Are You a Liberal Anti-Semite? (from Slate)

[oberliner]

Take this quiz and find out.

<snip>

1. Who deserves the most blame for the Iraq war?

a) George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld
b) Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Bill Kristol
c) Blame? Don't you support the troops?

2. Which group exerts too much influence on America's Mideast policy?

a) Conservative jingoes
b) Not the Jews per se but a "pro-Israel lobby" composed mainly of wealthy New York financiers (who may well all attend the same shul)
c) Arabists at the State Department

3. How would you characterize debate about America's Mideast policy?

a) Robust, with a full range of opinions available in various publications
b) Nonexistent, since all criticism of Israel is "taboo"
c) Biased, because the Sulzberger family of the New York Times is afraid to seem "too Jewish"

4. Which state's offenses against humanity bother you most?

a) Sudan
b) Israel
c) Massachusetts

5. Criticism of Israel is:

a) Sometimes warranted, but needs to be kept in context and perspective.
b) The civic duty of every truly patriotic citizen who cares about America's self-interest.
c) Why are you always criticizing Israel?

6. What do you think of Joe Lieberman?

a) I liked him OK when he ran with Gore, but he lost me on Iraq, school vouchers, and Social Security.
b) The most dangerous man in the Senate
c) At least there's one Democrat who isn't soft on terrorism!

7. On what basis is Iran a threat to world peace?

a) I'm concerned that its unchecked nuclear-arms program will destabilize the region.
b) I'm afraid Israel will use its saber-rattling as a pretext to start World War III.
c) I pray Ehud Olmert will have the chutzpah to pull another Osirak.

8. Jimmy Carter's use of the term "apartheid" in his new book is:

a) intended to provoke debate but clearly ill-considered
b) a gutsy, rare example of someone "speaking truth to power"
c) more of the same from the putz who put Andy Young at the UN

9. Which describes your view of the Holocaust?

a) The most horrific crime in recorded history
b) A tragedy that, incidentally, gets far more hype than the Turks' slaughter of the Armenians or the white man's annihilation of the Indians
c) Child's play compared with what Iran's Ahmadinejad has planned

10. The term neoconservative suggests:

a) Erstwhile leftie radicals who grew disenchanted with the welfare state.
b) A cabal of pro-Israel intellectuals who have hijacked our foreign policy.
c) A code word for "Jews" used by the people who answered (b).

Give yourself 1 point for each (a) answer, 2 points for each (b) answer, and 0 points for each (c) answer.

<snip>

17-20: You're an anti-Semite!

Full article here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2158962/pagenum/2/

[Hardrada]

1. I hate labels.

[Junkdrawer]

2. In an article titled "low concept: Dubious and far-fetched ideas"...

Quite funny, actually....

[ProfessorGAC]

7. Obviously Meant As Satire

If not, it's the stupidest quiz of all time. Personally, i thought it was funny, too!
The Professor

[oberliner]

9. The "results" section is especially amusing

0-3: OK, you're not an anti-Semite. But you're not a liberal either. You win a lifetime subscription to Commentary and this sheaf of old AIPAC newsletters.

4-7: You display trace elements of atavistic fears. Your prize: a copy of The Plot Against America.

8-12: Phew! You're an unbigoted liberal—painfully capable of striking a middle ground and excruciatingly tolerant of all points of view. Please enjoy this complete set of Barack Obama's speeches.

13-16: You're clearly not nuts about Zion, but Abe Foxman won't be calling you just yet. To be safe, steer clear of any petitions emanating from British universities. Meanwhile, please claim your dinner with Tony Judt and two tickets to My Name Is Rachel Corrie!

17-20: You're an anti-Semite! You win a tour of synagogues in Italy, Argentina, and Turkey bombed by militants who are merely anti-Israel and not anti-Jewish. Also, an extended director's cut DVD of The Passion of the Christ.

[mmonk]

3. So what is the purpose of this?

[Balbus]

4. I'd guess to make liberal anti-Semites uncomfortable.

[mmonk]

10. That can be subjective.

If one is against pre-emptive war and associates neo conservatives with that policy and dislikes Joe Lieberman's support of bush's pre-emptive war, does that mean anything anti-semitic? Because sometimes I see veiled attempts at leveling that charge to people that just generally don't like those things. That's why I ask.

