There's a theological discussion going on at
Harry's Place. It's been initiated by a post by
HP's resident Christian zionist, Joseph W where he jumps through hoops to show how a Palestinian expressing sympathy with Jews over Auschwitz is actually antisemitic. The post is fairly typical of Joseph W except he usually lists lots of past misdemeanors by his subject whilst linking back to, er, Harry's Place posts. This time the subject doesn't appear to have past form so he lets the following words speak for themselves:
He writes:
“We are called to love our enemies. No matter what we think or feel, no matter how much anger we have in us, we are called to love our enemies. And for me, my biggest challenge has been to understand exactly who my enemy is, in order for me to love them. As a Palestinian, as a Christian, the most transformative experience for me has been going to places like Auschwitz and Birkenau and understanding who my enemy is. To understand the Holocaust, to understand the suffering, the pain, and the fear that exists within the Jewish community. The only thing that you can do after that experience is to love them more, to have real compassion for them and real understanding of where they came from and where they are now—and what is needed for us, as Christians, to follow the healer of all healers.”
“Them” are clearly the Jews.
Awad seems very proud of himself, for choosing to understand his enemy the Jews, and now trying to love them. His understanding of his trip to Auschwitz, seems to relate mainly to his own personal, spiritual journey and his overall mission.
But surely someone who as an adult considers the Jews to be his enemy, is by definition an anti-Semite.
There follows a load of
HP type expertise in the comments including this crass generalisation by Zachary Esterson:
If he wants to understand his enemy he needs to understand himself, and his own experience of exile and dispossession, which Palestinian Christians said was Jews' just fate for near 2000 years.
To which Stephen Marks replied:
' exile and dispossession, which Palestinian Christians said was Jews' just fate for near 2000 years'.
Well now, wherever would they have got that idea from? Well, from the Jews actually. When God makes his covenant with the Children of Israel, they are promised the land of Canaan in return for accepting the Torah and keeping its commandments. But the small print says that if they don't keep the commandments, they will lose the land.
The Prophets warn them that they will bring God's wrath down on them if they persist in their disobedience by whoring after strange gods, grinding the faces of the poor, oppressing the widows and the fatherless, seething a calf in its mothers milk, lying with beasts of the field, breaking the sabbath, mixing different fibres and various other of the 613, but they don't listen and they suffer the consequences, to live in exile till the Messiah comes etc etc.
Now personally I find this a bit implausible but the fact is its all in the Tanach/'Old Testament' and that's where the idea comes from.
As for Justin Martyr if you're going to dig up what Christians and Jews were saying about each other in the 2nd century CE, what about the Toldot Yeshu, the bit of the Talmud with the lowdown on Jesus. Apparently his mother was a whore who conceived him by fucking a Roman centurion during her period, and he will spend all eternity being boiled alive in a tubful of shit..
All of which has buggerall to do with the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Actually when you consider what's been done to them by Zionist Jews in the name of all Jews and, at least till recently, with the support of most Jews, it is greatly to the credit of the Palestinians that they don't all hate Jews. If you don't like it tell Israel to stop calling itself the 'Jewish state' and to take the Maged David off its planes and tanks the next time it bombs the shit out of Gaza.
The comment has survived for a few hours so far without deletion or counter-comment. Let's see how it goes...
Another post on
HP takes the Sunday Times to task over publishing an anti-Netanyahu cartoon on Holocaust Memorial Day, of all days. Here's
HP's Sarah Annes Brown:
Given that there have been no widely reported significant moves relating to the peace process, or its absence, in recent days it seems slightly odd that Gerald Scarfe chose this issue, of all others, as the focus of today’s cartoon.
More or less odd than Sarah focusing on a cartoon about Netanyahu? She doesn't say.
