English philosopher John Gray wrote long before Oct 7: ‘It has long been known that those who perform great acts of kindness are rarely forgiven. The same is true of those who suffer irreparable wrongs. When will Jews be forgiven the Holocaust?’
Now the left and Muslims have expropriated the Holocaust to use as a weapon against Jews, and they are self-righteous about it. It's astonishing, malevolent and sick.
Your quote comes from John Gray's 2002 book Straw Dogs. (I've been misattributing the quote to Howard Jacobson, who merely cited Gray, so thanks for helping me to put myself straight.)
Why Europe has never forgiven the Jews for the Holocaust:
British author Howard Jacobson contends that Europeans are angry at the Jews because the Jews, by surviving, remind Europeans of their role in carrying out the Holocaust. Modern Europeans would like to think of themselves as enlightened and morally upstanding, but the continued existence of Jews shows them that they can't relax into a sense of superiority. So, the theory goes, Europeans project their sins onto Israel, holding it to an exacting standard applied to no other country, and disproportionately blaming it for real or imagined misdeeds, hoping thereby to convey that the Jews are as bad or worse than Europeans have been. The more Europeans want to see themselves as moral, the more the memory of the Holocaust casts its shadow over them, hence the more they have to blame the Jews for everything. In a perverse sense, the Europeans are therefore blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. And that's where we get the outrageous claims of Israel deliberately killing children, Israel selling the organs of dead Palestinians, Israel being irredeemably racist, Israel committing apartheid, and now, worst of all, Israel committing genocide.
And this is what happens when nations won't confront their own shadows and dark histories. It's just like the addict who won't go to therapy and instead project their bad behavior onto everyone else.
I've seen a couple accounts now about how Spain doesn't teach children about the Holocaust or the Inquisition. And if you visit Toledo and ask about why there are empty synagogues there and what happened to the Jews, the tour guides will change the subject.
Two years into Israeli military domination of Gaza, and maybe 2% of the population has died, half of whom are combatants. If this is genocide, it's the most incompetent genocide in history. Calling it genocide is a joke. It IS a war. Hamas's war. Started by Hamas, and still useful in advancing Hamas's goals.
Genocide isn't determined by the number of dead so much as by the intent of the party being accused because the goal is to prevent genocides, not to wait for them to occur.
In Bosnia,. it was the rounding up of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys and the mass raping of Bosnian Muslim women by Serbian backed armed elements that prompted then US president Bill Clinton to intervene.
What I find telling about the parties condemning Israel of the crime of genocide, is that they are relying on "findings" by Amnesty International and Bt'salem that require a "broadening of the framework". In other words, the evidence necessary to convict Israel of genocide under the Rome Statute is decidedly lacking, so we have the Republic of Ireland's application to join South Africa's case before the International Court of Justice which includes a plea to redefine what constitutes genocide.
If any party to the conflict deserves to be in the dock at the ICJ it's Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Neither have been shy about their intention to destroy the country that is home to half of the world's Jews. There is documentary evidence of Sinwar asking Iran for funds in 2021 and evidence of Iran providing some funds, just not the half a billion Sinwar requested, and the day of terror that included mass murder of unarmed civilians and rape. As neither Israel nor the US are signatories to the Rome Statute, it's unlikely that any "friend of the court" will step in.
I live in Portland Oregon. Trump says he’s sending in troops to restore order, but because there is no public political activity at the time, all that will happen is stirring up trouble and probably causing riots as happened last time he sent in troops. Why is downtown Portland so trashed and less safe than in the past? This is entirely due to the antisemitic demonstrations that continued up until recently. Anyone who didn’t want to be subjected to the screams of abuse and the intermittent violence directed against people we refused to join in shouting about a nonexistent genocide.
Pat Johnson, substack (since nobody says it better):
“The perpetrators of the “Gaza Genocide” hoax may or may not believe a genocide is actually happening. If they do believe it, they are ignorant of either the definition of the term or what is happening in Gaza, or both. If they don’t believe it but use it as a weapon, they are sadists, not human rights activists.”
Hamish Falconer, Britain's Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, has stated his government's position that only a competent court of jurisdiction can make this call, which the International Court of Justice has yet to do. Still, that didn't stop former Corbynite Shadow Home Secretary Emily Thornberry, a lawyer who should know better, from offering her own opinion that Israel is guilty anyway.
Canada's incoming ambassador to the UN, David Lametti, has stated that it's up to the UN or the ICJ to make the call, so he gets maybe a half mark. "the UN" could mean the notoriously biased Committee of Inquiry and/or Special Rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese. Both of these entities rely on "reports" by Amnesty International and Bt'salem, and both of these NGOs are using their own definitions / parameters to condemn Israel, and not the long recognized criterial developed by Raphael Lempkin.
English philosopher John Gray wrote long before Oct 7: ‘It has long been known that those who perform great acts of kindness are rarely forgiven. The same is true of those who suffer irreparable wrongs. When will Jews be forgiven the Holocaust?’
Now the left and Muslims have expropriated the Holocaust to use as a weapon against Jews, and they are self-righteous about it. It's astonishing, malevolent and sick.
