Adolph Hitler® is the registered trademark of the Jewish people, and as such, any reference to Adolph Hitler® may only be made in connection with the the genocide practiced against the Jewish people in the Second World War.
It kind of feels that way sometimes, doesn't it, boys and girls? Never mind that the Third Reich also invaded Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, North Africa, Russia, the Ukraine and other Baltic States (and later in the war invaded Italy), bombed Britain mercilessly and annexed Austria. Never fear, my Jewish friends, there are plenty of WWII death and atrocities to go around!
But you see, boys and girls, Adolph Hitler® is Israel's non-expiring Get Out of Jail Free card. You can hardly blame it for not wanting to dilute the brand. But it is tiresome to Spot to have guys like Doug Tice wade in with pseudo-intellectual crap like this:
It’s time for another tiring episode of “Don’t Call Me Hitler!”
Because, if you hadn’t noticed, the dispute at St. Thomas over whether Desmond Tutu should be invited to speak on campus is, in significant part, a Hitler analogy controversy.
Some while back, we had an extended Big Question discussion about Hitler analogies and I proposed a rule for such rhetorical atrocities that in general seemed well received by readers here. Let’s put it to work:
St. Thomas has decided against a Tutu appearance because of objections from some leaders in the Jewish community, and it seems his offensiveness to them centers on a 2002 speech decrying Israeli “oppression” of Palestinians in occupied territories. Here’s a text available online….and here’s a transcript posted on startribune.com. The differences are minor.
The speech is not vitriolic, but there’s plenty in it for a defender of Israel to dislike — and for a critic of Israel to applaud. It appears this passage is the stinger:
“People are scared in this country [the U.S.] to say wrong is wrong. (applause) Because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful. Ha, Ha, Ha ha! So what? So what! This is God’s world! For goodness sake this is God’s world!
“The Apartheid government was very powerful, but we said to them: Watch it! If you flout the laws of this universe, you’re going to bite the dust! (applause)
“Hitler was powerful. Mussolini was powerful. Stalin was powerful. Idi Amin was powerful. Pinochet was powerful. The Apartheid government were powerful. Milosevic was powerful. But, this is God’s world. A lie, injustice, oppression, those will never prevail in the world of this God….”
Tutu was surely guilty of piling on, if nothing else. Hitler and Stalin are bad enough — way bad enough. But dragging in third rate tyrants and war criminals like Milosevic and Mussolini is insulting on a whole different level.
At all events, the Nazi analogy rule applies. Someone might argue, as they commonly do in these cases, that Tutu was likening the Jewish lobby and/or Israel to Hitler (and company) only in a limited sense — not in terms of genocidal mania, but only as powers that ultimately proved resistible.
As the self-anointed policeman of the use of Adolph Hitler® analogies, Tice goes on to apply his own little rule about when they are appropriate. You won't be surprised, boys and girls, to find that Tice intimates that the analogy is inappropriately used to describe the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. Shame on you Desmond Tutu!
Spot has some news for you Doug Tice, you unctuous twit: you have no standing to criticize Desmond Tutu on matters of his perspectives on oppression. It is a regrettable fact that by the birth of Israel—and especially after the '67 war—the oppressed have become the oppressors. Spot has not the time nor the inclination to provide the specification of the indictment here, save to mention the hundreds and hundreds of instances of collective punishment (illegal under international law) visited on the Palestinian people—and which are admitted to by the Israelis. It is not far-fetched to say that Israel is pursuing a policy of extinguishing the Palestinian people.
Read this from a 2004 Gary Kamiya review of a book by Richard Ben Cramer:
Richard Ben Cramer is not afraid of sacred cows. He bulldozed one of America's icons, Joe DiMaggio, in a bestselling
biography, and peeped into the stinky hopper in which the sausage of democracy is ground in his classic study of the 1988 presidential
campaign, "What It Takes." With "How Israel Lost: The Four Questions," Cramer, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Middle East reporting in
1979, has taken on perhaps the most explosive, emotion-laden subject in America: Israel"How Israel Lost" is a mournful, passionate, hilarious lament for the endangered soul of a nation he loves. In a style that slips from the
wisecracking cadences of a Miami Beach hondler to the dispassionate observations of a veteran journalist to the moral outrage of a
world-weary humanist, Cramer argues that in the 20-plus years since he originally lived there, the Jewish state has suffered a cataclysmic
sea-change, a blow to its spirit all the more tragic for being self-inflicted.The cause of Israel's malaise, Cramer writes, is very simple: Its 37-year occupation of Palestinian land. The occupation, Cramer argues, is
a gross and continuing injustice that has coarsened Israel's moral fiber, corrupted her politics and economy, and split Israeli Jews into
bitterly opposed, self-interested tribes who have lost all sense of allegiance to anything beyond their own needs. The occupation has also
had a deadly effect on Palestinians, stomping out the last embers of hope and creating a generation of sad, hardened children who know
Israelis only as soldiers with guns.
So get off your high horse, Mr. Tice, before you make an even bigger fool out of yourself.
N.B. Spot hears from source that St. Thomas is going to reverse itself on the Tutu visit. If Spot was Tutu—which he obviously is not—he definitely would not set foot on the St. Thomas campus. But, Desmond Tutu is a lot bigger dog than Spot.
[update]
The smear of Archbishop Tutu apparently began on the website of the Zionist Organization of America, which bills itself as "the oldest and one of the largest pro-Israel/Zionist organizations in the United States." This organization published a screed about a speech of Tutu's in 2002:
Tutu has also openly compared Israel to Hitler and apartheid: “I’ve been deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa … I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about … “I say why are our memories so short? Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? … The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust. Injustice and oppression will never prevail.” (Ha’aretz, April 29, 2002)
The quote is truthful. It isn't an open comparison of Israel and Hitler. ZOA and Tice are upset that Tutu infringed their Adolph Hitler® brand.
In his post, Doug Tice "challenged" Desmond Tutu to explain his remarks. What utter chutzpah! Spot is quite sure that Desmond Tutu knows an oppressive and apartheid government when he sees one. It is dissembling Israel apologists like Doug Tice who need the history lesson.
[/update]
[further update] Spot recommends this post and its comments at A Tiny Revolution. [/further update]
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