On the weekend, I was planning to write about Israel’s pinpoint pager and walkie talkie attacks on Hezbollah, whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, describes the Jewish state as a “cancerous gland” in the Middle East.
You had me - until the bit where you feel 'protective' of her! No such motherly sentiments from this Zionist I am afraid. I heard somewhere that she was invited to debate a Zionist at her Adelaide Festival ( yes, she does appear to have that level of control) but declined. So apparently - if that is true - it would appear she is not so eager to share the microphone in a setting of robust respectful debate. Shame. I think she should be invited to do so. I will provide the popcorn and drinks.
Yep I'd love to see her engage in debate, which she claims to value. I do fear for her a bit. She's carrying a huge amount of cognitive dissonance. I'd like to offer her a way "back." But maybe that's me being naive and she's perfectly happy where she is.
Happy to be an ally. A few people are spitting in my direction but I don't respect them. And most of them have slender (if any) grasp of the complexities of the Middle East, nor any real experience of war. Also none of the spitting squad can explain why the remaining October 7 hostages have not been returned to their homes and families.
Thank you, Julie, for showing us how to keep paying attention (a la Gawenda) to Louise Adler as she continues to offer herself as a teachable example. The way you framed her (or maybe how she frames herself) reminded me of the well-known ambiguous image that sometimes appears to be a duck and sometimes a rabbit.
Wittgenstein employed the rabbit–duck illusion to distinguish perception from interpretation. If you see only a rabbit, you would say "this is a rabbit", but once you become aware of the duality you would say "now I see it as a rabbit". And vice versa for seeing it as a duck.
She says her heroic communist father was not a Zionist. Yet he sent her to a socialist Zionist youth movement. I have an elderly Israeli friend who says that his school classroom in the 1950’s had a portrait of Stalin hanging on the wall. Israel, particularly on the kibbutz was both socialist and Zionist. But after the 1967 defeat of the Arab states, the Soviets instructed leftists around the globe to stop seeing Israel as socialist and start seeing it as a capitalist imperialist state. Evidently Adler was caught just in this juncture and at an impressionable age. So her father sends to an Israel that only yesterday was seen as a socialist utopia, but now must to be seen as a capitalist, racist dystopia.
Loyal down to this day to daddy and this Soviet injunction she insists on perceiving Israel in this way but even more extremely. She, along with Gessen now see Israel as comparable to the Nazi German empire that in 1942 ruled over a Europe of 3 million square kilometres and 238 million people. This is despite the size and population of Israel being miniscule in comparison, not to mention democratic.
Israel is surrounded by a league of 22 Arab Islamic states with a land area of 13 million square kilometres and a population of 462 million which hardly makes Arab Islamic Gaza a ghetto. Wittgenstein would be impressed at the Adlerites insistence on seeing an empire as a ghetto and a besieged tiny state as an evil empire.
David, that is a mighty fine analysis-- thanks for sharing it. I wonder if her father was really not Zionist in the way she claims. It sounds all too neat and convenient.
Speaking of empires - one of the most consistent misdirections I've perceived regarding the left antiZionist position is their total attribution of blame toward Britain in terms of the constructed colonial analogy.
The Brits were there 30 years, the Ottomans for centuries. Much of the political and social structure that underlies this conflict arises from their rule over the region, specifically awarding minorities grudging and precarious tolerance in return for supplication. During that era the Jews were in an almost identically precarious position as in the old Russian empire.
I suspect much of the clear rage that is perceivable on the Palestinian side flows from the loss of status they feel from being ruled over by those they previously deemed inferior to them and were free to bully under the Ottomans.
I've just read an insightful article by an apologetic Azeri empathising with Armenian victims of his own side's ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakhh (apparently off the human rights warriors' radar). He claims that true victims flock together seeking solace whereas a sense of humiliation is what actually drives perpetual revanchism: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/nagorno-karabakh-armenia-azerbaijan-hate-fuelled-humiliation-online-attack/ Read this & how well does it apply to the Palestinians...
I agree. I remember reading a very good article by Bernard Lewis on this issue. That is, the Arabs were humiliated after losing the 1948 war as they assumed they would easily defeat the Jews (whom they considered inferior) and he attributed modern Arab antisemitism largely to this humiliation.
