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'Anti-Semitism' as Jewish counter propaganda
AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR By William M. Esposo
The Philippine Star 2009-01-15
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It was a classic rendition of evading the real issue and branding anyone who expresses critical views against Israeli policies as Anti-Semitic. We refer to the rejoinder of the Israeli Ambassador, Zvi A. Vapni, to your Chair Wrecker’s January 11 column (“Who are the real terrorists in the Holy Land”) which the STAR published yesterday.
The Israeli Ambassador wonders where to start in correcting the supposed errors in my column which slammed the Israeli violence against Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Supposed to be among this Chair Wrecker’s errors, the Israeli Ambassador cited the Tevye quote from “Fiddler on the roof” and my having written that the Jews went to their death during the Nazi Holocaust as meek as lambs.
I wonder what the Israeli Ambassador is claiming as erroneous because both the Tevye quote and the meek Jews who went to their deaths during the Nazi Holocaust were factual.
The clincher is the Israeli Ambassador’s assertion that this Chair Wrecker erred by writing that the Old testament-based homeland claim of the Jews is considered by many history scholars as the wishful thinking of landless nomadic tribes.
No Mr. Ambassador, those claims by history scholars are not plainly ridiculous as you wrote in your rejoinder. What are plainly ridiculous are those Israeli claims that are based on the Old Testament. That cheap shot of yours may strike some points with those who have no grasp of history. The Old Testament is unreliable simply because it is loaded with myths, exaggerations, maybe even delusions of ‘prophets’ who have been affected by severe hunger in the desert.
For us who are Christians, it is quite glaring that the God that is talked about in the Old Testament is so different from the God that Jesus Christ introduced to mankind. Best exemplified by Christ’s parable of “The prodigal son” — the Christian God is a loving and forgiving God; totally the opposite of the God in the Old Testament that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Old Testament talked about an angel sent by God to slay the 600,000 Assyrians. Come again? Even the great Persian Empire never had that much armed force in one place, so where did the 600,000 Assyrians come from? How about the Walls of Jericho — did that really crumble from the effects of Israelites marching around the walls and blasting their trumpets? Or was that not myth making of what some scientists now think was the result of an earthquake?
How come it took so long for the Israelites to get to their so-called Promised Land after they left Egypt with Moses? Even at the slowest possible pace, any group of hikers can make it to Israel from Egypt in a month at the most. So why did the Israelites spend all those years in the wilderness with Moses? Maybe they did not really have a Promised Land to begin with.
Most interesting is the Israeli Ambassador’s attempt to brand this Chair Wrecker as “Anti-Semitic.” It is standard Jewish (Israeli) counter propaganda to brand any critic as “Anti-Semitic.” Even in the US, any public official or notable person who raises an issue that is not to Jewish or Israeli liking is branded as “Anti-Semitic.” The critic is projected to be in the league of Hitler, Heinrich, Himmler and all those Nazi criminals responsible for the Jewish genocide.
Is the Israeli Ambassador suggesting that all those media editorials and opinion articles that have spontaneously sprouted worldwide, condemning the Israeli carnage of innocent civilians in Gaza, are the mere products of “Anti-Semitism?”
The issue at hand is the Israeli war policy in Gaza. It is seen by most as overkill, by some in the academe and law profession as war crimes no less. Israel cannot begin to justify the high civilian casualties just because they have the right to defend themselves.
If we assume that the Israeli Gaza war policy is justified, then that would also justify the slaughter of over 100,000 civilian casualties here during the 1945 Battle of Manila.
Contrary to what the victors (the US) tried to project here (that the Manila civilian casualties were caused by Japanese atrocities), the truth is — majority of the civilian deaths were caused by US ‘friendly’ fire. In order to save on military casualties, the US opted to extensively bomb and shell the Ermita and Malate area just to destroy the small Japanese force defending Manila.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur adhered to the dictum that a good general does not win via bravado what can be won via strategy. MacArthur saved on combatants and in the process killed civilians.
That is why MacArthur is suspected of having pushed for a trial and death sentence for Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita, a trial which has since been denounced as a kangaroo court. The Japanese force that defended Manila did not report to Army Gen. Yamashita but to the Naval Command.
The issues this Chair Wrecker raised against the Israeli war policy in Gaza of “a hundred of your eyes for one Israeli eye and a thousand of your teeth for one Israeli tooth” is echoed by UN President Miguel d’Escoto.
The UN President said last December 27: “The behavior by Israel in bombarding Gaza is simply the commission of wanton aggression by a very powerful state against a territory that it illegally occupies.”
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