1. In the past week, many of Israel’s Arabs celebrated "Naqba (Catastrophe) Day" on May 15, the secular anniversary of Israel’s creation. It has become the annual date in which Israel’s Arab fascists demonstrate their support for those seeking Israel’s destruction. These of course include the Arab Stalinists and Fascists in Israel’s Knesset, such as Ahmed Heebie Jeebie Tibi. And Arab students whose tuition is subsidized to the tune of 85% by the Israeli taxpayer, studying at Israeli universities, also take to the campus malls to demonstrate their support for destroying the country, with the usual contingent of far-Leftist anti-Semitic Jewish college professors and New Historians.

   Anyway, every once in a while it is worth taking note of the fact that not ALL Israeli Arabs are the sorts of fascists that Israel’s Left seeks to have them become, "Israeli Palestinians" being the politically correct Leftist Newspeak.

   Israel recently holds a national contest for school children in the area of knowledge of "Oral Torah", or Talmud. Yes, yet another of those acts of religious oppression and coercion by the Orthodox that progressive secularist Israelis from the Left struggle against.

   Only in this contest, the city of Safed, one of the four traditional holy cities of the Land of Israel, was represented by a Bedouin Moslem student, one Amer Heib, from the Heib tribe, the very first tribe of Bedouins to enlist in the Israeli military (actually in the Palmach in 1948). Seems young Heib is interested in Talmud. After winning his school’s preliminary by a mile, he will be in the national finals. He just might win.

   Haaretz though is upset. You see, a Safed Rabbi mentioned in passing that it is conceivable that Heib’s talent and interest in Talmud stem from possibly having some distant ancestors who were Jewish. More Orthodox clericalist racism here you see.

2. If you have noticed a certain reticence from these quarters in the past few weeks, it was simply because I was doing some work in Budapest and so was cut off from my usual incitement inspirations.

   But I thought a few words on Hungary and its Jews might be in order. This is because recent (19th and 20th century) Hungarian Jewish history symbolizes everything that has gone wrong in Jewish history.

   Hungarian Jews never did anything in moderation. Most of them were highly assimilationist even in the 19th century. For them, the main avenue of assimilationism was radical Magyar nationalism. (For American Jews today it is the "Political Liberalism as Judaism" pseudo-religion.) They were far more Hungarian nationalists and patriots than were the Hungarians. They lived in an unusual delusion. Hungarian Jews were convinced that anti-Semitism was a non-issue in Hungary, convinced themselves that Jews were accepted and respected by Hungarians. After all, the Hungarians were an ethnic minority within Hungary (then) and needed the Jews to identify themselves as Hungarians for demographic reasons. So the Jews became super-patriots. They fought for Hungarian Independence in the (failed) war of 1848 in numbers far beyond their proportion in the population, and suffered for this when the Austrians and Russians squashed the rebellion. Austrian anti-Semitism in the Habsburg empire was fanned by the Jewish Magyar radicalism.

   The Hungarian Jews built the largest, gaudiest, ritziest synagogues in Europe, assuring themselves that THEY had no need to tone down and moderate the profile of their synagogue buildings so as not to antagonize the gentiles, unlike Jews in OTHER countries. Some lobbied to prevent other Jews from entering Hungary, lest these reflect poorly on the Magyarized Hungarians of the Mosaic Persuasion. The exaggerated Magyar nationalism of Hungary’s Jews enflamed anti-Semitism among the non-Magyar ethnic minorities, including among Ukrainians, Romanians, Slovaks, Croats, etc., hatred that burst forth during World Wars I and II.

   In matters of religion, the Hungarian Jews also knew no moderation. The Neologs were Reform Jews and the majority of Hungarian Jews, so assimilationist as to hold services on Sundays, renouncing circumcision, renouncing kosher rules. Neolog synagogues were built to resemble cathedrals. The Orthodox were also extremists, often closing themselves off in little Haredi communities. The small Zionist movement was denounced by both these haredim and by the Neologs as threatening their idyllic position within Magyar society.

   So secure did they feel in Hungary that even when anti-Jewish laws and restrictions were introduced by the Hungarian parliament a generation before Eichmann began the final solution of Hungary’s Jews, most Jewish leaders urged Jews NOT to emigrate or leave Hungary (quite a few however did). These urgings and belief in the solidarity of Hungarian gentiles prevented unknown thousands from reaching safety before World War II.

   During World War II, after well over a century of feeling secure and accepted and believing in their Magyarhood, the real Magyars produced a large Nazi movement that collaborated with the Germans. Five out of every six Hungarian Jews were murdered, with Magyar support and collaboration and participation. SO much for being accepted and equal.

   Walking the streets of Budapest is an emotionally trying experience and the memory of the Holocaust is fresh and raw. But feelings of sorrow are mixed with feelings of rage, at the colossal stupidity to which Jews are capable of striving. The same colossal stupidity that has now placed the very existence of Israel in jeopardy, by the same fools willing to believe that anti-Semitism and genocidal fascism have magically disappeared from the planet thanks to the goodwill of progressive liberal Jews.

Copyright © 2001 by Steven Plaut.
All Rights Reserved.

-Published with permission