[rman]

12. I think that's the point;

to show that it is subjective, that anyone can be made to look like an anti-semite if you really want to.

[oberliner]

6. Saw it on Slate, seemed sort of amusing

A moment of levity brought to an otherwise tense conversation?

The "results" section especially.

[mmonk]

28. They are

quite funny.

[PDJane]

5. No.

I am anti-zionist, however.

There is a difference.

[Balbus]

8. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would disagree.

read below.

[PDJane]

11. Lots of folks disagree........

And I'm allowed to disagree with them.

Zionism is a political movement, not a religion. Israel learned the wrong lessons from the holocaust, IMHO. (And yes, I have, over the years been termed a self-hating Jew.)

However, the things that Israel is doing in the name of "security" are simply a land grab. More folks are killed by disease and traffic accidents inside Israel than terrorist attacks. That's not true in the occupied territories.

[Balbus]

13. Zionism means:

Zionism
/ziniz’m/

• noun a movement for the development and protection of a Jewish nation in Israel.

— DERIVATIVES Zionist noun & adjective.


You say you're an anti-Zionist. What exactly are you "anti" too? To the actual development of a Jewish nation or the protection part of a Jewish nation? or both? And if you're going to be against the fact that there was ever a Jewish nation developed or you believe that a Jewish nation should not be protected from eradication, how is that not anti-Semitic?

[originalpckelly]

Some people in this world don't really care about someone's religion or ethnicity...

Especially as an American, I don't honestly make judgments about anyone for those reasons. I think the problem is that so many Americans are hostile to the idea that our ethnic and religious differences are so great that people need separate nations in order to be protected from discrimination based upon those factors.

Younger Americans have grown up in a world where we've been taught religion, sex, race, ethnicity, etc. just plain don't matter, and we actually believe that. To be sure, there is a resurgence of young people who are racist or are bigoted in some other way, but that is because their parents made a specific effort to raise them that way.

The vast majority of people under 30 just don't give a damn about any of these differences.

That's why it seems so weird to see people want a nation based upon religion and culture. It's sort of the exact opposite of what America stands for.

[CTyankee]

37. I get what you are saying, but speaking as a non-Jewish person

I have to say that given what the Jews have gone through, do you wonder why they feel the way they do? The Nazis and their enablers (and it certainly took lots of enablers to allow the Nazis to do their dirty work) quite nearly erased most Jews from the planet. That is an enormously evil undertaking, by any way of reckoning!

So given that, the Jews after WWII obviously felt a need to protect the Jews that were left in the world. There aren't that many today. So of course they sought a state protective of their religion and culture. And we should too. They are a place of reason in a region rife with unreasoning violence.

But please remember that the Jews of Israel debate their country's policies constantly and here in our democracy I think we are too easily lulled into complacency, unwilling to debate the issues or cause any "unpleasantness." The Jews debate and challenge intellectually each others' arguments. I like that. Would that this kind of debate could take place in other middle eastern countries!

[PDJane]

21. No.

I am against the expansion of Israel beyond the 1947 borders by force and occupation.

I am against the building of a wall for "protection" that encloses the aquifiers of the region that rightly belong to the Palestinian people. I oppose the taking of citizenship for visiting another country, a rule which will be used to deprive the Arabs with citizenship of their citizenship for visiting relatives. I oppose the "Jews Only" roads for the occupied territories.

Every single one of those things is against international law, and would be grounds for sanctions against any country not supported by the US.

Please don't tell me what I mean; I know precisely what I mean, and what I mean to say. I am not against Jews or against Israel. I am against the things which are depriving other people of their life, livelihood and security.

Please don't tell me that Palestine doesn't accept the existence of Israel. Israel refuses to accept the right of Palestine to exist as well.

There are solutions, but they mean that Israel has to give a bit too.......and should be tearing down the wall and compensating Palestinians for the land they had to leave, instead of forcing them out of what remains of Palestine.

I wonder if everyone who thinks of Israel as having a right to the whole of Palestine is aware that Israel existed for approximately 240 years.........more than 2,000 years ago. That's a long time ago, and the Palestinians, the Druze, and the Christians who have been living in the area for those 2,000 years have as much right to the land, if not more.