Hi Peta, yes they were humiliated by the 48 defeat but the idea that this caused them to be antisemitic can't be true. Pan Arabists were already anti-Jewish many decades before 48. They shared this passion with their meetings with Adolf Hitler. They attacked in 48 because they were anti-semitic. In any case humiliation is just a self-serving excuse aggressors use to continue their aggression.
Yes that is correct. What I recalled from the Lewis article was that they were always anti-Semitic but after they lost the war it became more similar to Western anti-Semitism as a way of explaining to themselves why they lost the war. I just wish I could find the article.
Interesting piece, thank you. Einat Wilf writes a lot about the Ottoman legacy and the humiliation factor for Arab/Muslims in seeing the Jews achieve sovereignty.
Wouldn’t it be good if Adler had you at next year’s Writer’s Week Julie? Why not ask for a session? With her? I would come to Adelaide for it! Won’t happen I’m afraid. For obvious reasons.
Nailed it ( again). My darling wife is an active member of the " Book Club World ", endless Concerts, Festivals of Ideas, Writers Festivals, and of course the Adelaide Writers Festival, the works. They appear to think pretty much the same about almost everything ( including Israel, of course ) There is something adolescent, performative, about Louise, and I suspect she likes the attention and the drama. I speak the Aboriginal language of the Flinders Ranges and they have a wonderful word " karangy" ( cranky ). I think, whatever else she may be, Louise is just plain "karangy".
How acutely you have dissected the debris and deadwood of Adler's usual gobbledygook. In her refusal - if that is in fact the case - to debate a Zionist, I am reminded of trump refusing another debate with Harris. You don't take the stage when you know you can't win.
If only Adler was given the opportunity to sit in a tunnel and enjoy mint tea with the Hamas and Hezbollah leaders - and invite the Ayatollah along for good measure - she could have persuaded them with her philosophical and literary dexterity that the obliteration of the Jewish State and its people isn't an intellectually nice thing to aim for.
Oh Julie! I wish you weee still writing for the age. Who will see this essential piece other than those who already agree with you? But bravo once again
Thank you Sharonne. Actually I have many Israel sceptics and some outright Israel haters among my subscribers, but I hear what you're saying. The Age could of course commission someone to write a response to Louise if they were so moved...
Julie - this is brilliant. When I read Adler’s speech I ran to the bathroom to 🤮. But when I read your piece it really made my day. Only a fool believes there is no such thing as a Jewish antisemite. I wish your piece had been published in the Age.
I thought that I should respond to one of your first comments – i.e. “The op-ed appeared in The Age – where else?”
As I recently mentioned to you, I have previously directly emailed that paper’s editor about the self-evident fact that no-one has more cachet at The Age than an anti-Zionist Jew, and that there’s apparently no limit to the amount of space that will be afforded to such people to articulate their loathing for Israel and Zionist Jews. So, following the publishing of Adler’s recent 2,000+ word polemic, I emailed the editor pointing out how it was almost a replica of Antony Loewenstein’s 4,000-word “Being Jewish and critical of Israel can make you an outcast. I should know” diatribe that appeared in The Age last year.
I added (1) that The Age simply isn’t interested in hearing anything other than brevity from the 91% of Australian Jews who are emotionally attached to Israel, and (2) whereas The Age goes to great lengths to publicise divisions within the Jewish community, since October 7 it has yet to publish any dissenting voices amongst the Muslim/Palestinian community. That the latter is not homogenous has been clearly demonstrated by their inability to agree on the need for, or the name of an appropriate Islamophobia envoy. Not that you would know anything about this very interesting point by reading The Age.
Thanks Geoff -- and you've nailed it. I was going to mention the complete absence of Muslim/Palestinian/Arab dissenters in the progressive media but decided it was best tackled separately another day, which I'll do.
“she spent her Sunday afternoons at a socialist Zionist youth movement, she muses that her parents were probably just grateful for some quiet time away from the kids. “
I can’t help thinking that she felt rejected by her parents, especially her father, hiving her off to the Zionist youth movement. Hence she projected that rejection onto Zionism which became the object of her hate. Just a tad too much of an Oedipal complex going on….
