    Good things always have a sequel, and so is the story with Lisandro
    Otero, the Cuban writer who blasted – you won’t believe it – “French
    antisemitism” in an article printed by a hundred of Latin American
    newspapers. (See this article on
    http://www.rebelion.org/palestina/040402otero.htm ). I responded to him
    by article Dogs and Foxes (in English
    http://www.israelshamir.net/shamirImages/Shamir/Lisandro.htm and in
    Spanish http://www.rebelion.org/palestina/040427shamir.htm ). Nelly
    Marzouka, a Palestinian friend from Latin America, supported me on
    http://www.rebelion.org/palestina/040504nel.htm and Lisandro Otero
    responded at length on http://www.rebelion.org/palestina/040502lis.htm .
    Now it is my shot, so here are

    Son of Dogs and Foxes

    Israel Shamir responds to Lisandro Otero

    With great anticipation I waited for response of Lisandro Otero. I
    waited for clear answer: why the Cuban writer repeated accusations
    against France and French people voiced by enemies of Palestine and
    Cuba, from President Bush to the head of ADL, Abe Foxman. Why did he
    subscribe to Zionist-led pro-American discourse of ‘growing
    antisemitism’? And he replied, but, alas, Socrates would dismiss Otero
    from his feast for lack of logic in his reply.

    1. I told him there is no antisemitism and that Jews are safe
    everywhere. He replied that Jews suffered in the days of Caligula. In a
    similar way, if I would tell him there is no slavery in Cuba, he could
    reply that there were thousands of slaves just two hundred years ago.

    2. Otero rolled out familiar Jewish martirologue from Roman days to
    Isabel the Catholic to Hitler. It is truth, but not all the truth; and
    half truth is as bad as a lie. Jews knew hard days, for being human,
    Jews lived on this earth and suffered as much as anybody. Less than
    natives of Cuba and other Caribbean islands who were exterminated.
    Probably less than their neighbours, ordinary Spaniards or Poles, for
    Jews were always free, usually prosperous and never knew slavery or
    bondage; but certainly they suffered too. Just take it in proportion:
    Jews did not suffer more than any comparable group of people.

    Jews as a rule belonged to the exploiting classes; that is why Jewish
    Quarters are located next to Royal palace in Seville and Paris. From
    time to time they suffered from fury of exploited classes or their
    competitors. So did aristocracy. Thousands of French aristocrats were
    slaughtered during the peasant wars or the Great Terror of 1793. Russian
    aristocrats were killed or expelled during the October Revolution of
    1917. Many of them were innocent, for class war can be as cruel as any
    war. Why does not Otero bewail them?

    Jews fought wars like anybody else. If Jews were killed in Alexandria,
    in the same time Jews massacred non-Jews in Jaffa and Antioch. Friends
    of Jews were often fiends for the rest of population: Cromwell brought
    Jews to England, but in the same time he massacred Irish peasants and
    enslaved Ireland.

    Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, but Moors were expelled too at
    the same occasion. Why Otero does not lament the bitter fate of Alhambra
    and Giralda’s builders? Jews actually fared much better: those that
    remained were fully integrated, married into best Spanish families and
    occupied positions of prestige and power in Spain.

    And now to the capital H. During World War Two, millions of Russians,
    Germans, Poles, Japanese perished. Among them, there were Jews,
    civilians and soldiers, too. Thus my Jewish uncle Abraham was killed by
    German bomb at defence of Leningrad next to his Russian buddy Ivan.
    Auschwitz was inhuman, indeed, but so was Hiroshima. But for a Jewish
    ideologist such a comparison is sacrilege for this compares divine
    people of Israel with subhuman Japanese.

    3. The Jewish discourse of unique martyrdom and victimhood is based on
    racialist denial of full and equal humanity of non-Jews; that is why
    Jewish ideologists are obsessed with counting Jewish victims and
    discounting suffering of non-Jews. We see the result of this approach in
    Palestine, where every Jewish victim of war receives a place of honour
    on the front page of newspapers, while non-Jewish victims are hardly
    mentioned at all. Now everybody, including Otero, knows and refers to
    Jewish victims; but hardly anybody – and again it includes Otero – has
    heard for instance the names of Mona and Christina, two little
    Palestinian girls murdered recently by Jewish soldiers.

