From: makowsky@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (David Makowsky)
Subject: Re: Lehi and nazies
Reply-To: makowsky@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (David Makowsky)
Organization: Arizona State University, Tempe AZ
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 01:35:38 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.084932.5496@cs.anu.edu.au> bdm@cs.anu.edu.au writes:

# In article 26043@ennews.eas.asu.edu, makowsky@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (David Makowsky) writes:

# >In article <1992Sep2.045114.10284@cs.anu.edu.au> bdm@cs.anu.edu.au writes:
 
# ># Lehi had no love of the Germans.  They believed that the Nazis would
# ># win the war and that the Nazi flavour of anti-semitism was going to
# ># be the trend for a long time.  More interestingly, they believed
# ># that anti-semitism could not be fought because it was JUSTIFIED; 
# ># it was reasonable for non-Jews to hate Jews because after all the
# ># Jews were the Chosen People and therefore superior.

# >	I have a lot of problems with this, and Brendan I believe you owe
# >lots of peaople an apology for that insulting remark.  I consider the
# >Jews (me included) to be the chosen people.  I do NOT consider myself
# >(or any other Jew) superior.  Even if I did, that might make
# >anti-semitism a predictable response (not that it would make it, just
# >that it might), but not a JUSTIFIED response.

# >	Just to let you know, it was this one paragraph that caused me to
# >respond.  The use of 'JUSTIFIED' is disgusting to say the least.
 
# I expected that you wouldn't like it.  However, you are asking me to
# apologise for the beliefs of Stern, which is rather bizarre.  What
# I wrote is properly parsed "they [Lehi] believed ... it was justified".
# I never said that I believe it was justified, nor do I believe that.
 
# What I have read about the beliefs of Stern and his buddies are that
# they belonged to the (hopefully small) subset of Jewish thinkers which
# regarded the doctrine of Chosenness as a doctrine of superiority.
# I think it fits their policies and behaviour quite well, but I don't
# have access to the original source materials that could confirm it.
# My most recent reading on the subject was the two books by Lenni
# Brenner, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators and The Iron Wall, but
# I've read less pointed texts also.

	Quite frankly, if this is in fact not what they believed, I
consider this reply of yours to also be disgusting.  And considering
that you post this without the materials handy, I find also
disgusting.

	Now, even if your materials do confirm this, it is possible that
there are inadvertant mistranslations, or considering the way some
felt (and still do feel) about LEHI, a planned mistranslation.

	Now, if in fact that is how those members of LEHI actually felt, I
find their (and others who agree) beilifs disgusting.  However, unless
you are sure that is what they actually believed (and there is almost
no way source material in English can confirm this), your behavior
here is disgusting even if by chance (it would have to be chance
unless you know hebrew or read something written by the individuals in
question in a language you understand) you are correct. 

	Also, this response of yours does not even go into how
anti-semitism is justified even if the "superiority" business is
correct.

	It would seem as though you have been duped by David Palmer.  I
suggest you reconsider and apologize.
--

David Makowsky
makowsky@enuxha.eas.asu.edu
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast,talk.politics.misc,misc.headlines,soc.rights.human