27 Responses to “Bielski Brothers inhabit shallow narrative in action-styled Defiance”

1. Joel Friedlander
   January 11th, 2009 @

   Well, Jason, Matt and I reviewed the film last night and I have come to a different conclusion. For many decades the only vision of resistance among the Jews was the stand at the Warsaw Ghetto on April 19, 1943 (Pesach) which ended with the defeat of the Jewish fighters on May 16, 1943. When I grew up nothing was known of other groups of Jews who fought the Nazis. Their resistance was not futile, despite their deaths, it led to the creation of a different Jewish mentality, the one that says that we will not stand and be destroyed by others.

   What I took from “Defiance” was the fact that it showed that some of the same Jews that were fighting the Nazis and the Poles, were religious and practiced their religion even in the forest. It is also notable that the rabbi character leads the group in prayers, teaches Jewish history and religion to the children, and despite being very angry with G-d for leaving them in the situation they found themselves in continues to pray to G-d. Also, Instead of just shacking up together in their severe circumstances, Asail marries in the forest and a son is born of the union although he is killed while serving with the Soviets later in the war. The Jews in the movie carry on their civilization except in one circumstance where Tuvia is forced, due to illness, to kill one of the members of his group who has changed the humanitarian rules under which the group lives. This film shows that the Jews then, and later, remained true to their religion.

   There is a story my Rabbi, OHS, used to tell of the period just after the end of the War, when he was in Europe traveling from detention Camp to detention Camp providing kosher meat for the Jews living there, performing proper Jewish weddings, and circumcising Jewish infants and children. He told of one camp where the people running the camp wanted to feed traif (unkosher) food to the Jews. The Rabbi Baras, his name, had to physically threaten the camp controllers to make them understand how important kosher food was to the Jewish people. (You had to know Rabbi Baras, even in his 70’s, to know that he could more then carry out any kind of physical threat he made) His point was that in order to survive his people had been forced to eat anything, but now that they were free they would only obey their own laws.

   It is important that the film points out the importance of prayer to the Jews, an importance that is never belittled by Tuvia, although he is not portrayed as religious. It shows that all sorts of people can live together and keep their traditions, both religious and cultural. We had forgotten that until WWII. Yes, and they still remain human and fallible, as the scene of the murder of the Nazi soldier brought into the forest by Aron Bielsi shows.

   “Defiance” doesn’t belittle the horror of what the Nazis did, it shows that the Jews were able to survive intact, even if they were, and are, angry with G-d at times. I know all about being angry with G-d and still keeping my religion.

   I think that the film is not a perfect effort but it is a mighty fine one and I recommend it to everyone.

2. Matt Friedlander
   January 11th, 2009 @

   I think Joel did a mighty fine job of summing up how I feel as well. I just want to point out that even though Jason feels the “Polish” and “Russian” accents sounded fake in the movie, the real circumstances surrounding Zus and others as they lived amongst the army were 100% on the mark. The Poles and Russians hated the Jews, they still do today for the most part, and it is no surprise to me that they would beat one of them near incapacitation for using the same facilities as them (as depicted in one scene). Watching Defiance last night brought back memories of my childhood when I was in summer camp, when someone couldn’t keep up in a sport or an activity I would help them. If they were slacking off or felt embarrassed that they weren’t as good as the next person, I encouraged them. I felt like I was doing something productive and right, and that’s how Zus and Tuvia felt (though their ideologies were different) when it came to helping others.

3. Jason Ihle
   January 11th, 2009 @

   Admittedly my review focuses on what I found negative in the film, although there were things I liked about it.

   But I stand by my argument that the film doesn’t do enough to explore the problems of how to continue to behave like a human being or a good Jew under dire circumstances. I feel like the film just brushes the surface of those issues, not wanting to mar a Hollywood entertainment with deeper philosophical quandaries. Therein lies my biggest problem, a film dealing with Holocaust issues should not shy away from those deeper issues but confront them head on. Otherwise people are going to the cinema to see an action film. I find it irresponsible to turn the crimes committed in WWII into an action spectacle.

   Steven Spielberg, while making Schindler’s List, was acutely aware of the danger of making a vehicle of entertainment out of such atrocity. While I find Schindler’s List to be a flawed film for several reasons (least of which is Spielberg’s perpetual inability to explore deeper issues of the human condition), his Holocaust drama never once comes off feeling like entertainment. While it succumbs to some Hollywood conventions, it also manages to skirt others.

   Matt, I agree with what you said, but want to reiterate my dislike for the phony accent issue. The Russian was fine, the actors spoke Russian several times in the film. But the rest of the time the characters would be speaking Polish. Obviously being a Hollywood film, English is chosen as the ‘base’ language. This is done all the time and I have no problem with that. The problem I have is having the actors speak English with Polish accents. Even if we take that as acceptable (and I admit to being in the minority here. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes speak German-accented English in Schindler’s List) how do they justify having them speak with grammatical inaccuracy? Slavic languages don’t use articles the same way English does, so when a Pole or a Russian learns English they say things like “We’re having great party tonight.” But when they speak Polish or Russian they don’t say a sentence and then think, “hmm, I didn’t use an article before that noun.” Which is what I thought every time a character in the film made such mistakes.

4. Joel Friedlander
   January 11th, 2009 @

   I think that it is important to remember with the cinema that every film must have entertainment value or it will fail. If a film fails to please no one will come to see it, and whatever message it carries will be lost.