Yes, the Jews should have been compensated with a state for the losses of the Holocaust. It's not necessarily true, however, that the Palestinians should have been the ones to bear the brunt of that recompense.

[mondo joe]

36. Does it follow from there that any policy disagreement with that of the

state of Israel is anti-Zionist?

[Clark2008]

46. THat's not what the term has come to mean.

Much like the term "anti-Semite."

Arabs are, afterall, Semitic, yet people call them anti-Semitic all the time because, apparently, the word, "anti-Semitic" has come to mean "Jewish hating."

:shrug:

[Warren DeMontague]

14. So by being "anti-zionist", does that mean you're opposed to some policies of Israel

or the existence of Israel itself?

[rockymountaindem]

17. The latter n.t.

[PDJane]

24. Please read the reply that starts No.

And don't, pray, tell me what I do and don't think.

[rockymountaindem]

29. I don't know what you want me to say

Being anti-Zionist means being opposed to the idea of a Jewish state. It does not mean simply being opposed to the policies of whatever the Israeli government may be. That is especially true since the policies of the Israeli government can change. So, someone who is say opposed to Likud policies but not those of more dovish Isralelis such as Rabin is not an anti-Zionist. What's wrong with that assessment?

[PDJane]

25. One more time.

I am against the expansion of Israel beyond the 1947 borders by force and occupation.

I am against the building of a wall for "protection" that encloses the aquifiers of the region that rightly belong to the Palestinian people. I oppose the taking of citizenship for visiting another country, a rule which will be used to deprive the Arabs with citizenship of their citizenship for visiting relatives. I oppose the "Jews Only" roads for the occupied territories.

Every single one of those things is against international law, and would be grounds for sanctions against any country not supported by the US.

Please don't tell me what I mean; I know precisely what I mean, and what I mean to say. I am not against Jews or against Israel. I am against the things which are depriving other people of their life, livelihood and security.

Please don't tell me that Palestine doesn't accept the existence of Israel. Israel refuses to accept the right of Palestine to exist as well.

There are solutions, but they mean that Israel has to give a bit too.......and should be tearing down the wall and compensating Palestinians for the land they had to leave, instead of forcing them out of what remains of Palestine.

I wonder if everyone who thinks of Israel as having a right to the whole of Palestine is aware that Israel existed for approximately 240 years.........more than 2,000 years ago. That's a long time ago, and the Palestinians, the Druze, and the Christians who have been living in the area for those 2,000 years have as much right to the land, if not more.

Yes, the Jews should have been compensated with a state for the losses of the Holocaust. It's not necessarily true, however, that the Palestinians should have been the ones to bear the brunt of that recompense.

[Balbus]

30. Well, thank you for admitting that the land did initially belong

to Israel - most anti-Semi... oops. Most anti-Zionists don't even do that.

[PDJane]

31. Actually, it didn't........

It belonged to the Canaanites before we threw them from the land and set up Israel.

[Warren DeMontague]

41. "Please don't tell me what I mean"

I didn't. I asked a question.

[originalpckelly]

16. Here's more of the text of the "Letter to an Anti-Zionist friend"

". . . You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth.

"Antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently antisemitic, and ever will be so.

"Why is this? You know that Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land. The Jewish people, the Scriptures tell us, once enjoyed a flourishing Commonwealth in the Holy Land. From this they were expelled by the Roman tyrant, the same Romans who cruelly murdered Our Lord. Driven from their homeland, their nation in ashes, forced to wander the globe, the Jewish people time and again suffered the lash of whichever tyrant happened to rule over them.

"The Negro people, my friend, know what it is to suffer the torment of tyranny under rulers not of our choosing. Our brothers in Africa have begged, pleaded, requested--DEMANDED the recognition and realization of our inborn right to live in peace under our own sovereignty in our own country.

"How easy it should be, for anyone who holds dear this inalienable right of all mankind, to understand and support the right of the Jewish People to live in their ancient Land of Israel. All men of good will exult in the fulfilment of God's promise, that his People should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land.

This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less.

"And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is antisemitism.

