Larry: You write well, if somewhat overheated. A few points. 1-I didn’t lecture you about Israel or anything else. 2-i do think you’re painting an overly black picture. firstly, haaretz is the “intellectual” paper in Israel but it is hardly the “paper of record” or for that matter anywhere near the best-selling daily, as you well know; nor is it routinely “anti-israel”. Some writers and editors are; others aren’t. 3-Meretz IS insignificant, if Israel had a first-past-the-post system they wouldn’t have a single parliamentarian. Conversely, if, say, Canada (where i’m from) had pure proportional representation we’d have parties far crazier, and, i daresay, more self-destructive, than Meretz. 4- there have always been self-hating jews. My parents and grandfathers, who hailed from poland, told me stories about “shabbasgoys” who would stand in front of shuls on yom kippur eating pork. There were kapos who enjoyed their cruelty. There have always been Jews who converted to Christianity, became inquisitors, etc. etc. You think it’s a pathology that you have a cousin who is anti-israeli; i can assure you, it’s the same everywhere, with all peoples, only the stakes are higher in Israel. I do sympathize, but I still think you need to take a chill pill.

I agree with Larry that the “The Oslo Syndrome” is a good explanation for Jewish appeasement of their oppressors. Author Kenneth Levin fails, however, to discuss how traditional rabbinism has ill-prepared the Jewish people for the world of nations. Neither has Ruth Wisse in her book, “Jews and Power”. Although the rabbis, in general, taught their people self control (see Richard L. Rubinstein, “The Religious Imagination”) under powerless circumstances, they offered little practical guidance where a Jewish state and some Diaspora communities can apply many more tools.

I believe that the best way I can do is to support the pro-Zionist organizations here in the US and let people know I support Israel. If they strongly disagree, I offer some logical arguments. If that fails, I just shrug my shoulders and move on. They get more bent out of shape than I do. The local anti-Zionists who know me fume at my calm, quiet effrontery. They think I have a hotline to the Mossad. But it’s important to persistently offer a counter-narrative, else the bad guys completely dominate the field. Fortunately, many non-Jewish Americans share that counter-narrative.

A whole political party is insane, even if it is a marginal one (Meretz). If Israel was only semi-sane Meretz would not even exist. Just in the last four days I have met two North American JINOs who fit the pattern I describe, I have only met three North American Jews in the last few days and two of them fit the pattern! Maybe that was a bad little run but it is hardly unusual. I have one aunt and two uncles in TA who are also filled with Jewish self-loathing. I know them and you don’t. At least one cousin of same type. Actually only one cousin filled with self-loathing thank HaShem. However the fact that I am grateful only one cousin of mine is a self-loathing Jew tells you how insane things are. In a sane or even semi-sane society I should not have to be grateful that only one of my first cousins is a self-hating Jew. It ought to be as rare as having a family relative think he is Napolean or Julius Ceasar or the messiah himself. It isn’t that rare or unusual among Ashkenazi Jews (especially in TA), unfortunately not. Many of the Westerners (esp Europeans) who visit here are anti-Semitic, simple fact as many Israelis can tell you, as are many of the Arab Muslim population in Israel proper. Many of course are not, thankfully.

It is not so much self-loathing alone or even predominantly, it is denial, and I mean extreme DENIAL rooted in a wilfull ignorance of Middle-East realities, because the reality is too difficult to bear. A seperate parallel reality is where many Jews live, a fairyland, one that has no bearing to the real world at all, this is in fact a major neurosis and its consequences can be deadly to us. In fact there was a very good book on this subject by Harvard pyschiatrist Kenneth Levin entitled ‘Oslo Syndrome – Delusions of a People under Siege’. Of course this is a syndrome hardly unique to Jews, but what Levin calls Oslo Syndrome is its peculiar Jewish variant. Robin Shepard is arguably more of a Jew than most English language Diaspora Jewry (and sleepwalking North American Jews for sure), and when I say that, it is intended as a compliment.

He applies his inexpertise to the abuse and murder of children writing foul invective against those whose duties are employed in the protection of innocents against the malign intentions of their guardians. He is a bully.