We talk endlessly about MAGA and Trumpism, where the fanatic followers believe and repeat everything the 'guru' says. We on the left see the inconsistency and fallacies and untruths so clearly. Yet the Left is now competing for stupidity and irrationality. To follow the rules and support gender ideology, the wickedness of the Jews, the genocide of Palestinians, the belief in race theory and the continuing suppression of women is to ensure membership of a club that supports and validates everything you do. Some of these beliefs are even more insane than the MAGA cult. To step outside the Left rules is to invite ridicule hatred abuse and cancellation. They don't seem to need a good reason for their rules (such as the genocidal jews), anything will do. The best and funniest recent example was the woman holding the "Queers for Palestine" sign at the pro-Palestine demonstration after Oct 7. The hilarious inconsistency in such a sign is ignored. Man was provided with the ability to reason, it is essential for survival, but also we have an even stronger need for inclusion in a group which offers even greater security. It seems to me that the most powerful evolutionary model for group survival is to have the majority of individuals fully committed to group inclusion along with the preparedness to follow a charismatic leader (quite often a narcissistic psychopath). Every great and powerful group seems to follow this model. The more psychopathic the leader and the more prepared to follow to the death if necessary, the more unbeatable they are. This then explains why people like Adler join the Left team and manufacture whatever arguments are needed for support, and why people like Trump have so many devotees.
You had me - until the bit where you feel 'protective' of her! No such motherly sentiments from this Zionist I am afraid. I heard somewhere that she was invited to debate a Zionist at her Adelaide Festival ( yes, she does appear to have that level of control) but declined. So apparently - if that is true - it would appear she is not so eager to share the microphone in a setting of robust respectful debate. Shame. I think she should be invited to do so. I will provide the popcorn and drinks.
Yep I'd love to see her engage in debate, which she claims to value. I do fear for her a bit. She's carrying a huge amount of cognitive dissonance. I'd like to offer her a way "back." But maybe that's me being naive and she's perfectly happy where she is.
Offer away ! Kindness and respectful debate is always a good thing. That is what she seems to avoid, however. I would love to be proven wrong!!
As a non Jew, I say thanks - again - for writing into this exceptionally enervated and distorted space, Julie.
Natasha-- thank you. You're an ally if ever there was one.
Happy to be an ally. A few people are spitting in my direction but I don't respect them. And most of them have slender (if any) grasp of the complexities of the Middle East, nor any real experience of war. Also none of the spitting squad can explain why the remaining October 7 hostages have not been returned to their homes and families.
Thank you, Julie, for showing us how to keep paying attention (a la Gawenda) to Louise Adler as she continues to offer herself as a teachable example. The way you framed her (or maybe how she frames herself) reminded me of the well-known ambiguous image that sometimes appears to be a duck and sometimes a rabbit.
Wittgenstein employed the rabbit–duck illusion to distinguish perception from interpretation. If you see only a rabbit, you would say "this is a rabbit", but once you become aware of the duality you would say "now I see it as a rabbit". And vice versa for seeing it as a duck.
She says her heroic communist father was not a Zionist. Yet he sent her to a socialist Zionist youth movement. I have an elderly Israeli friend who says that his school classroom in the 1950’s had a portrait of Stalin hanging on the wall. Israel, particularly on the kibbutz was both socialist and Zionist. But after the 1967 defeat of the Arab states, the Soviets instructed leftists around the globe to stop seeing Israel as socialist and start seeing it as a capitalist imperialist state. Evidently Adler was caught just in this juncture and at an impressionable age. So her father sends to an Israel that only yesterday was seen as a socialist utopia, but now must to be seen as a capitalist, racist dystopia.
Loyal down to this day to daddy and this Soviet injunction she insists on perceiving Israel in this way but even more extremely. She, along with Gessen now see Israel as comparable to the Nazi German empire that in 1942 ruled over a Europe of 3 million square kilometres and 238 million people. This is despite the size and population of Israel being miniscule in comparison, not to mention democratic.
Israel is surrounded by a league of 22 Arab Islamic states with a land area of 13 million square kilometres and a population of 462 million which hardly makes Arab Islamic Gaza a ghetto. Wittgenstein would be impressed at the Adlerites insistence on seeing an empire as a ghetto and a besieged tiny state as an evil empire.
