Dickie Sees Imaginary Islamophobia And Then Trashes Jewish History

Do you see anything offensive in this Facebook posting of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu?

bibi tweet

Well if you are a rabid hater of Israel like Richard Silverstein, you did.

Netanyahu’s Facebook Page Replete With Racism, Islamophobia

Bibi Netanyahu is the son of a noted Jewish historian.  But unfortunately, neither the lessons nor substance of Jewish history has rubbed off on him (the son).  He published today an execrable screed denouncing the Syrian people as blood-swilling heathen.  It is beyond offensive.

But the racism and Islamophobia, while disgusting, doesn’t plumb the depths of this posting.  Not content to denounce the supposed barbarity of Syrian Muslims, he contrasts it with the supposed civility and stability of the State of Israel.

No, Bibi says, we will never be like them.  We will never kill each other in the thousands.  We will never be uncivilized brutes like our fratricidal Muslim neighbors.  We will be a light unto the nations.  A villa in the jungle, to quote Ehud Barak’s inimitable phrase.

Notice Silverstein’s claim of racism and Islamophobia. When Bibi says “We will never be like them”, he does not mention Islam or Muslims. The simple meaning is ‘We will never be like these Syrians slaughtering each other.” I posit it is Silverstein who is showing Islamophobia by ascribing this meaning to Bibi’s words.

But it gets even worse, with Silverstein launching into a diatribe about the brutal crimes of Jews throughout history.

Except that it’s all a crock.  Jewish history is replete with fratricide.  It begins in the first pages of Genesis when Cain kills Abel.   In the Book of Judges, the Tribes of Gilead and Ephraim engage in a civil war in which the text says over 40,000 were slain.  Then there was a civil war between the Tribes of Benjamin and Israel in which 25,000 Benjaminites were slaughtered.  The story of Hanukah is about another bit of fratricide in which the Maccabees led by Mattathias, overthrew the Jewish Hellenists and High Priests with blood and slaughter.  This led to the Hasmonean Dynasty, a particularly nasty and corrupt bunch whose fate didn’t end well.

During the Roman siege of Jerusalem, the Sicarii targeted those deemed traitors, for execution.  They roamed through the crowds on the grounds of the Temple, whipped out their dreaded knives and made off with the life of yet another victim.

That brings us to the modern age.  Modern Zionism has also brought fratricidal carnage.  There was the assassination of prominent Yishuv anti-Zionist leader Jacob deHaan (the first prominent Palestinian Jew assassinated, at the hands of the Avodah-Labor).  In the 1930s, Revisionist thugs murdered Chaim Arlosoroff, who had just returned to Palestine from a round of negotiations with the Nazis.  In 1973, a settler killer threw a hand grenade into a group of Peace Now’s key leaders killing Emil Grunzweig.  In 1995, Bibi himself inveighed against Yitzhak Rabin to a crowd that held aloft signs with the prime minister wearing an SS uniform.  For those who’ve watched the scene of Bibi, his eyes shining with hatred and blood lust, and the crowd below him whistling and jeering, know in their hearts that it was Bibi who helped murder Yitzhak Rabin.  Within weeks, Yigal Amir, an Orthodox settler extremist, found himself inspired to shed the blood of a prime minister and fellow Jew. We can bring it to the present day with the heroic deeds of Jewish terrorist, Jack Teitel, coming within a few inches of killing Prof. Zeev Sternhell.

The majority of these examples are of individuals or small groups. So far in Syria, at least 70,000 people have been slaughtered. But leaving aside the asymmetry of the comparison, Bibi is speaking in the present and future tense. “We will never be like them. We will never lift our hands against our brothers with unfettered enmity.” Bringing up a laundry list of killings throughout Jewish history only serves to show Silverstein’s disdain for his own culture and history.

Of course, he has the chutzpah to claim he is standing up for it.

That’s why I wrote this post.  I will not let them destroy my religion, my traditions, my history.  They will not take it and make it theirs.  They will not steal it from me.  They do not own it.  They are interlopers.  They are charlatans.  They will kill not just Israel, but all of our traditions if we let them.

Ah yes, the traditions he cares so much about.

Update: And good point. Cain and Abel weren’t Jewish.

10 thoughts on “Dickie Sees Imaginary Islamophobia And Then Trashes Jewish History”

  1. Jim from Iowa

    He left out Leopold and Loeb and David Berkowitz. And what about the ones who offed God’s only begotten son? As you say, Silverstein is a bit sloppy with the facts. I’m an American lefty who is not that crazy about Bibi, either. My biggest beef with Netanyahu is that he doesn’t use his political power to advance a peace initiative and take on some of the more extreme and reckless elements of the Israeli Right who will never accept peace with the Palestinians under any circumstances. But I’m an American and I don’t get to pick your leaders for you. But I think you could do a lot better than Bibi.

      1. Jim from Iowa

        Too late. You get two bites at the apple in my country then you start over. How about Ted Cruz in 2016?

    1. Scottishandproud

      You could do a heck of a lot better than Obama. But at least he’s a zillion times better than that Jewhate scum Carter

      Funny how u lefties always say what Israel can do not what the mainly Muslim pals have to do

      Double standards ?

      1. Jim from Iowa

        I don’t expect you to hang on my every word, Scotty, but I’ve made it clear that I believe the impasse in peace negotiations is primarily due to the Palestinian’s unreasonable and inflexible demands.

    1. once again, dickie shows his ignorance and makes me question whether he was actually born a jew

      but at least he doesnt claim the torah is pure myth

      and therefore must believe that the land of israel belongs to the jew, as promised by g-d, who also commanded that the heathen idol worshiper be driven from the land

      and since allah is actually an idol, dickie holds that all muslims must be expelled from the land

      huzzah

  2. Emil Grunzweig was killed in 1983.

    Arlosoroff was, most likely, killed by Arabs.

    Of course, he left out the anti-Revisionist activities of the Hagana, which was after all the context in which Bibi said this (the anniversary of the Altalena).

  3. Here’s a real howler from the same thread. In response to Noam’s claim that Israel considers Hamas-run Gaza a terrorist regime, Silverstein writes:

    “Don’t be ridiculous. Israeli law is no more correct on this or many other issues than the Shulchan Aruch, which dictates that couples have sex via holes in a sheet.”

    The belief that Judaism mandates sex through a hole in the sheet is an unfortunately somewhat common myth. Coming from Richard Silverstein though, who writes about “my religion, my traditions, my history” and who writes as an authority on Jewish culture, to reference this myth is simply incredible. And he appropriately follows up with:

    “Watch your step. Only facts and only evidence. Baseless claims are forbidden. Understand?”

    1. Snopes discusses the origin of this myth:

      The myth derives from seeing Jews in religious neighborhoods hanging their “talitot katan” out to dry. This poncho-like garment is about two feet by four feet, has a fringe on each corner, and a hole in the center for the wearer’s head, and it looks somewhat like a small sheet with a hole, and many people have vivid and warped imaginations.

      Snopes is apparently referring to Silverstein here: “vivid and warped imagination.”

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top