"The antisemite rejoices at any opportunity to vent his malice. The times have made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the antisemite must constantly seek new forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new masquerade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just 'anti-Zionist'!

"My friend, I do not accuse you of deliberate antisemitism. I know you feel, as I do, a deep love of truth and justice and a revulsion for racism, prejudice, and discrimination. But I know you have been misled--as others have been--into thinking you can be 'anti-Zionist' and yet remain true to these heartfelt principles that you and I share.

Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--make no mistake about it."

http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/ml_king.html

[oberliner]

19. I believe that letter has been proven to be a hoax

We must inform you that “Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend” (see at bottom of alert) allegedly written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is apparently a hoax, although, the basic message of the letter was indeed, without question, spoken by Martin Luther King, Jr. in a 1968 appearance at Harvard, where he said: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism.” < from “The Socialism of Fools: The Left, the Jews and Israel” by Seymour Martin Lipset; in Encounter magazine, December 1969, p. 24. >.


http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=8&x_article=369

[originalpckelly]

22. Oh well, then I suppose our friend who quoted it needs to change their...

sig line.

[Demit]

15. I can't quite figure this out. I mean, I guess it's supposed to be mildly satirical

but it's inconsistent. I mean, who would pick (a) for number 3, for example? And as for (b), the "anti-semitic" answer, who could disagree that all criticism of Israel is indeed taboo? Point me to an article that criticizes Israel that gets approving, agreeing reaction without somebody accusing the author of being factually wrong or not telling the full story. This is a weird quiz. I'm assuming the Slate guy came up with it but I'm not seeing what it's supposed to do. Besides, Joe Lieberman IS the most dangerous man in the Senate, at the moment.

[LSK]

18. Question #1 tips me off that this is biased

Wolfowitz and Perle were creating PNAC while Bush was still playing baseball owner.

[mmonk]

20. Wish he still was.

[geek tragedy]

38. And Bush was PRESIDENT when we invaded

Iraq.

[LSK]

39. still doesnt explain why the question is there?

[geek tragedy]

42. Simple: Do you blame the white Christian men who

have all the real power, or do you blame their Jewish advisors?

[Malikshah]

45. I blame those who made the decision and those who advised them to do so

regardless of their faith, upbringing, education, favorite color, or predilection for taking long walks on a moonlit beach.

The "deciders" and "advisors" and "executors" of the policies deserve nothing less than the woodchipper feet first, inch by inch.

[damntexdem]

23. Ahh, I scored a 12.

That just makes me a wishy-washy liberal. What a cheat!

But I would have scored higher if I weren't most bothered by Massachusetts. But shouldn't we be most bothered by offenses by our own country?

[LeftishBrit]

26. So did I..

'8-12: Phew! You're an unbigoted liberal—painfully capable of striking a middle ground and excruciatingly tolerant of all points of view. Please enjoy this complete set of Barack Obama's speeches.'

Well, thanks, I like to think of myself that way!



I think the reference to Massachusetts was probably intended to refer to their dreadful sins in allowing gays to get married, shock, horror, tut tut tut, rather than to their electing crazy Mitt Romney as governor, though one could interpret it in several ways!

[cgrindley]

34. I got 10 but I protest

The Iran question was absurd. They neither pose a real threat to any of their neighbors, nor will anyone do anything about them provided they hurry up and develop a bomb. If the cold war taught us anything, it's that nuclear weapons on all possible sides will keep everyone chilled out.

[Jacobin]

27. push poll

[donco6]

32. Yes, classic. eom

[oberliner]

33. Odd that someone with Jon Stewart as an avatar

wouldn't have a sense of humor about this article.

Unless the "push poll" remark was a joke as well.

[Vanje]

44. damn right!

push poll

[Crunchy Frog]

35. Too many questions on which I don't agree with any of the provided answers.

I don't think I'm an anti-semite, but I don't doubt that some would consider me one based on some of my views about Israel. I don't think that an overly simplistic "quiz" like this is going to tell me anything useful though.:shrug:

[Emit]

40. If

I think that George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Bill Kristol ALL deserve the most blame for the Iraq war, then do I have to give myself 3 points?

[dorkulon]

43. The Beast did this months ago.

Found it:

http://www.buffalobeast.com/104/beastquiz.htm