From: jeff davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Apr 23 2002 - 20:13:46 MDT
--- David Lubkin <extropy@unreasonable.com> wrote:
> At 09:15 AM 4/23/2002 -0700, jeff davis wrote:
> ><snippage of stuff that departs the credible
> universe>
> >
> >I'm perfectly willing to take the heat for the
> Schoenman piece, but not
> >anything at the Balkan Unity site.
>
> The Balkan Unity site refers to a weekly radio
> program by Schoenman, on
> which he promises to "document the role of the U.S.
> government in
> instigating and orchestrating the events of
> September 11th."
>
> The guy is clearly a loon.
Fine. Let him be a loon. That is not the issue. The
issue is whether the alleged loon's evidence is
credible.
> I did a web search on "Hidden History of Zionism".
> Virtually all the sites
> that refer to it are either self-described Marxist
> or Socialist (like
> socialistaction.org, marxismalive.org and
> marxists.de) or sites that focus
> on conspiracy theories. Schoenman is described (in
> admiration) as an
> "American Jewish Trotskyist."
So other communists approve of and agree with him. So
he's a commie and a loon. Perhaps he is also a
homosexual and likes to tear the wings off of flies.
Your focus on discrediting the messenger is suggestive
that you are at pains to discredit the evidence.
Address the evidence.
> I looked for a rebuttal of his book but couldn't
> find one.
I suggest you look harder. I certainly intend to. It
is impossible for me to believe that an
anti-Israel/anti-Zionist polemic published fourteen
years ago has been left unanswered. If you--or anyone
on the list--finds the rebuttals before I do, please
post this info or email me off list.
Lack of a rebuttal would lend credibility to his
evidence, but at this point that is premature.
> Everyone
> outside his cadre seems to be ignoring him.
Could mean he's not worthy of attention, could mean
his case has merit, and the less said, the better.
> Extraordinary claims call for extraordinary
> evidence. I didn't see it in
> the book.
With respect David, I am sure his claims appear
extraordinary to you.
> What I saw:
>
> (1) Profuse footnoting (which encourages you to
> think that the work is
> scholarly)
Or perhaps it is simply that the work IS scholarly.
> but no links to any of the sources so
> that one could confirm
> that he accurately reflected the source material.
First, David, it was a print publication, not a web
document. It was written in 1988, before there was a
web. His references/footnoting meets the standards
for providing sources in print publications. And I
would add that if the citation of source material were
innacurate or phony, it would have invited a rebuttal
and loud condemnation that would not be at all
difficult to find.
> (One site that discussed
> his work suggested that a lot of his references were
> lifted straight from
> other authors, particularly Noam Chomsky.)
It appears--correct me if I am misreading here--that
you are suggesting a kind of plaigerism, when in fact
citing other works/scholars/researchers is exactly
what professional scholarship is about. As to using
Chomsky as a resource, what could be more practical
considering the similarities in their areas of
interest and their points of view? But I think what
you're really about here, David, is adding another
slam--"Chomsky lover"--to "loon" and "commie".
Doesn't matter, it's still about the evidence.
> (2) Correct translations of names from Hebrew.
>
> (3) Some correct names, titles, quotations, and
> dates, and some that were
> wrong.
>
> (4) The first half of the book makes an attempt at
> appearing
> objective. The second half is much more polemic. By
> the end, you expect
> him to rise to his feet, and shout "Viva, Che!"
Agreed, more or less.
> (5) His book is absolutely black-and-white. The
> Jews / Zionists / Israelis
> are evil, and are not credited with doing anything
> right, except those who
> have the integrity to report on how evil the rest of
> their society is. The
> Arabs / Palestinians are noble, victims, and have
> never done anything
> wrong. Americans and Europeans are good when they
> act in opposition to the
> Zionists and evil when they are in cahoots.
Agreed, again.
> (6) He omits many historic events that don't fit his
> thesis, like the 1929
> Arab riots in Palestine,
I'm not familiar with this. I've heard of the 1936-39
uprising. I'll look into it.
> the collaboration between
> the British and the
> Palestinian Jews to fight the Nazis during the
> latter part of WW II, or the
> Mossad teams that tracked down and assassinated
> Nazis in hiding.
These last two seem to me not germane.
> (7) He gets some facts hilariously wrong, like in
> chapter 4, where he
> writes that in Israel, "in order to be entitled to
> live on land, to lease
> land, or to work on land one must prove at least
> four generations of
> maternal Jewish descent." I know this is wrong from
> personal experience:
> we didn't have to, and neither did the Baptists down
> the road. But it also
> should appear absurd to a casual observer; if it
> were true, where do the
> 1,000,000 Arabs who are Israeli citizens live and
> work?
Yes, this is a problem. But on balance, a small one.
> (8) Smear by false reasoning. In many places, his
> logic is of the
> form: "Nazis had a salute. They were evil. The
> Irgun had a salute.
> Therefore, they were also evil."
I don't recall seeing this, I'll go back and look.
If you'd send me, offlist, some specific places to
look, I'd appreciate it.
> (9) I was pleased, however, to see friends of the
> family mentioned. My
> father designed advanced technology for the Israeli
> (and American) military
> and was science and technology advisor for the
> Liberal wing of the Likud.
> Had we not returned to the US, he would have been in
> the Knesset when Begin
> won. So he knew a lot of the generals and cabinet
> ministers cited. I think
> some of the war criminals were at my Bar Mitzvah
> reception....
I'm sure they were well dressed and well mannered.
And of course, we don't want to believe that such
things are true, or even possible, the more especially
when it strikes close to home. But human darkness is
not the exclusive province of Germans, Japanese, and
communists.
The evidence. Address the evidence.
I'm going to see if I can verify any of the citations
by searching for the source material on the web.
Best, Jeff Davis
"We don't see things as they are,
we see them as we are."
Anais Nin
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