   The true message of most of the Holocaust films is that despite the very best efforts of the Germans the Jews survived. They didn’t survive because the rest of the World opened its hearts to them and allowed them in, nor did they survive because the Allies made it a point to destroy the German murder machine in its multiple death camps. They survived because they did. There was a play recently on PBS in which a group of camp inmates, who are shortly to be sent to their deaths, debate the righteousness of G-d, and his failures as a god of the Jewish people. At the end of the debate some of the men are sent to their deaths, but in an epilogue there are a group of Jews who are visiting the Camps on a bus tour in the Twenty-First Century. When one lady says that she doesn’t understand the point an older man says to her, “We’re still here and they are gone.”

   Shortly before he died my Rabbi asked me to defend him in Traffic Court in Nassau County where he was charged with making a right hand turn from the wrong lane. The Rabbi had gotten off the Northern State Parkway at Lakeville Road, and at that exit the road splits to the left for traffic going East on Marcus Avenue and to the right for cars going West to Lakeville Road. The Rabbi had gotten into the wrong lane and turned right instead of left. He was pulled over and ticketed.

   I asked him in the Court what had happened, and he said that he had been coming back from Brooklyn, where he had ordered a plaque commemorating the members of his family that had died in the Holocaust. He showed me the plaque, which must have been two feet high and 18″ wide. On the bronze were listed the names of all of the members of his family in Europe. The names were the same names as those of his children and his grandchildren, for it is the custom among my people to name our children after our beloved dead.

   When I looked closer at the plaque I noticed that all of the Yahrtzeit dates were the same. I mentioned it to him and he told me that when he was away at Seminary studying for the Rabbinate, the Germans came and in one day killed all of the Jews in his town in Lithuania. As he had been driving home on the parkway he glanced over at the plaque and began thinking of his family, all murdered by the Germans, and he began to cry. That was why he pulled off of the Parkway at Lakeville Road. When I explained this to the hearing officer the case against him was dismissed.

   Rabbi Baras’ family was murdered in 1941 and he didn’t put up a plaque in his own Shul until 2005, despite the fact that their are hundreds of plaques on the walls. It took him 44 years before he thought that he would be able to deal with what had happened because when memorial prayers are said several times each year, it is the job of the Rabbi, at our Shul, to read off the names of all of the beloved dead.

   The Bielski’s never made a big deal of what they had done; they let it stay in the past for their own good reasons. Now that the two older brothers are gone their story has been told. I hope it will do some good. As to your point about the youngest brother and his legal problems, he is the only one left who could have told their story, and that is why he isn’t mentioned, or given a major part in the narrative. He may just be as modest as his brothers were. As to his arrest, in this country a man is innocent until proven guilty; there is the presumption of innocence. We forget that from time to time, especially in the past 8 years. Why not wait until the jury speaks, if ever, about this matter.

5. Jason Ihle
   January 12th, 2009 @

   The closing titles explain what happened to Tuvia, Zus and Asael but don’t mention Aron. To me that’s a glaring absence. The focus of the story, apart from the survival of this group of 1000 or so Jews, is the relationship of the brothers. To not mention what ultimately happened to Aron is curious. So I’m guessing it was an editorial decision made by the filmmakers not to touch a sticky situation. The film may have even been edited differently and the character development of Aron reduced. His arrest occurred during or shortly after filming. Because it seemed to have an effect on the film, it’s relevant to the review.

6. Amy
   January 15th, 2009 @

   This movie is on my must-see list as soon as it gets closer to Cape Cod.

   The accent thing can be annoying, and since I live with a native Polish speaker I’m sure the actors attempts at it will be amusing. (And Matt – you are kind of implying that modern Poles as a nation are largely anti-Semitic, which I think is unfair – have you ever been to Poland?)

7. Amy
   January 15th, 2009 @

   Or I should say, Polish people.

8. Nikki
   January 18th, 2009 @

   To Amy:

   In response to her last question to Matt and as a Jew…why would I ever want to step foot in Poland!!! And, yes, it is you who is naive about the role of the Poles in WWII. The Poles assisted the Nazis with zeal when it came to rounding up Jews. By the way — not portrayed in the film — it is my understanding that when the Bielski partisans emerged from the forest to return to their former villages — they were not greeted warmly by their fellow Poles. This had been true throughout Poland when a Jewish concentration camp survivor returned to seek out their village — the Poles feared they might have to give back what they stole from Jewish businesses, homes, schools, etc.

   By the way Amy — go easy on promoting the Polish love for Jews. All of my father’s family lie in those same hallowed woods in Poland. The crimes of the Poles during WWII are documented in the tens of thousands, not to mention their crimes against their Jewish neighbors for centuries before the war. Educate yourself Amy before you wish to re-write historical truths with political correctness at the expense of so much historical facts.

9. Amy
   January 18th, 2009 @

   Nikki – take a breath and calm down so you can be more logical in your responses. I don’t have a blind love of Poland. I toured the museum at Auschwitz, something many Israeli students were doing as well. I am aware that there was and is anti-Semitism in Poland – as there is in ALL of Europe (rates of anti-Semitic acts have been down in Poland recently, while they are climbing in Russia and other former Soviet countries). I have also read that the penalty for hiding Jews in Poland when the Nazis were around was death – yet Poles helped hide more Jews than people from any other country. Also, in the Auschwitz museum there was a whole section devoted to how the Nazis were killing Poles. I am not rewriting history. The Germans were the instigators for the terrible crimes.

10. Amy
    January 18th, 2009 @

    Nor did I say that the Poles love Jews. I just meant that you shouldn’t condemn modern Poles any more than you should condemn any other Europeans.

