decide someone should die is unknown, and what evidence is used to determine on a death sentence is unknown. Everything about this process is deliberately opaque. And there is no written record of the panel’s deliberations in order to further insulate participants, especially the president himself. This fact alone reminds me of some of the more nefarious plots in recent history including Pol Pot’s genocide, Hitler’s Final Solution and Ben Gurion’s plans for the Nakba. All wisely left little or no written evidence of their plans that could be used later by authorities or history to judge them. Not that targeted killings rise to the level of genocide in terms of crimes against humanity, but they are grievious breaches of international law nonetheless.
The hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton swearing on a stack of Bibles that the U.S. had nothing to do with the last Iranian scientist assassination is laughable considering that our own behavior isn’t that dissimilar. In a conversation with a journalist a few days ago who’d had discussions with CIA officers who justified the U.S. killing of al-Awlaki, the agent asked the reporter whether it would be justified to kill someone during World War II who fought right at Hitler’s side.
He was attempting to liken the Yemeni-American cleric to such a figure, when the evidence offered so far doesn’t justify it. Is the CIA saying that Osama bin Laden was Hitler and al-Awlaki was his commander-in-chief? Since when, on both counts? I have no doubt that both were enemies of the U.S. who deserved to be tried and punished for their crimes. But as Mehdi Hassan argues so persuasively in this commentary on the subject, “targeted killing is just the death penalty without due process.”
Barack Obama doesn’t get to be judge, jury and executioner under the U.S. Constitution. In fact, he’s violating the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits taking a citizen’s life without due process. A secret National Council panel is NOT due process. It’s just death by bureaucratic fiat. It is no different from Israel’s targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants and Iranian scientists.
Referring to Sliverschwanz as “vermin” would be an insult to rats and roaches.
Silverstein is the kind of Chaim Yonkel who can walk into a party brimming with bonhomie and turn the guests instantly into mourners for life.
From his response to Brian of London:
“Racism is when you personify your own hatred for an entire people in the person of its leader, in this case calling Khomeini a noxious bettle (sic).”
Oh my gosh. What a can o’ worms Dicksilver has opened with that statement. I don’t think I could stay within the most generous of comment length limits if I tried to bring up all his epithets leveled at Bibi, Lieberman and other Israeli Jewish leadership.
On that note, Silverstein’s phrasing “Israel’s deputy Führer” with regard to Israel’s Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, quoted in Israellycool’s post Doucheblogger Violates Own Comment Rules from Nov 27, 2011, still stands.
That reply to me is astonishing isn’t it. I just don’t know how much more time this guy is worth, I think we watch him for the same reason we look at crashes on the road.
A bit like Charles Johnson of LGF (remember?), only Dicksilver never changed—he was always like this, as far back as I remember (late 2006, when I started keeping an eye on anti-Zionist blogs following the Second Lebanon War).
Silverstein’s sweaters need to be replaced with Swastika t-shirts. We should send him a few. I am 90% sure he’d proudly wear them and plaster his blog with pictures of them.
in one post he proved….
he doesnt understand hebrew (why he continues to insist he does makes no sense)
he doesnt know what racism is
he is stupid
he hates jews
he hates israelis
he hates israel
he has no sense of humor
he cannot admit when he is wrong
basically…the man is a sociopath, who should be locked away for his own safety and the safety of those children who reside in his wife’s home
He is completely and utterly de-ranged. What is so upsetting is that he is clearly just a more vocal version of some number of people who are just as nuts as he is.
[...] may recall my post from a few days ago dealing with DouchebloggerTM Richard Silverstein’s issues with a humorous [...]