Jewish Groups Stay Mum While Right-Wing Fling Spurious Hitler Analogies
A very interesting item on the Daily Intel blog notes that conservatives have been falling all over each other to compare various Democratic leaders’ policy proposals to Hitler and/or Nazism. This is the sort of thing that, historically, used to get a public figure slapped down by major Jewish groups like the ADL. But they’ve basically been saying nothing. Nothing, that is, except to smack Rep Alan Grayson around when he accused the insurance status quo of leading to a “holocaust in America.”
It’s hard to know exactly what’s going on, but roughly speaking this seems like part of a larger trend in which the Jewish establishment in America has increasingly downplayed its traditional interests in favor of advocating for hardline policies on Iran and policing the boundaries of acceptable commentary on Israel.
39 Responses to “Jewish Groups Stay Mum While Right-Wing Fling Spurious Hitler Analogies”
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October 14th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
the Jewish establishment in America has increasingly downplayed its traditional interests
If by traditional interests you mean humanitarian causes, the ADL abandoned those long ago in favor of blind allegiance to Likud policies (and supporting Abe Foxman’s lifestyle).
October 14th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
The good thing about these Hitler analogies is that they’re self-defeating.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
It’s hard to know exactly what’s going on, but…the Jewish establishment in America has increasingly downplayed its traditional interests in favor of advocating for hardline policies on Iran and policing the boundaries of acceptable commentary on Israel.
Not so hard to figure out after all, it appears. On the plus side, maybe this means no one’s much worried about (a) anti-semitism in America, or (b) an actual Hitler showing up on the world scene. Which, you know, is not nothing.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
The Likud wants to pursue apartheid without any of the PR problems associate with apartheid.
The ADL supports the Likud.
It’s one of the reasons Amos Elon, the semi-official historian of Israel, left Israel and moved to Tuscany. Insanity + power breeds monsters.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Of course, Mr. Yglesias neglects to mention that his left wing pals, who populate organizations like Jstreet, are not adverse to labeling various members of the Government of Israel as Hitler (e.g. Avigdor Lieberman) and comparing the State of Israel to Nazi Germany.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Of course, Mr. Yglesias neglects to mention that his left wing pals, who populate organizations like Jstreet, are not adverse to labeling various members of the Government of Israel as Hitler (e.g. Avigdor Lieberman) and comparing the State of Israel to Nazi Germany.
Yes, one country had an avowed policy of kicking the inhabitants off of its land, and using it for expansion for its own people, forcing the original inhabitants into ghettos and walling them off. They also looked upon those original inhabitants as subhuman and were fit only for menial jobs. The other one? Never mind.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
In fairness, the “holocaust in America” line was pretty dumb.
Hey SLC, I think I missed the JStreet press release where they compared anyone to Hitler or compared Israel to the Nazis. Would you mind digging that up for me? Thx!!
October 14th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Watch Constatine’s Sword and you might have part of the equation. Another factor is the big money fundamentalists send to Israel. They use it to buy up West Bank land from Palestinians.
Tony Blair sees “economic peace” in the future and Rep. Wexler just quit his Congressional job to further that end, joining the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1282088.html
Wexler is a self-described fire-breathing liberal, defender of Israel...
October 14th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Yes indeed. And it is a very bad move on their part. In the long run, it will undermine their traditional preeminence as a human rights advocate, and instead lead the next generation to perceive them as just another advocate for the interests of a (sometimes unsavory) foreign power.
Nothing special about that. How would it differ from the Saudi/Oil lobby?
October 14th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
The point about ADL and foreign policy is valid, but the idea that there should be groups who take it as their responsibility to police the use of Hitler in political discourse is pretty silly. It’s almost always a really stupid claim, and ADL regulating that sort of thing probably validates unregulated instances. The Holocaust, that’s obviously more reasonable, and Grayson’s point managed to be as dumb as what a lot of Republcians are saying.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Hey SLC, I think I missed the JStreet press release where they compared anyone to Hitler or compared Israel to the Nazis. Would you mind digging that up for me? Thx!!
I’d like to see that too. BTW, SLC are you known as Jamie Kirchik in real life?