    Dorothy Naor, an enlightened Israeli woman, writes: “Today’s killing of
    a 34 year old Israeli woman and her 4 daughters is indeed tragic. Of the
    English language newspapers that I have checked, it has been reported
    widely--in the USA by the NY Times, the Washington Post, the SF
    Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the Herald Tribune; in England by the
    Independent, and the Guardian; in Australia by the Sidney Morning Herald
    (May 3); and in Toronto by the Globe and Mail. By contrast, of the above
    newspapers, only today’s New York Times reported yesterday’s killing of
    an 8 year old Palestinian boy by the IOF. Every such death is tragic.
    But today’s killing of an Israeli woman and her children has to be seen
    within the context of the Palestinian child killed yesterday, of the
    Palestinian mother of 10 killed last week and of the statistics that I
    cited a few days ago: i.e., April saw 59 Palestinians killed and 345
    injured.”

    The US fully adopted the Judaic discourse; that is why American
    Jewish-dominated media exploded with fury when four American
    professional killers were killed by people of Faluja and ignored killing
    of thousands of Iraqis. In full agreement with Judaic doctrine of
    massive retaliation Americans massacred six hundred civilians of Faluja.
    Thus Judaic inspiration is very dangerous for us.

    On the other hand, during Crusades, the Muslim warriors and Christian
    knights made friends between the battles and actually liked each other.
    Don Rodrigo was called by Moorish name of El Sid; Torquato Tasso made a
    beautiful Muslim woman Clorinda a heroine of his Gerusalemme liberata.
    At the siege of Kerak, Saladin ordered to cease fire during the wedding
    in the castle; while the queen mother had sent him a slice of wedding
    cake. Thus Muslim and Christian attitudes are very different from the
    Judaic: people may fight, it is human; but they should treat each other
    as fully human and equal.

    A problem of Otero is that he swallowed the Jewish discourse hook, line
    and rod; and took it for true description of reality instead of what it
    is: an ideological propaganda tool aimed to stop and reverse normal
    process of Jewish assimilation and keep descendents of Jews in fear of
    goyim, subservient to Jewish elites. He even adopted racialist Jewish
    point of view, and calls Marx, Mendelsohn and Heine – Jews. (Though born
    of Jewish parents, they baptised, did not consider themselves Jews and
    would not be allowed to settle in Israel, by Zionist laws). Indeed,
    Lisandro: if Marx were a Jew would he say ‘liberation of Jews is
    liberation from Jews’? Rosa Luxembourg equally hated to be considered
    Jewish.

    This misunderstanding of the Cuban writer makes it clear when he refers
    to “old plague of mankind, anti-Semitic racism”. Far from being ‘an old
    plague’ it did not exist until second half of 19th century, and lasted
    considerably less than hundred years. Paradoxically, it was caused by
    proliferation of Jewish racialist discourse. Now, Jewish attitudes were
    and remain racialist, for Jews – like Indian Brahmins - believe in their
    inborn high qualities. Until Jewish influence emerged as powerful
    keynote of modernity in the mid-19th century, racial approach was quite
    foreign to Europeans. The Church was never racist towards Jews; and
    every descendent of Jews could become a Christian and a full member of
    society. The Church’s fight against the Jews was also fight of ideology
    of equality versus ideology of racism. The Jews fought the Church, too,
    but when they had an upper hand – for instance in AD 128 and in AD 614
    in Palestine – they were not satisfied with expulsion but slaughtered
    all Christians they could get their hands on. But Otero does not
    understand it and claims that anti-Judaic attitudes were ‘racist’.

    He says there are good and bad Jews; little he knows that even this
    trite statement is considered anti-Semitic in present climate. A Jewish
    American journalist, Klinghoffer wrote in Forward
    (http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.12.27/oped3.html ): “A writer who
    wants to divide us [Jews] in half, some for praise, others for scorn,
    may not be an antisemite - but he's not our friend either.” Beware,
    Lisandro!

    4. Otero’s lack of logic is seen in his reference to me. He writes:
    Shamir made a tour of lectures in American universities, ‘honour that
    few writers of left reach’, implying that a person who enjoys such
    glorious privilege does not really belong to the Left but is a stooge of
    some dark forces. But in the next line, he approves of Dominique Vidal,
    the chief editor Le Monde Diplomatique. So, you’ve got to be a stooge if
    you tour American Universities, but not if you edit one of the major
    French newspapers…

    (I had no possibility to verify the quote of Vidal; whether this man who
    proved his loyalty to Jewry by penning a book on exclusive Jewish
    suffering actually lied and said that I called to vote for Le Pen; or it
    is a flight of Lisandro’s fantasy.)

    5. And last but not least, Lisandro insinuates that I’ve got to be an
    ‘agent of Mossad or CIA’. Maybe it is an acceptable form of discussion
    in his circles like it was in my native Russia in 1930s; or maybe it is
    his personal inability to understand why I do not submit when he does.
    He says with pride that he never changed his opinions: for me it is a
    quality of petrified mind. The world changes, and we should change with
    it.

    Israel Shamir, Jaffa

    info@israelshamir.net

    www.israelshamir.net