Jewish Vendetta

This Politico article reinforces the impression that there is a Jewish vendetta against Hegel for his comments about the Jewish lobby.  It says that right-wing Hegel opponents were seeking a video of a speech he made to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination League because they thought it would contain anti-Israel or anti-Semetic comments.  So, the opposition to Hegel seems motivated by those who love Israel more than America and who consider themselves Jews rather than Americans.  But Politico says Hagel said nothing of note to the ADL.  Nevertheless there seems to be a lot of race hatred behind the opposition to Hegel

Gutless Federal Government

Stephen Colbert had great segments tonight on the failure of the US to prosecute anyone in the banks responsible for the meltdown that led to the great recession, although it is going after one rating agency, and Wells Fargo is going after one employee who put slugs in a coin laundry 40 years ago.  But Wells Fargo thinks it is fine to defraud customers of millions of dollars.  No punishment for that!

The S&P rating agency was basically a character reference for the banks, who were the actual crooks.  It was the banks who put together the fraudulent financial packages.  S&P was stupid enough to believe the banks, who lied through their teeth to the rating agencies and there customers.  Is there no penalty for the banks lying in exactly the same way the rating agency did?  The difference is that the banks own the American government, which has become increasingly corrupt.

Bloomberg in London

The N Y Times article about mayor Bloomberg's love for London and his big investment there goes against my hypothesis that Jews secretly love Israel more than America. The same may be true for Ralph Lauren, whose fashion inspiration often seems to come from Britain. I am happy about that, but I worry that there are many American Jews, represented by AIPAC, who do love Israel more than America. But fortunately it is not a universal phenomenon.

Too Tough on Jews

Not all Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the United States, but the Jewish outcry about the Hegel appointment has aroused my worst fears about Jewish disloyalty.

I really didn't think that much about Israel and the Jews until I was assigned to Poland in the mid-1990s.    First, as part of the acculturation process we went to visit the Holocaust museum which was just opening in Washington.  While it was moving, I was not pleased with the criticism of President Roosevelt for failing to come to the aid of the Jews in Europe sooner.  I suppose we will have more museums on the National Mall that are critical of America's history: museums condemning Washington and Jefferson for being slave owners and condemning the US Army for war crimes against Indians, etc.  But the Holocaust did not even occur in America, and none of the victims were Americans.

Then, in Poland in 1995, it was the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, and Clinton and Gore both came to mark different events.  It was all-Holocaust all the time.  There was no celebration of the Allied victory, in which my father fought.  It was just about the millions of Jews who died.  Of course, it's not clear in Poland what the war meant.  The US lost much less than one million killed in WW II.  The Soviets lost about twice as many killed as the 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.  The Jews did not really fight.  One of the biggest Jewish battles was the Warsaw ghetto uprising, but that uprising was insignificant compared to the Warsaw uprising by the whole city's population.  The ghetto uprising was put down fairly easily by the Germans; the Warsaw uprising led to the destruction of the whole city during the fierce battle with the Germans.

Of course, the Allies never made it to Poland; they hardly made it to Berlin.  The Soviet Union ended up controlling Poland.  It's questionable whether Britain and the US could have defeated Germany without the Soviet Union, which suffered horrendous casualties.  So, the Poles didn't have much to celebrate about the Allied victory.  The Jews didn't have much to celebrate either, except of the fact that some survived and wnt on to post-WW II lives, often in the US or Israel.  During the commemorations, I was not put off by those who had actually survived the death camps, but I was somewhat put off by the younger Jews who had not been through the Holocaust.  The survivors seemed to be grateful; the next generation seemed to have an attitude of, "You owe me,"  The West had not responded quickly enough, and they were there to collect for the West's failings.  There was some of the same attitude from the Poles for being abandoned to the Soviets, but in 1995 the were more joyful at finally getting out from under Soviet domination.

In any case, two years in Poland pounded the Holocaust into my head, not always in a good way.  Now Jews want Americans to hate themselves for not invading France sooner during WW II.  And to make up for not doing so, we must pay reparations to Israel, giving them billions and billions of dollars.  And making sure that we do is AIPAC, which is a Jewish lobby as well as an Israeli lobby, because many Jews cannot separate being Jewish from loving Israel.