October 14th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Re tomemos
http://www.jstreetjive.com/
October 14th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Re David
Who’s Jamie Kirchik?
October 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Grayson knows their is a huge void to the Left of Obama, and he intends to fill it. In order to fill that void he needs air time, and the way to get air time these days is to talk some crazy shit.
Everything was calculated. Every word.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I can’t abide by people using their own history of oppression to oppress others. Unfortunately, this pattern is all to familiar. Israel is not Nazi Germany, not even close, not in the same universe of badness. They are much closer to (but still not as bad as) apartheid South Africa, wanting to drive palestinian and arab people into bantustans, which are not economically or politically viable. Ultimately this strategy will fail, just as it did in south africa, but Israelis do terrible damage to themselves and to the palestinians in the meantime. Peace with Palestine, based on the pre 1967 borders, a symbolic right of return (compensation for land lost, pre 1967), and agreements to share water resources fairly between the two states is a basis for peace. These are huge concessions from the Palestinians and they should not be asked to give up any more land and should have Jerusalem as their capital.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I wish Jews would be more vocal about the term “czar”, which is much more acceptable and less self-defeating in our society than references to Hitler and Nazism.
Calling policy advisors “czars” is offensive to me as a Jew of Russian descent, like calling them Fuhrers. Czars were dictators who encouraged violence against Jews. I think policy advisors are just that, advisors, who dispense advice to other people who make decisions. A more appropriate term might “maven”. It’s two syllables, but only 5 letters.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
My pet peeve, which I’ve gone on about elsewhere, is that, apart from everything else, a lot of the Hitler talk coming from the right wing does violence to the history of Nazism. The right-wingers seem to be trying to re-run the ‘creeping socialism’ argument of yore, which went something like this: ‘you might think that public provision of, e.g., social security, healthcare, whatever would be nice, but imperceptibly but inexorably it would lead to a soviet-style dictatorship. Whatever you think of this argument–and I don’t think much of it–there is no way that Hitler’s rise to power could be viewed in these terms. The wingnuts, counting on ignorance, seem to be pretending that the Nazi party came to power on a platform of peace, love and justice and by degrees became a tyranny. There was, as anyone vaguely familiar with history knows, nothing gradual or imperceptible about how the Nazis secured their grip on power.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
“Re tomemos
http://www.jstreetjive.com/”
Hmm, for some reason the “Search Blog” function didn’t come up with any examples of JStreet calling anyone “Nazis” or “Hitler.” Actually no results for either of those terms. Do you think the search engine is broken? Or maybe JStreet did call Israel a Nazi state, but the JStreetJive blog was just too polite to mention it. Anyway, want to try again? Thx!!
October 14th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
You think the conservatives maybe learnt a thing or two from the swivel eyed, foam at the mouth lunatics on the left who spent most of 2000-2008 comparing Bush to Hitler?
October 14th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
The article that Yglesias links to does not really support his claim here. The evidence given in the article suggests that the jewish groups are responding the same way to the various abuses of nazi metaphors, but that democrats feel the need to apologize why republicans don’t.
Of course that is the kind of response one might expect to lead to jews shunning the republicans, but that is something they largely do anyway.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Czars were dictators who encouraged violence against Jews.
That’s a ridiculously reductive attitude. Some Czars (Alexander II) had good records, some bad. They were not “dictators”, they were all monarchs constrained by tradition, religion and dependence on local vassals. Even Peter could only go so far. Saying Czars “encouraged violence against Jews” is like saying British Kings encouraged violence against Black Africans. While you probably can find examples scattered through history, those actions had nothing to do with the nature of the office.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
@ tomemos #7. Yes, probably not the smartest thing Grayson could have said, but it’s not completely inapt. More like a “slowocaust” or something (though that’s demeaning in a different way, I suppose). But we already know that 45,000 people die in the U.S. every year for lack of health care. That’s no 6 million over 10-ish years, but it’s proportionately horrific, and it’s a conscious choice we’ve made.
Whereas the “conservatives” who’ve taken to equating all-things-Democratic-Party willy-nilly to Hitler have zero basis in reality. So I think there’s qualitative and quantitative difference.
October 14th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
You think the conservatives maybe learnt a thing or two from the swivel eyed, foam at the mouth lunatics on the left who spent most of 2000-2008 comparing Bush to Hitler?