David, that is a mighty fine analysis-- thanks for sharing it. I wonder if her father was really not Zionist in the way she claims. It sounds all too neat and convenient.
Speaking of empires - one of the most consistent misdirections I've perceived regarding the left antiZionist position is their total attribution of blame toward Britain in terms of the constructed colonial analogy.
The Brits were there 30 years, the Ottomans for centuries. Much of the political and social structure that underlies this conflict arises from their rule over the region, specifically awarding minorities grudging and precarious tolerance in return for supplication. During that era the Jews were in an almost identically precarious position as in the old Russian empire.
I suspect much of the clear rage that is perceivable on the Palestinian side flows from the loss of status they feel from being ruled over by those they previously deemed inferior to them and were free to bully under the Ottomans.
I've just read an insightful article by an apologetic Azeri empathising with Armenian victims of his own side's ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakhh (apparently off the human rights warriors' radar). He claims that true victims flock together seeking solace whereas a sense of humiliation is what actually drives perpetual revanchism: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/nagorno-karabakh-armenia-azerbaijan-hate-fuelled-humiliation-online-attack/ Read this & how well does it apply to the Palestinians...
I agree. I remember reading a very good article by Bernard Lewis on this issue. That is, the Arabs were humiliated after losing the 1948 war as they assumed they would easily defeat the Jews (whom they considered inferior) and he attributed modern Arab antisemitism largely to this humiliation.
Hi Peta, yes they were humiliated by the 48 defeat but the idea that this caused them to be antisemitic can't be true. Pan Arabists were already anti-Jewish many decades before 48. They shared this passion with their meetings with Adolf Hitler. They attacked in 48 because they were anti-semitic. In any case humiliation is just a self-serving excuse aggressors use to continue their aggression.
Yes that is correct. What I recalled from the Lewis article was that they were always anti-Semitic but after they lost the war it became more similar to Western anti-Semitism as a way of explaining to themselves why they lost the war. I just wish I could find the article.
Interesting piece, thank you. Einat Wilf writes a lot about the Ottoman legacy and the humiliation factor for Arab/Muslims in seeing the Jews achieve sovereignty.
Wouldn’t it be good if Adler had you at next year’s Writer’s Week Julie? Why not ask for a session? With her? I would come to Adelaide for it! Won’t happen I’m afraid. For obvious reasons.
It would certainly be exciting Michael! Like you say, it won't happen.
Nailed it ( again). My darling wife is an active member of the " Book Club World ", endless Concerts, Festivals of Ideas, Writers Festivals, and of course the Adelaide Writers Festival, the works. They appear to think pretty much the same about almost everything ( including Israel, of course ) There is something adolescent, performative, about Louise, and I suspect she likes the attention and the drama. I speak the Aboriginal language of the Flinders Ranges and they have a wonderful word " karangy" ( cranky ). I think, whatever else she may be, Louise is just plain "karangy".
So true about karangy, Paul! Cheers. x
How acutely you have dissected the debris and deadwood of Adler's usual gobbledygook. In her refusal - if that is in fact the case - to debate a Zionist, I am reminded of trump refusing another debate with Harris. You don't take the stage when you know you can't win.
Debris and deadwood, for sure-- thank you Yvonne! Spot on re the Trump comparison.
If only Adler was given the opportunity to sit in a tunnel and enjoy mint tea with the Hamas and Hezbollah leaders - and invite the Ayatollah along for good measure - she could have persuaded them with her philosophical and literary dexterity that the obliteration of the Jewish State and its people isn't an intellectually nice thing to aim for.
"Philosophical and literary dexterity." 😂 Yes, she's so intellectually expansive in this piece!
Thank you Julie.
A great piece, well developed and articulated.
I am in Israel and my niece sent me the piece.
I just read enough to get the sesense and ethos of where she was going.
Thank you for having the fortitude do write this.
All the best
Monique Schwarz
Thanks heaps Monique, lovely to hear from you. I get around the world in minutes! So good to know. x
Oh Julie! I wish you weee still writing for the age. Who will see this essential piece other than those who already agree with you? But bravo once again
Thank you Sharonne. Actually I have many Israel sceptics and some outright Israel haters among my subscribers, but I hear what you're saying. The Age could of course commission someone to write a response to Louise if they were so moved...
