“Two, that a Jewish state is necessarily discriminatory because it is a Jewish state.

Here are some additional ideas to refute the “discrimination” accusation.

1. Israel’s law is mostly secular, based upon British Mandate administrative law.

2. Those parts which are not secular (Law of Return) use the religion of Judaism solely as a proxy for Jewish ethnicity. As a distinct ethnicity, Jews have asmuch right to aJewishstate as Greeks to a Greek state or Armenians to an Armenian state.

3. Ethnicity is used as a basis for nationality by dozens of states, shown by this list.

4. Ethnicity was even used as a formalised basis for the Greco-Turkish population exchange which followed the Treaty of Lausanne. The parallel holds to the de facto Israeli-Arab population exchange (750k Arabs left Israel, 1m Sephardim-Mizrahim left Arab countries).

Aside from being stupid, it’s a red herring since no one is asking non Israeli Jews to be answerable to “rulers” of Israel. There are no ‘rulers’ in Israel, btw, only elected officials answerable to the law, as the former Isralei President Katzav and many other elected official know.

Landau’s snide use of language, which parrots the language of the Muslim rejectionist block, also puts him on the side of antisemites like David Duke.

Besides, is Landau the friend of Chomsky really religious? Does he believe in God and all of his commandments to the Jewish people? Is he a member of Naturai Karta?

I doubt it. Hence his aguments are vain and misleading.

Here is my take on his hateful screed:

“Most Jews I know get little pleasure from the existence of Jews; just the opposite. They feel disgusted by the behavior of their tribal kin toward non-Jews. This antipathy doesn’t concern the right of Jews to exist, a phony argument still maintained by hard line proud Jews. Jews exist, period. Most of the world recognizes that. Anyone wanting to eliminate it belongs in the loony bin or prison.”

“My grandfather taught me, growing up during the world war 2, that Socialist tradition teaches each person to strive to become a pillar of ethics, learn the law and behave so as to answer to his fellow man for transgressions - not to rulers of the so called Jewish people.”

“…I don’t belong to that people and despise its policies of feeding social and political corruption.

Count the wars against the Jews: the Khmelnytsky Uprising in the 1600’s, attacks on Jews in Iran from the 9th century on, Arab massacres of Jews at various times, the Tsarist pogroms of the 1900’s, the White and Red army’s murders of Jews, the Nazi anti-Jewish war, the Stalinist onslaught, the Arab expulsion of Jews in the 40’s and 50’s, plus many more expulsions. Can you blame socialist Jews like myself to feel so disgusted with Jews?”

This in essence is what Landau is really saying.

Let’s face it Jews throughout their history have always had to struggle to survive usually at a disadvantage at least in Israel they can fight fire with fire.

This is what the Landaus and Chomsky’s of the world really hate.

Mar 16, 2009 By Saul Landau

Saul Landau’s ZSpace Page / ZSpace

“Most Jews I know get little pleasure from the existence of Israel; just the opposite. They feel disgusted by the behavior of their tribal kin toward Palestinians. This antipathy doesn’t concern Israel’s right to exist, a phony argument still maintained by hard line Zionists. Israel exists, period. Most of the world recognizes that. Anyone wanting to eliminate it belongs in the loony bin or prison.”
“My grandfather taught me, growing up during the Holocaust, that Jewish tradition teaches each person to strive to become a pillar of ethics, learn the law and behave so as to answer to God for transgressions - not to rulers of a so-called Jewish state.”
“…I don’t belong to that state {Israel] and despise its policies of constant war and occupation.

Count Israel’s wars: 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, plus civil wars against two Intifadas in the 1980s and 2000, and finally the invasions of Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in late 2008, the latter leaving in its wake 1,300 plus dead Palestinians, most of them civilians and less than 20 Israelis, some from “friendly fire.” “

This is disgusting.

I am not familiar with either “American Council for Judaism” or with the work of its former president btu I wonder how much he knew about the Holocaust in 1944 when he made that libelous comment.

That Ben Ehrenreich would quote it approvingly shows how anti Zionists have to disregard history in order to make their “case” such as it is against Israel.

To these folk it’s as if the Holocaust never happened and if they mention it it’s only accuse Israel of being as bad as the “Nazis.”

There comes a point when argument fails and people have to resort to action.

I hope the Jewish community protests vehmently to the LA Times and if there is no response forthcoming mounts a boycotts
of the paper in the Jewish community.

I hate to see any more papers disappear, but if it’s a choice between no paper and papers that print libelous articles I prefer the former.

There is an important article against academic boycotts on the NY TImes website by Stanley Fish:

“To Boycott or Not to Boycott, That Is the Question”

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/to-boycott-or-not-to-boycott-that-is-the-question/

I posted the following response.

“What should not be in dispute is that those actions, however salutary and productive of good results, were and are antithetical to the academic enterprise, which while it may provide the tools (of argument, fact and historical research) that enable good and righteous deeds, should never presume to perform them.” Professor Fish

While I agree with Professor’s Fish’ final point, I don’t see why the other corollary arguments are not also valid.

The issue of double standard is pertinent here. Why boycott Israeli academics and not say Chinese ones whose oppression of Tibet is much worse than anything Israel did? Moreover, the Tibetans have not randomly killed Chinese nor have they threatened to eliminate China from the map.

The reason given in the past by some pro boycott people is that pressure on Israeli academics would work while not on Chinese ones. So the standard they use for deciding who to boycott is not truth but efficacy of action. By such reasoning the powerful should never be censured for the gross injustice they commit while the less powerful should be censured even the violence they are involved in the result of self defense measures they had taken after being attacked.

It’s clear that reason and logic isn’t what drives the boycotters and yes we should look at other explanations. Whether they acknowledge it or not whether they call themselves Jews or not antisemitism is one such explanation.