Oh, you poor dear. Your memory of Red Baiting appears to be completely gone!
October 14th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
“You think the conservatives maybe learnt a thing or two from the swivel eyed, foam at the mouth lunatics on the left who spent most of 2000-2008 comparing Bush to Hitler?”
Um, what?
October 14th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
@24 I can remember random democraticunderground.com commentors, some guy with a sign, and a submission to moveon.org. No one got on the TV and tried that like Beck.
They didn’t exist in 2000 and at least Bush did genuinely freak-you-the-fuck-out moves like starting a war, and ratholing people based on his say so to make Godwining out somewhere in the land of the sane.
Maybe they did learn, but if they think Bush got ran out on a rail by some people calling Bush, Hitler I hope they keep going.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Re: Alan (#8), “Another factor is the big money fundamentalists send to Israel. They use it to buy up West Bank land from Palestinians.”
The money flow I was aware of. That they might be using it to buy land on the West Bank, I wasn’t. Great. “Defending US economic interests” has traditionally been a prime excuse to send in the Marines. Hopefully, the acreage isn’t too large.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Huffington Post today has an article outlining how Jewish groups (specifically ADL and NJDC) actually are not staying mum about Hitler analogies coming from the right wing.
So take that, Yglesias and Daily Beast!
October 14th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Saying Czars “encouraged violence against Jews” is like saying British Kings encouraged violence against Black Africans. While you probably can find examples scattered through history, those actions had nothing to do with the nature of the office.
I don’t think it matters whether there were some good czars. If the czar is the symbol of ethnic cleansing for your ethnicity, then you tend not to care about the “average” czar and the name is ruined forever. All it takes is one pogrom with your family members being killed, having business burned to develop a bitter attitude like mine.
The behavior of monarchs past is pretty much shameful across the board. I would not let British kings off the hook either. So bottom line, we should come up with a better term for American policy advisors.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
concur with nbt –
Matt, is Sam Stein wrong?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/14/nazi-analogies-directed-a_n_320842.html
October 14th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
If the czar is the symbol of ethnic cleansing for your ethnicity, then you tend not to care about the “average” czar and the name is ruined forever.
How do you think native Americans think about the term “President”? Should there be a change in terminology, or should we just ease up on the victimology.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Perhaps the GOP’s outreach to the Israel lobby is the only aspect of the K Street Project that produced a long lasting result.
nbt, Jeff,
The article you link to contains a couple of quotes from ADL officials who, when called by the reporter and asked to comment, criticized the language. That really doesn’t undermine Matt’s point.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Huffington Post today has an article outlining how Jewish groups (specifically ADL and NJDC) actually are not staying mum about Hitler analogies coming from the right wing.
True, that, though the ADL’s comments come from an underling, while Abe Foxman has remained mum. Which normally takes some effort on his part.
October 14th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/14/nazi-analogies-directed-a_n_320842.html
October 14th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
That Abe Foxman is a simultaneous tool, hack, and all-around piece-of-sh#@ should surprise no one.
October 14th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Once again, the article you link to contains a couple of quotes from ADL officials who, when called by the reporter and asked to comment, criticized the language. That really doesn’t undermine Matt’s point about the ADL keeping mum.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:19 am
[...] content with out of control Hitler analogies, Rep John Shadegg (R-AZ) took to the floor yesterday to demonstrate that he’s a fool. Lee [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
A lot of orthodox and Mark Levin/Michael Goldfarb type Jews are big dittoheads. Joe Lieberman adores Rush, and vice-versa. Has anyone ever heard any of them take umbrage to his wackjob comparisons of the Obama Administration to The Third Reich?
October 15th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
This has been something, historically left to the Democrats.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Of course, Mr. Yglesias neglects to mention that his left wing pals, who populate organizations like Jstreet, are not adverse to labeling various members of the Government of Israel as Hitler (e.g. Avigdor Lieberman) and comparing the State of Israel to Nazi Germany.
So far Obama hasn’t unilaterally occupied a country, made a living hell for its citizens through a barrage of bloody military actions, blockades and authoritarian administration (in the past). So your point is?