Julie - this is brilliant. When I read Adler’s speech I ran to the bathroom to 🤮. But when I read your piece it really made my day. Only a fool believes there is no such thing as a Jewish antisemite. I wish your piece had been published in the Age.
Thanks so much Mark. Yep, it was definitely a bathroom occasion! 😂
This might be your best piece yet Julie and far and away the best piece I've read on the AsaJew phenomenon. Bravo.
That is so kind of you David! 🙏(There's lots more to say about As a Jew.. so stay tuned.)
Good, I always find it so infuriating that some people consider that a qualification for expressing a contrary view.
As the first anniversary of 7 October looms, I wonder how it will be presented by the media and the pro-Palestinians.
Yes me too Cheryl.
Your piece is wonderful as always. Interestingly I posted mine then saw yours!!
Right-- yes! Snap! Great minds and so on. Well done Debbie.
Another excellent piece, Julie.
I thought that I should respond to one of your first comments – i.e. “The op-ed appeared in The Age – where else?”
As I recently mentioned to you, I have previously directly emailed that paper’s editor about the self-evident fact that no-one has more cachet at The Age than an anti-Zionist Jew, and that there’s apparently no limit to the amount of space that will be afforded to such people to articulate their loathing for Israel and Zionist Jews. So, following the publishing of Adler’s recent 2,000+ word polemic, I emailed the editor pointing out how it was almost a replica of Antony Loewenstein’s 4,000-word “Being Jewish and critical of Israel can make you an outcast. I should know” diatribe that appeared in The Age last year.
I added (1) that The Age simply isn’t interested in hearing anything other than brevity from the 91% of Australian Jews who are emotionally attached to Israel, and (2) whereas The Age goes to great lengths to publicise divisions within the Jewish community, since October 7 it has yet to publish any dissenting voices amongst the Muslim/Palestinian community. That the latter is not homogenous has been clearly demonstrated by their inability to agree on the need for, or the name of an appropriate Islamophobia envoy. Not that you would know anything about this very interesting point by reading The Age.
Thanks Geoff -- and you've nailed it. I was going to mention the complete absence of Muslim/Palestinian/Arab dissenters in the progressive media but decided it was best tackled separately another day, which I'll do.
“she spent her Sunday afternoons at a socialist Zionist youth movement, she muses that her parents were probably just grateful for some quiet time away from the kids. “
I can’t help thinking that she felt rejected by her parents, especially her father, hiving her off to the Zionist youth movement. Hence she projected that rejection onto Zionism which became the object of her hate. Just a tad too much of an Oedipal complex going on….
I got the impression it was she and not them who wanted her to attend the movement. But her father looms large clearly..
We talk endlessly about MAGA and Trumpism, where the fanatic followers believe and repeat everything the 'guru' says. We on the left see the inconsistency and fallacies and untruths so clearly. Yet the Left is now competing for stupidity and irrationality. To follow the rules and support gender ideology, the wickedness of the Jews, the genocide of Palestinians, the belief in race theory and the continuing suppression of women is to ensure membership of a club that supports and validates everything you do. Some of these beliefs are even more insane than the MAGA cult. To step outside the Left rules is to invite ridicule hatred abuse and cancellation. They don't seem to need a good reason for their rules (such as the genocidal jews), anything will do. The best and funniest recent example was the woman holding the "Queers for Palestine" sign at the pro-Palestine demonstration after Oct 7. The hilarious inconsistency in such a sign is ignored. Man was provided with the ability to reason, it is essential for survival, but also we have an even stronger need for inclusion in a group which offers even greater security. It seems to me that the most powerful evolutionary model for group survival is to have the majority of individuals fully committed to group inclusion along with the preparedness to follow a charismatic leader (quite often a narcissistic psychopath). Every great and powerful group seems to follow this model. The more psychopathic the leader and the more prepared to follow to the death if necessary, the more unbeatable they are. This then explains why people like Adler join the Left team and manufacture whatever arguments are needed for support, and why people like Trump have so many devotees.
A good thesis.