11. Nancy
    January 24th, 2009 @

    I agree with Amy. You really should not condemn all modern Poles as being anti-Semitic. Nor should you generalize about the Poles of the 1940’s. A dear friend of mine fought in the Polish Underground against both the Nazis and the Soviets. She hated them both for what they did to her country. I asked her once about Polish anti-semitism and she referenced her Jewish childhood friends (they all attended the same school in Lida, which is now in Belarus). She went on to say that she and her fellow Undergournd fighters wanted “Poland for the Poles” and opposed EVERYONE who helped either the Soviets or the Nazis: Catholic collaborators were the enemy. Lithuanians who supported the Soviets were the enemy , despite Poland’s long political associationg with LIthuania. And, Jews who fought with the Soviets were enemies, not because of their religion but because of their alliance with Russia. She would never have said her attitude was true of every Pole but it is equally narrow-minded of Nikki to insist that all Poles hated Jews.

12. Joanna
    January 25th, 2009 @

    I don’t even wanna touch the subject about Polish-Jews relationship during and after WWII. There are people who doesn’t know our history, but are first to comment on it. And yes- there are people who doesn’t like each other, and who have no problems with their nationalities. Anyhow – I am Polish – and just for the record – NOBODY spoke Polish in the movie – and I didn’t like the phony accent either (but – again – it wasn’t Polish one). So, if you want to make a comment on it – at least be correct. Thanks.

13. Jason Ihle
    January 27th, 2009 @

    Joanna, I just checked my own review and the entire comment thread and no one anywhere says that anyone in the film speaks Polish.

    You may be confused by the point I was trying to make about Hollywood films and their use of accents when the CHARACTERS

14. Jason Ihle
    January 27th, 2009 @

    Joanna, I just checked my own review and the entire comment thread and no one anywhere says that anyone in the film speaks Polish.

    You may be confused by the point I was trying to make about Hollywood films and their use of accents when the characters would OTHERWISE be speaking a foreign language. I am trying to draw a distinction between the language of the CHARACTERS (in this case Polish and occasionally Russian) and the language of the ACTORS. Because it’s a Hollywood film with English-speaking actors English is chosen as the ‘base’ language which stands in for Polish. We’re meant to understand that the characters are speaking Polish to one another but we are actually hearing English. When the characters speak Russian, on the other hand, the actors also speak Russian while it is subtitled in English.

    The recent Tom Cruise film “Valkyrie” makes this leap clear by having Cruise speak his first few lines of voice-over narration in German. Then it slowly transitions to Tom Cruise speaking English. That film gets the accents right, however, as Cruise maintains his American accent while Kenneth Branagh and other British actors in the film maintain their English accents. Even though they all play Germans!

    Of course, that could be because Tom Cruise has a terrible history of faking accents – “Far and Away” for which Entertainment Weekly once remarked that his Irish accent was what most people imagine a Leprechaun sounds like.

    Mel Brooks pokes fun at the accent problem in “History of the World: Part I” During the French Revolution section, Madame DeFarge (played by Cloris Leachman) laments (in a thick French accent), “We are so poor we don’t even have a language – just a stupid accent!” Another character responds, “I know! We all talk like Maurice Chevalier. Huah, huah, huah!”