Your quote comes from John Gray's 2002 book Straw Dogs. (I've been misattributing the quote to Howard Jacobson, who merely cited Gray, so thanks for helping me to put myself straight.)
Why Europe has never forgiven the Jews for the Holocaust:
British author Howard Jacobson contends that Europeans are angry at the Jews because the Jews, by surviving, remind Europeans of their role in carrying out the Holocaust. Modern Europeans would like to think of themselves as enlightened and morally upstanding, but the continued existence of Jews shows them that they can't relax into a sense of superiority. So, the theory goes, Europeans project their sins onto Israel, holding it to an exacting standard applied to no other country, and disproportionately blaming it for real or imagined misdeeds, hoping thereby to convey that the Jews are as bad or worse than Europeans have been. The more Europeans want to see themselves as moral, the more the memory of the Holocaust casts its shadow over them, hence the more they have to blame the Jews for everything. In a perverse sense, the Europeans are therefore blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. And that's where we get the outrageous claims of Israel deliberately killing children, Israel selling the organs of dead Palestinians, Israel being irredeemably racist, Israel committing apartheid, and now, worst of all, Israel committing genocide.
And this is what happens when nations won't confront their own shadows and dark histories. It's just like the addict who won't go to therapy and instead project their bad behavior onto everyone else.
I've seen a couple accounts now about how Spain doesn't teach children about the Holocaust or the Inquisition. And if you visit Toledo and ask about why there are empty synagogues there and what happened to the Jews, the tour guides will change the subject.
That’s correct. It is from Gray’s book.
Two years into Israeli military domination of Gaza, and maybe 2% of the population has died, half of whom are combatants. If this is genocide, it's the most incompetent genocide in history. Calling it genocide is a joke. It IS a war. Hamas's war. Started by Hamas, and still useful in advancing Hamas's goals.
Genocide isn't determined by the number of dead so much as by the intent of the party being accused because the goal is to prevent genocides, not to wait for them to occur.
In Bosnia,. it was the rounding up of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys and the mass raping of Bosnian Muslim women by Serbian backed armed elements that prompted then US president Bill Clinton to intervene.
What I find telling about the parties condemning Israel of the crime of genocide, is that they are relying on "findings" by Amnesty International and Bt'salem that require a "broadening of the framework". In other words, the evidence necessary to convict Israel of genocide under the Rome Statute is decidedly lacking, so we have the Republic of Ireland's application to join South Africa's case before the International Court of Justice which includes a plea to redefine what constitutes genocide.
If any party to the conflict deserves to be in the dock at the ICJ it's Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Neither have been shy about their intention to destroy the country that is home to half of the world's Jews. There is documentary evidence of Sinwar asking Iran for funds in 2021 and evidence of Iran providing some funds, just not the half a billion Sinwar requested, and the day of terror that included mass murder of unarmed civilians and rape. As neither Israel nor the US are signatories to the Rome Statute, it's unlikely that any "friend of the court" will step in.
In fact, the massacres of Oct 7 fit the true definition of genocide.
The only reason those horrific 12 hours were not continued until every Jew was exterminated is because the Jews were able to fight back.
There is no other genocide in history in which those being “genocided” have it wholly within their power to stop the “genocide” immediately.
Palestina Uber Ales is brain-eating bacteria
I live in Portland Oregon. Trump says he’s sending in troops to restore order, but because there is no public political activity at the time, all that will happen is stirring up trouble and probably causing riots as happened last time he sent in troops. Why is downtown Portland so trashed and less safe than in the past? This is entirely due to the antisemitic demonstrations that continued up until recently. Anyone who didn’t want to be subjected to the screams of abuse and the intermittent violence directed against people we refused to join in shouting about a nonexistent genocide.
Pat Johnson, substack (since nobody says it better):
“The perpetrators of the “Gaza Genocide” hoax may or may not believe a genocide is actually happening. If they do believe it, they are ignorant of either the definition of the term or what is happening in Gaza, or both. If they don’t believe it but use it as a weapon, they are sadists, not human rights activists.”
This situation can be summed up in four words: "No Jews, No News".
I like your brevity, Pat. You make your point succinctly and thus, invite more readers to digest it.
Don't know whether to laugh or to cry! Great punchy style, as always, Pat.
Hamish Falconer, Britain's Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, has stated his government's position that only a competent court of jurisdiction can make this call, which the International Court of Justice has yet to do. Still, that didn't stop former Corbynite Shadow Home Secretary Emily Thornberry, a lawyer who should know better, from offering her own opinion that Israel is guilty anyway.
Canada's incoming ambassador to the UN, David Lametti, has stated that it's up to the UN or the ICJ to make the call, so he gets maybe a half mark. "the UN" could mean the notoriously biased Committee of Inquiry and/or Special Rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese. Both of these entities rely on "reports" by Amnesty International and Bt'salem, and both of these NGOs are using their own definitions / parameters to condemn Israel, and not the long recognized criterial developed by Raphael Lempkin.
Great writing, Pat. Thank you for a breath of fresh air.
Another great one, Pat. Thank you.