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