15. Michael
    January 28th, 2009 @

    The movie in itself is not a bad movie, though I also think it could expend more on the sibling rivalry between Tuvia and Zus. Personally, I don’t mind the accents used by the actors, i think i got use to it from Hollywood’s productions (Mel Gibson’s being the only exceptions lol). At the same time, i must say it kind of “stupefies” the characters, who in real life would be fluent in at least one of languages and/or dialects, actually most of them would be fluent in more than one: the Jewish characters in Yiddish, Polish, and local Belorussian dialect; the local farmers in local Belorussian dialect and/or Polish and/or Lithuanian, Russian Partisans and Germans would probably use their native languages fluently.
    I think many people are expecting too much of the Hollywood’s productions: the movies are made for entertainment purposes and not to accurately chronicle historical events even if the topic is as serious as the WW2. Look no further as “historical movies” like “300″, Alexander”, or whole array of American war movies about the WW2. Many state at the beginning that they are based on a true story, but how strictly or loosely it is followed depends on the producers. In this case it is based on a book, which itself was based on a true story. There is no denying that the producers exaggerated some scenes, while creating other scenes out of their imagination to “enriched” our experience.
    Interestingly, the language spoken in this movie (obviously outside the “broken” English) is Russian, language foreign to most of the native people in that region at that time, in reality they would spoke a Belorussian dialect or if they were from bigger city Polish. Jews would be fluent in Yiddish, but most not in Hebrew. This region at that time was inhabited by many peoples of different languages and backgrounds, but the “lingua franca” was a Belorussian dialect in rural settings, and Polish and Yiddish in the urban centers.
    On the political side of discussion, i noticed several things:
    I can see a developing pattern in the movies dealing with the Holocaust (Schindler’s List, Europa Europa, and this movie) were Jews are shown as heroes just because they survived the WW2, while a very harsh standard of heroism is put on the other peoples, which is kind of understandable since these movies were made by Jews, and like any other people they like to glorify their own.
    It also seems that in this movie a special effort was made to exclude any negative elements about Poles, I don’t think Poles and\or Polish were mentioned in the whole movie at all, therefore i was somewhat surprised when i’ve read the venomous anti-polish comments by “Friedlander brothers” (see above), which in turn prompt me to write this:
    There is one big white elephant in the history of the WW2 being totally ignored in the west:
    It is a story not of defiance but of a great betrayal, and it had started on Sept. 17, 1939 when the Soviets invaded Poland in a cooperation with the Nazis attack of Sept. 1, 1939.
    It is a story of people who’ve had for centuries come to Poland to find shelter from violence against them in the rest of Europe. It is a story of the Jews of the Eastern Poland and the Baltic States (after June 1940), and of how did they repaid their hosts for that shelter, with a betrayal. Most Jews welcomed the occupation by the international socialists (the soviets), since they felt themselves “international” as opposed to local “nationalistic” population. They join “enmasse” the Soviet apparatus, and were especially active and useful to the Soviets in the NKVD since they knew the locale very well. Most of the Polish Communist Party (KPP) members being distrustful of the Soviets after Stalin have liquidated its leadership in 1938, were reluctant to help the Soviets, but not the predominantly Jewish Communist Party of Western Belarus and the Jews as a whole ethnic group. Some 1,5 million “locals”: Poles, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians and others were denounced by their Jewish neighbors, and then sent to be shot dead or to died in the Gulags. Some of them were victims of a political zealous of the freshly made commissars, but many were victims of the more common vices of humanity: jealousy and greed. This story can’t be told right now in the west because the timing is not right: it is time of making heroes of people who did everything to save themselves and their people. The same people who just few years before that viciously turned against their neighbors sending thousands of them to a certain death, and then expected that families of those who they condemned would put their own lives on line to save their betrayers. Perhaps, this is the reason why the movie wasn’t made for such a long time.
    Before the WW2, Tuvia was a smuggler running Polish-Soviet border, after the Soviet invasion he’d joined the Soviet apparatus, but there is a silence about his standing there, we can only assume from the movie and other sources that he had to work in a very important sector since he was evacuated when the Barbarossa Operation started: Because of the speed of the Blitzkrieg only the high rank civilian bureaucrats, the military and the NKVD personnel had been evacuated, and Tuvia wasn’t of the former two professions. In the movie Zus is surprised that Tuvia had returned, but it is strategically omitted from where. The movie despite its obvious shortcomings could help explaining one more mystery of the WW2: the Naliboki massacre. The members of Tuvia’s group deny that they were in that region at the time of the massacre of 128 locals, which probably is true since they were rarely involved in any military operations but only in raids to “acquire” food. At the same time survivors of the massacre clearly identified members of “Bielski’s Brothers Bandits” as the perpetrators, which is probably a truth also, since the Zus’ group (“the Jewish Warriors” in the movie) was part of the Soviet unit responsible for the massacre, and according to the eyewitnesses they took a very active part in it. There is one more aspect of this: the movie, despite being sanitized to put Jews in the very best light possible, shows several interesting things: the gulag like social atmosphere in the camp, especially that the women had to trade sexual favors for protection (hence the Bielski brothers’ harems remembered by locals). For anyone who read books about real life in Gulags this is a very familiar story. Another thing is the Jews on Jews violence which was touch upon only briefly, but was very much a fact of life in the Ghettos or the Concentration Camps.
    If the Friedlander brothers want to point out the real “denouncers” of Jews, i would direct them to look at Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei, Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst or Judenräte. Those people committed unspeakable crimes against their own compatriots, yet very few were condemned by the Jewish community, even fewer were ever brought to justice. It isn’t that they didn’t survive the WW2, on the contrary they were the most likely to survive, stealing money and valuables from other Jews, taking ransoms from people who were desperate, or simply robbing other Jews, those people could actually pay their way out of hell as many of them did. The same goes for Judenräte members, who gladly took bribes from desperate Jews just for crossing someone out of the list for the Treblinka bounded, at the same time they were showing great servitude towards their Nazi masters, making sure that Ghettos were running smoothly.
    I know, I know they just wanted to survive, and that is enough for a Jew to become a hero now. Those people emigrated later to Palestine, together with the Jews evacuated by the Soviets from the eastern Poland (see above), and the deserters (eg. Menachem Begin) from the armies which actually fought Nazis and Fascist, there they started to build a new nation – Israel and at the same time they started to rewrite the history. Unfortunately, for them there are still some people who remember it differently, and that is perhaps why they waited so long to spring this movie on us, because the movie is indeed based on a true story, a real true story that the “locals” remember and they know that the locals remember it very well..

16. Dirk
    April 6th, 2009 @

    Poland is still the worst anti-semitic and racist country in the world. For this reason it should never have been made part of European Union and Nato.

17. Jason Ihle
    April 9th, 2009 @

    Dirk, are you just trolling?

    Are you seriously going to claim that Poland is more anti-semitic than Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon?

    And if absence of racism were a criterion for admittance to the EU then there wouldn’t be an EU. Europe is rife with racism and they never had a Civil Rights Movement to confront it like we had in the US. Racism may exist in the US, but at least it’s socially unacceptable in most places.

    Here you still have soccer fans making gorilla noises at black players on the pitch and a coach who referred to Thierry Henry as a “black bastard” when addressing his team.

18. Jason Ihle
    April 9th, 2009 @

    A relevant article in the New York Times Movies section:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/movies/09abro.html?_r=1&hpw

