It is hard to believe that someone as bright as Naomi Klein gets it wrong so many times.

This is a guest post by Absolute Observer.

New Voices in an Interview of Naomi Klein.

Reading I thought, yup, she nicely sums up the BDS campaign in a few words. Then, you realise that she is not talking about the anti-Zionists, but Jews! (I like also the way NK takes the latest anti-Zionist view (see the President of Iran) and projects the Israel – Holocaust link onto the Jews, as if that is the only way Jews think about Israel.

“There’s a way in which we want to exclude Israel from the world and say it is so special, so different, that no analysis except for one specific to the Jews and the Holocaust is allowed to have any place in the discussion. For so many Jews, there’s a deep defensiveness around Israel, a profound desire to see Israel as an exception in every way. I get letters from people saying, I agreed with you about everything in the book, but you lost me completely on Israel.'”

Then there’s this gem……….Here it is Klein herself who can’t seem to break the link with Jews and their experience in Germany (all 250,000 them!) which she then universalises. Apparently, it is “shocking” for Klein, that Jews “of all people” can be “right-wing economists” bearing in mind, not their experiences in Nazi Germany, but in Weimar!

“Of all people”??

Whilst someone once asked, “Will Jews never be forgiven for the Holocaust?”; Klein now asks, will Jews ever be forgiven for the economic conditions that may, assuming other factors being equal, give rise to “Fascism”?

“One of the most disturbing reactions that I got to the book was when I presented it in Germany. Some of the right-wing economists I’m writing about are Jewish, like [Milton] Friedman. Talking to German journalists who were essentially accusing me of anti-Semitism was a really unique phenomenon. I never make an issue in the book of Friedman being Jewish, but I can tell you on a personal level that I find it shocking that Jewish economists, of all people, knowing the history of the conditions in the Weimar Republic that created the rise of fascism, willfully shocked economies and created conditions where tens of thousands of people were suddenly thrown into poverty.”

Looks like that on this question, the German journalists understood the point Klein was making better than she did herself.

Karl Pfeifer: anti-semitism (explicit and implicit) in Hungary

This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer:

Anti-semitism (explicit and implicit) in Hungary

By Karl Pfeifer, Vienna

The implicit anti-semitism of a Hungarian Catholic bishop

A year ago I published an article about Hungarian anti-semitism in which I mentioned the Catholic bishop Balázs Bábel who:

“…was educated according to the doctrines of Ottokár Prohászka”, “one of the leading persons of anti-semitic ideology.”

Prohászka published his antisemitic views in English: The Jewish Question in Hungary, The Hague, Holland, 1920, and also in German: Die Judenfrage in Ungarn, Hammerschlaege, Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund. Hamburg 1921, Heft 21. (see illustration).

On October 6, 2009 bishop Balász Bábel delivered a speech at the commemoration of the 13 revolutionary generals who were executed by the Habsburg rulers, after the crushing of the first Hungarian republic in 1849 in Arad (nowadays in Romania). He used this occasion to spread his coded anti-semitism: and to state that today:

“we are at the mercy of the big powers, but even worse, under the rule of impersonal money. They do not send an army against us, but the hawk-capital”.

The expression “hawk-capital” (“karvaly tőke”) was previously used by the Hungarian Nazi Arrow Cross leaders, the German Nazi term was “raffendes Kapital” (“money-grubbing capital”) i.e. Jewish capital.

In the leftwing Budapest daily “Népszava“ László Bartus published an article on this subject and reminded his readers, that the leader of the Hungarian revolution Kossuth characterised three Catholic bishops as “traitors“. Bartus described the help given by the Hungarian Catholic Church to the Habsburgs in crushing the revolution.

Kossuth said of the Hungarian Jews “nobody has given so much in life and material for Hungarian liberty as the Jews.“ [1]

Oszkár Molnár’s, Fidesz MP wild antisemitic, racist and homophobe statements [2]

This politician has stated on record that he has evidence that gypsy mothers take medication so as to bring mentally disabled children into the world and that they often beat the unborn child in the mother’s womb with rubber hammers in order to make the child physically handicapped after birth. Of course he has no such evidence and the local social welfare authorities deny his charges. Around 400 Roma women have initiated legal proceedings against Oszkar Molnar, an MP of the opposition Fidesz party and mayor of Edeleny (NE Hungary), in response to these “defamatory remarks” about Roma women. [3]

The Jews want to occupy and buy up Hungary and are assisted enthusiastically by our political leaders, motivated by their wish to increase their fortune. At least this is the opinion of Oszkár Molnár, mayor of Edelény and member of parliament for the right wing Fidesz party. Molnár, the “hospitable nationalist” who joined Fidesz in 1993, has neglected local politics and recently has been implicated in various political scandals, of which his statement about gypsy mothers was just the first. Népszava has linked its article with three videos

The Fidesz MP explains in the first video [4] that, “Jewish big business wants to occupy our land, with our agriculture, drinking water, hospitals and schools. One has to be quiet about that in Hungary”. But he is not “quiet“. Not satisfied with these declarations he adds, that children in Jerusalem learn Hungarian because they regard Hungary as the future homeland of Jews.

In the second video [5] Oszkár Molnár expounds some surprising ideas: The original language of humanity is it seems Hungarian. According to this conservative MP the Hungarians are the oldest people of the world, and are genetically more developed than others. Thanks to this, the Hungarian will survive everything. Similar statements were also made by the Nazis and of course by their counterparts the Hungarian Arrow Cross movement.

This politician says in the third video [6] that shocking things happen in Hungary and he threatens gays (who he describes in the most crude and offensive language) with prison.

Fidesz seems happy to tolerate the fact that one of its prominent members peddles racism, anti-semitism and homophobia, despite the fact that they belong to the mainstream European People’s Party.

References

1. Bartus László: A bishop remembers (Egy érsek megemlékezik), Népszava, Oct 8,2009
   http://www.nepszava.hu/default.asp?cCenter=OnlineCikk.asp&ArticleID=1249311
2. The Jews ruin our land, on which the gypsies and the homosexuals are sponging – look at the videos of Oszkár Molnár, Népszava, 9.10.09
   (A zsidók tönkreteszik országunkat, amin a cigányok és a melegek élősködnek! – Nézzen Molnár Oszkár videókat! )
   http://www.nepszava.hu/default.asp?cCenter=OnlineCikk.asp&ArticleID=1249755
3. http://www.politics.hu/20090914/roma-women-file-defamation-suit-against-mayor
4. Oszkár Molnár doesn’t even spare the Jews
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hge3O_cBa-s
5. Hungary above all
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXR-F57fROA
6. Homosexuals should go to prison
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fozP2Wd6-wY