(YellowTimes.org) – A teapot scandal erupted after Harvard's English Department invited the distinguished British poet Tom Paulin to give a prestigious lecture on campus. Some folks were shocked to discover the things Paulin had said in an interview with an Egyptian magazine. In that interview, Paulin apparently called the Brooklyn-born Jewish fundamentalist settlers in the Occupied Territories "Nazis" and said that they ought to be shot.
From the left, The Nation's Eric Alterman called Paulin's views "disgusting." From the right, Andrew Sullivan labeled them "anti-Semitic." Let's take a close look, beginning with the "Nazi" word. After reading the press, both "liberal" and "conservative," you'd think Nazism and Jewish fundamentalism are miles apart, so many miles apart that comparing them is not merely wrong, but disgusting, anti-Semitic, beyond the pale, etc. You'd be surprised then to learn a few things.
A basic tenet of the Jewish settlers' religious doctrine is that Jews have the duty to conquer every piece of land in "Greater Israel," an ill-defined territory that can stretch as far as Iraq, and includes areas in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. In conquering that area, Jews have a right to kill "every single one" of the inhabitants until "not a memory or trace" remains (these words of love, belonging to Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, appeared in the settlers' principal magazine Nekudah). To turn this political project into the Nazi ideology of Lebensraum, we need but substitute Europe for the Middle East, and Aryans for Jews.
From the left, The Nation's Eric Alterman called Paulin's views "disgusting." From the right, Andrew Sullivan labeled them "anti-Semitic." Let's take a close look, beginning with the "Nazi" word. After reading the press, both "liberal" and "conservative," you'd think Nazism and Jewish fundamentalism are miles apart, so many miles apart that comparing them is not merely wrong, but disgusting, anti-Semitic, beyond the pale, etc. You'd be surprised then to learn a few things.
A basic tenet of the Jewish settlers' religious doctrine is that Jews have the duty to conquer every piece of land in "Greater Israel," an ill-defined territory that can stretch as far as Iraq, and includes areas in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. In conquering that area, Jews have a right to kill "every single one" of the inhabitants until "not a memory or trace" remains (these words of love, belonging to Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, appeared in the settlers' principal magazine Nekudah). To turn this political project into the Nazi ideology of Lebensraum, we need but substitute Europe for the Middle East, and Aryans for Jews.