19. Michael
    April 17th, 2009 @

    “Poland is still the worst anti-semitic and racist country in the world. For this reason it should never have been made part of European Union and Nato.”
    I guess this is why all of the millions of Jews came from across Europe to live there….. because they had to love the antisemitic atmosphere. lol
    This is exactly the attitude shown by many Jews especially those of the Zionist’s stripes that forces many Poles as well as other Central Europeans to keep reminding that Jewish betrayal in the early years of the WW2 has to be also accounted for and perhaps their crimes should be prosecuted as well. We’ve prosecuted Nazi war criminals why not prosecute the Bolsheviks who actually murdered more people than Nazis.
    It is especially ironic that Zionists are the main force behind those accusations of antisemitism, seemingly using it just like the Bielski Brothers to cover up their own crimes. Let me remind you that Zionists not only didn’t discourage antisemitism in prewar Europe, but that in fact they’d cultivated it as a tool that could force more Jews to abandon their natives countries for Palestine. I am not just talking about groups like the Stern Gang which actually offered to fight for Nazis, because it had become the policy of the mainstream Zionism movement when the Jewish settlers numbers in Palestine were deemed to be insufficient in the early 1920’s. Some Zionist groups when as far as using terrorism against Jews who didn’t support their movement or even against those who simply couldn’t stay in to settle in Palestine. I will leave you from a quote from thejewsagainstzionism.com site:
    “Gestapo offer Jews transit to Spain but Zionist leaders was negative, with the following comments: ONLY Palestine would be considered as a destination for the deportees. The European Jews must accede to suffering & death greater in measure than the other nations, in order that the victorious allies agree to a “Jewish State” at the end of the war. No ransom will be paid This response to the Gestapo’s offer was made with the full knowledge that the alternative to this offer was the gas chamber.”
    It is perhaps time to bring all of the responsible for this insane massacre to justice, not just the real or imagined “enemies” of Zionism.

20. Jason Ihle
    April 17th, 2009 @

    Yeah, Michael, you’re so right! It’s all part of the World Jewish Conspiracy.

    Jews all over Europe were secretly happy to go to the gas chambers because they knew that it would eventually mean a home nation for their grandchildren. But not just any home nation – one built on land that really belongs to the poor, tortured Palestinians. Not only would this really stick it to the Arabs (who the Jews have obviously been trying to exterminate throughout history), but there’d be plenty of Muslim babies nearby whose bones make great Matzoh!

    Why is there virtually no historic evidence of this attitude of European Jews during WWII? Isn’t it obvious? Jews control the media, world history and basically fucking everything because they are so sneaky and underhanded with their money-loving ways and their creepy hooked noses.

    In fact, I might even venture so far as to suggest that even the website you point to run by the True Torah Jews of Brooklyn is also part of The Conspiracy. It’s just a clever ruse to throw you off the scent. Because we all know the only good Jew is the one who repents, converts, admits that Israel is, in fact, just desperately hoping for an excuse to kill Arabs, and then eats 10 pounds of raw shellfish chasing it down with the blood of a pig. Dessert of course has to be a gallon of whole fat milk.

21. Michael
    April 22nd, 2009 @

    It seems that you forgot to mention the way in which these media are dealing with any dissent: by marginalizing, ostracizing and belittling those who disagree with them.

    Words like terrorist, terrorist supporter, antisemite, neonazi, and fascist are commonly used to discredit those who disagree. Those words are used to induce feelings of dislike towards their opposition, as well as guilt because Zionist movement is always ready to claim that they are the only descendants of those Jews who were murdered during WW2. They are also use words like “conspiracy” (see above posting) to belittle views of those “not converted” to the Zionist cause, as the word since the birth of the 9/11 conspiracies gained a very negative connotation in USA. It is much easier than engaging in any discussion based on the facts. So let forget about the fact that the land indeed was stolen from Palestinians, and claim that the Arabs have tried to exterminate Jews throughout history.
    Let forget about Jewish terrorism, about the Stern Gang, and about Das Draitzental and Żagiew. Let make heroes out of the members of Kapos, Bielski Bandits, Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei, Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst or Judenräte, especially that they were those who’d survived the madness of WW2 and build Israel. Let sweep aside the Patria “disaster”, Lavon “Affair”, USS Liberty “incident”, or Sabra and Shatila massacre. So Zionists can make heroes out of people like Shalom Zorin (a war criminal), Ariel Scheinermann (another war criminal), Mordechai Rumkowski (rapist, thief and nazi collaborator) or Menachem Begin (cowardly army desserter, terrorist and later a war criminal). This way we can save the zionist movement from answering about their past, and put it on a pedestal…. o wait it has been already done. Too bad that there are people who still remember the real history for example the Naliboki massacre, the reluctance of average Jews in joining Zionist movement in Palestine before WW2 , or the betrayal of Hungarian Jews by Zionists, yes those jews who’d ended up in Auschwitz’s gas chambers for the good of creation of Israel. Indeed, it is a shame that some people are remembering such “insignificant” incidents, and yes you should also make some changes to Isreal’s constitution and public laws so they look much less like the South African laws from 1950’s and 1960’s, because it seems that some people are onto it. Well maybe you can call them antisemites, or conspiracy freaks and maybe you can persuade your allies to boycott any conferences that would mention it. Sure you can do it, but for how long?

22. Jason Ihle
    April 22nd, 2009 @

    The reason I don’t engage arguments like yours is that you actually don’t know the history as well as you think you do and you live under the false belief that because there have been some Israeli terrorists and some admittedly disgusting things done on the part of some Israelis that it’s equivalent to what has been perpetrated by their surrounding Arab neighbors.

    The Israeli government doesn’t have a policy and does not condone terrorist action whereas most of the surrounding Arab entities do condone such action. Terrorists against Israel are made into martyrs, their families given money by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

    As for the land being ’stolen’ from the Palestinians, I will engage that only after you’ve gone and learned the history. Okay, it’s possible to look at the history and come to the conclusion that the Jews were unfairly given that land. Fine, I can sort of maybe see how someone would reach that conclusion, but you know what? Israel has been there for 60 years, it’s now established fact. Time for the Palestinians to stop their pissing and moaning, come to terms with it and negotiate based on the facts on the ground – not on some dream they had more than half a century ago that they could eliminate Jews from the land.

    Sorry, terms like anti-Semite are generally hurled at people who make arguments similar to yours when the arguments are actually anti-semitic. No, it’s not anti-Semitic in all cases to disagree with Israeli policy or to argue against some of what happens in Israel or has happened in Israel, but a whole damn lot of it is anti-Semitic. When you deny the right of Jews to have a homeland (anti-Zionist, that is) then you are being anti-Semitic. When you insist that there was a European Jewish conspiracy to accept the Holocaust because in the end it would turn out better for them, that is anti-Semitism. Sorry, just because you don’t like the word conspiracy doesn’t mean it isn’t apt. Your claim is absolutely fucking absurd, even if (and I have yet to see any evidence of it) there were some Jews who thought that way.

    And again, your ignorance of history is revealed when you take the party line of comparing Israeli government policy to South African apartheid. I’ve wasted too many hours of my life explaining the difference to dolts who just go on believing what they want in spite of the facts to do it again. When you learn what apartheid is and what Israeli policy is then we’ll talk.

23. Michael
    April 22nd, 2009 @

    Funny how some people try to make arguments by lying about what the others said/wrote: “When you deny the right of Jews to have a homeland (anti-Zionist, that is) then you are being anti-Semitic.” Please show me where i did that? I see that you have indeed established the situation on the ground, Israel exists, but it doesn’t change the truth that it was created under false pretenses and by using terror and ethnic cleansing. And for that Israel needs to answer, otherwise you won’t have peace ever. As for Israel government not having policy of using terror i will give you just one example now: the policy of summary punishing the families of Palestinians who fight Zionists by demolishing their homes and properties is clearly a state implemented terrorism.
    Second instance when you engage in distorting what i wrote is the “When you insist that there was a European Jewish conspiracy to accept the Holocaust…”, which must be your assumption since i haven’t write anything like that. Years of exposure to Zionist propaganda are clearly showing, instead of talking of what is said you write about what the propaganda have thought you to assume about the position of any “antisemite”. It is stupid to assume that the European Jews were involved in a conspiracy to kill themselves, everybody wants to live, as a matter of fact they just like any other nation involved in the madness of WW2 tried to survive. While they were doing that, the zionist movement at first (1920’s and 1930’s) applauded the fascist and nazis as the zionist were hoping that the antisemitism will bolster the numbers of settlers in Palestine. I know that you probably don’t want to believe me, but you should believe one of your heroes: Herzl’s “Diaries, Part 1, pg.19) ““It is essential that the sufferings of Jews.. . become worse. . . this will assist in realization of our plans. . .I have an excellent idea. . . I shall induce anti-Semites to liquidate Jewish wealth. . . The anti-Semites will assist us thereby in that they will strengthen the persecution and oppression of Jews. The anti-Semites shall be our best friends”
    Then when the killing had started the zionists numerous times refused to help European Jews escape certain death if they weren’t allowed to settle in Palestine. Hungarian and Slovakian Jews are the prime example of the Zionist ideology trumping basic human decency and empathy.
    I can see that you are very strongly believe that you and your cause is right, the believe that has been reinforced by constant exposure only to Zionist propaganda. As for Israel having de facto apartheid laws enlighten yourself by reading “Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law” which was condemned both by the UN and AI as racist. Well I called as I see it, and I won’t even go into history of very close ties between Israel and South Africa during its apartheid era.
    You can dismiss and minimalize “some admittedly disgusting things done on the part of some Israelis” and claim “that it’s equivalent to what has been perpetrated by their surrounding Arab neighbors.” Sure 13 Israeli killed is the same as 1300 Palestinians killed, strangely enough it is the same formula used by the Nazis in occupied Central and Eastern Europe: 1 German killed would trigger an execution of 100 “locals”. And you probably think that it is the Palestinians who’d stole “your” land after ethnically cleansing it, but the world (at least most of the world) knows the truth and I think you know it too, and if you don’t know it I will leave you with a quote from another hero of Zionist movement David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti – Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

24. Jason Ihle
    April 22nd, 2009 @

    Your words: “Words like terrorist, terrorist supporter, antisemite, neonazi, and fascist are commonly used to discredit those who disagree.”

    My response: “When you deny the right of Jews to have a homeland (anti-Zionist, that is) then you are being anti-Semitic.”

    This was not an accusation that you specifically are anti-Semitic, but rather a response to your contention that the term anti-Semite is used against anyone who disagrees with Israel. If you re-read what I wrote you’ll see that I have said it’s possible to disagree without being anti-Semitic, but very few actually succeed.

    And to split hairs a little here, you’re trying to claim the existence of Israel as illegitimate – which is an anti-Semitic viewpoint. Why are the Jews not entitled to legal nation in a place that Jews have historically occupied for thousands of years, a place that is both historically and religiously important to them. And this only after it became blatantly obvious to the world that when it comes down to it, no nation on earth was going to protect the Jews. Nobody was allowing Jews entry visas at the start of WWII in Europe. That is why Israel exists.

    Sorry, it’s not terrorism for a government to destroy buildings that harbor terrorists, terrorist financiers and safe houses for terrorist weapons. That is Israeli policy, not destroying the homes of people who once said hello to a terrorist.

    And you’re grossly misinformed on what happened in that region at the start of the formation of the nation of Israel and on apartheid. To refer to the land as belonging to the Palestinians before the Jews “stole” it reveals your unbearable ignorance. The Palestinians have been rejected from every Arab country surrounding Israel. Why does no one insist that those countries owe them anything. Look, at this point in history I believe the Palestinians should have a nation to call their own alongside Israel. Most Israelis feel the same way. Look at the historical evidence for the number of times they’ve been offered and then subsequently rejected said offer because they refuse to recognize Israel.

    And I’m curious as to how I can be spewing Zionist propaganda on an issue I only learned about from you – the existence of Jews who danced the Horah while going into the ovens because they knew it would lead to the creation of a homeland for their grandchildren.

    So you’ve read Herzl’s diaries have you? Or did you just lift the quote off the Real Torah Jews website, which is the closest thing I can find for a primary source on that quotation. I’d like to see it without the ellipses. I’m not claiming Herzl didn’t say or believe what you’re attributing to him, but let’s not pretend like you’re so well informed on the subject that you’ve actually read his diaries, okay? I can also lift quotations off propagandizing websites.

    You can respond if you want, but I’m done with this conversation. I don’t have the time, patience or general temperament to take on the misinformed one at a time. There are far too many of you on the Internet.

25. Michael
    April 23rd, 2009 @

    Your comments are consistent with the stand taken by most Zionist lobbyist in the USA, which does mean that it is a correct one. Being critical of Israel’s apartheid policies, or even questioning the legitimacy of Israel’s creation is in no way antisemitic. No all Jews live in Israel and not all Jews are Zionist. If we follow the faulty logic of Zionists, we couldn’t say that USA was created from lands stolen from the Natives (which is true), that early American colonizers and governments engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide (which is also true) or that until late 1960’s the Southern States were engaged in apartheid (called segregation) towards colored people (which is also true). Would we be somehow anti Aryan or anti White. This would be foolish just like the policy of antizionism equaling antisemitism pushed in USA by the Zionist lobby. Anyway, it is interesting how the Zionist has hijacked the antisemitic term: Semites are Arabs and their brothers Jews as well as few other African peoples.
    As for not being able to find quotes, strangely enough i can google hundreds perhaps thousands of sites with that exact quote, maybe you should turn off your “Zionist Watch” a program similar to “Parental Watch” lol
    Any group punishments like the destruction of homes of alleged terrorist families are considered by the UN as war crimes because it is an act of terror, therefore a terrorism.
    As for your convoluted claims of Jeiwsh historic right to the Palestinian land, it would be very funny if not for the thousand who already had died because of nonsense like that. Palestinians are not from “every Arab country surrounding Israel.” They are from Palestine, and you have stolen their land (see Ben Gurion’s quote from my previous posting). Just to make it more clear to you, read what another Zionist hero had said addressing the Jewish Colonization Society of Vienna in 1907: “Every study of present-day conditions in Palestine must use as its starting point the manner in which the 80,000 Jews of that country immigrated — beginning with the few thousand Sephardic Jews who were already to be found there a century ago.” The Picture in 1907, Dr. Arthur Ruppin.
    The facts are clear: there were few thousand Jews in Palestine at the beginning of XIX century, most of them were assimilated and spoke Arabic. Over the next hundred years the Jewish population has grown to 80 000 (very positive estimate) with the vast majority of them being fresh immigrants. All of them lived in among the vast majority of Muslim and Christian Arabs of Palestine. As for historical Jewish homeland, it is clearly a propaganda tool since Herzl’s was also looking at …. Argentine as another possible location for Israel. You would probably use the same rhetoric if you were stealing land from Argentinians now. It is a myth created to explain why you had to steal land from its owners: it is ours because hundreds or thousands years ago….
    Jews couldn’t get visas to other countries because Zionist lobbied those countries not to take in Jews, since it would create social problem there called … antisemitism. You can see the worry about emigration to other than Israel countries in Herzl’s writings. Unfortunately for Zionists but fortunately for many Jews it’d came to fruition: more Jews lives in USA now than in Israel. Zionists had put European Jews between a rock (cultivating antisemitism through out Europe) and a hard place (visa refusals to other countries after prolong lobbying from Zionists), so they would have either immigrate to Palestine or die in the gas chambers as many did. If all of this failed the Zionists had used terrorism to stop Jews from not settling in Palestine for example the Patria “disaster” again killing their own.
    Sharon was right saying that “…., we are Judeo-Nazis, and why not?”, Zionism is a form of Jewish Nazism, since it wants to create a country only for one ethnic group (Jews) with the others being either killed or expelled (thous the thousands of Arabs killed and the Palestinian refugees) and the rest could be kept as a uneducated slaves in the occupied territories (striking similarities to the Germans aim for local population of the GG and other occupied territories in the East). It should be noted that Zionism was created in the same era like the other -isms: Bolshevism, Communism and Fascism, and therefore it is prone to preach similar ideas.
    Looking at it from a personal point, i can see that Herzl had failed on one of the issues so important to him. Reading his writings you can feel the pain seeing the ghettos would cause him, so misguidedly he’d created Zionism to stop that pain.
    Wouldn’t you know that more than hundred years later, the Zionist Jews are still living in a ghetto, it is indeed much larger one, but it is also surrounded by the walls, walls that the Jews had build themselves this time. It is unwise to leave their country by land as they are now hated by their neighbors much more than ever before (with the exceptions of Nazis). And just like those poorest of the Ghetto’s Jews who lived on the handouts of others, the whole new ghetto lives on the handout of others (this time from USA to the tune of billions of dollars yearly) because again they can’t prosper on their own. Is it indeed the Zenit of what the Jews want? “The promise land”? After so many millions were sacrificed? After so much evil was done?
    I hope it is a never ending nightmare for Herzl, that he is turning in his grave constantly.

26. Jason Ihle
    April 24th, 2009 @

    I lied.

    I can’t help but respond to your abhorrently disgusting, vitriolic, racist claims that Israel has a policy of ethnic cleansing of Arabs. It’s actually the most dangerous kind of ignorance because you come armed with quotations and historical references, making it appear to those who don’t know any better that you’re accurate.

    Under the apartheid system in South Africa, the black majority were oppressed by a white minority. Laws dictated that blacks could neither vote nor participate in government. Blacks were restricted in their movements, where they could live, what education they could receive and what jobs they could hold.

    In Israel, a Jewish majority state (not a Jewish exclusivity state, as you seem to believe), many Arabs live with exactly the same rights and privileges as all Jewish Israeli citizens. They have freedom of movement and of education. They can hold any job they’re qualified for. They can vote. They can and do participate in government. There have been and are Arab Israelis in the Knesset and Arabs have even been members of the cabinet. Where is the apartheid system again? Where is the ethnic cleansing?

    I’m so glad you’re able to find the full Herzl quotation all over the Internet. Mind providing a link to one?

    I’m not even bothering the rest of the bullshit in your argument because I don’t have room for this kind of stress. Zionists lobbied foreign governments to refuse visas to Jews trying to escape Europe? Jesus fucking Christ, what will you fucktards think of next?

27. Michael
    April 27th, 2009 @

    I know that you’ve lied here many times, since you can’t base your argument on historical facts (all of them go against your views) you have to resort to lying. First of all, it is obvious that apartheid in the South Africa was different than it is now in Israel; it was based on the division of races. This racial division is totally unachievable in Israel and the occupied territories, since Arabs and Jews are of the same race – they are Semitic “Brothers”. The apartheid in Israel and the occupied territories is bases rather on religion than on race, nevertheless Israel’s apartheid is what it is: a policy of segregation and separation. There are so many examples of apartheid in Israel that I could give but for now I will give you just a couple: The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law which prohibits Palestinian Arabs from getting Israeli citizenship through marriage. This law is directed both against Israeli Arabs (they are the most likely people who would marry Palestinians) and Palestine Arabs who are branded as undesirables. Aharon Barak, Israel’s Chief Justice has declared: “This violation of rights is directed against Arab citizens of Israel. As a result, therefore, the law is a violation of the right of Arab citizens in Israel to equality.” Secondly, the dreaded Teudat Zehut which just like the South African Native Identity Card helps segregate people on the bases of their ethnicity. Interestingly, understanding that the Zionist would easily lose the struggle for the public opinion with this bland example of segregation, the government had dropped the ethnic indicator, thinking that it would fool the public. Still the carriers of the Teudat Zehut can be easily segregated into Jews who have their Hebrew date of birth displayed from non-Jews without it. As you can see it was clearly a cosmetic maneuver by the Zionist government that had failed anyway, just like the striking down by the Supreme Court of the ban on Arab parties in the last Israeli election. I am not even going to discuss the treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories but if you want learn more about it read Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine Peace not Apartheid. It is a great read, and the effort in USA to brand him as an anti-Semite (who else?) by the Zionists had failed miserably. Here I would like to quote Norman Gary Finkelstein: “After four decades of Israeli occupation, the infrastructure and superstructure of apartheid have been put in place. Outside the never-never land of mainstream American Jewry and U.S. media, this reality is barely disputed.”
    Next, the feud between Stephen Wise the leader of American Jewry at that time and Peter Bergson who had worked tirelessly to rescue the European Jews is very well documented. Some Zionist apologists suggest that Wise didn’t want to bring more Jews to America because it would raise anti-Semitic sentiments in USA where already a solid majority was opposed to joining the WW2. He didn’t want to make the WW2 looking like a Jewish war…. Others Zionist apologists suggest that it was a purely political struggle for the leadership of the American Jewry, but I as well many others would point out that Wise was Herzl’s follower and you should know about Herzl’s attitude towards Jews immigrating to countries other than Palestine. It is exactly like Wise argued: more Jews entering USA will raise anti-Semitism, if you don’t believe me check Herzl’s The Jewish State at http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/6640/zion/judenstaadt.html “The Jewish question exists wherever Jews live in perceptible numbers. Where it does not exist, it is carried by Jews in the course of their migrations. We naturally move to those places where we are not persecuted, and there our presence produces persecution. ….. The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the seeds of Anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America.” One way or another, the most telling comment is made by Wise himself when asked about a possibility of transporting Jews who were escaping Nazis terror to Tanganyika: “I would rather have my fellow Jews die in Germany…” a very solemn comment. For further study you can check many works about it, for example: Holocaust Victims Accuse, or even the Slattery Proposal. Google it …..
    What else? Yes the ethnic cleansing: the Palestinians refuges who are not allowed to return to their homes are the best example of the ethnic cleansing, but since you are not a strong believer in the obvious you can read several well documented books about it: the work by Dr. Pappe should be a good start for you. Anyway, reading the Koenig Report should enlighten you both on the modern ethnic cleansing as well as the Israeli apartheid’s methods.
    I understand that you are dealing with a demographic crisis in Israel and the Occupied Territories, the one state solution if implemented right now wouldn’t work for you at all: right from start Palestinians would probably win the plurality because of the fragmentation of Israel’s political parties. That is why your politicians are so opposed to it, and the two state solution is seemingly preferred, but with the “unfavorable” demographic growth of Arab population within Israel this could result in the same situation within 50 years. Therefore, you are “compelled” to use the ethnic cleansing and apartheid to contain this situation, but unfortunately for you the world is watching and we see that the preferred solution is the South African model with Jews being the majority of Israel and the settlements in the Occupied Territories de facto the ruling cast while the “locals” the native Palestinians would be living in a highly fragmentized Homelands. As I wrote above but the world is watching you!!!

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