Rechts Extremisme Toont Haar Extreme Gezicht
Commentaar Wim Duzijn 2002
Rechts extremisme neemt uiterst gevaarlijke vormen aan wanneer intellectuelen het werken onmogelijk wordt gemaakt.
In alle Stalinistische staten van de wereld verdwenen en verdwijnen intellectuelen in strafkampen. Dat was de reden waarom de voormalige Sovjet-Unie geen socialistische staat was, omdat in die staat kritische intellectuelen monddood werden gemaakt.
Stalinisten (welke ideologische kleur ze ook mogen hebben) zijn altijd intellectuelenhaters.
Daarbij maken ze onderscheid tussen fatsoenlijke, moreel hoogstaande (gecastreerde) intellectuelen, de collaborateurs die tegen betaling alles zeggen wat de machthebbers horen willen, en kritische, onafhankelijke intellectuelen, die tegen alle onderdrukking in de stem van hun geweten volgen en die derhalve, vanwege het feit dat ze afwijken van de algemene norm, mensen zonder moraal worden genoemd.
Hoewel de Sovjet-Unie inmiddels is verdwenen is het Stalinisme (Stalin betekent 'man van ijzer') nog altijd niet dood.
Onder het mom van anti-semitisme-bestrijding probeert nu het Joods Wereld Congres, via haar woordvoerder Avi Becker, Westerse regeringen ertoe te bewegen kritische intellectuelen het zwijgen op te leggen.
Intellectuelen (met name linkse intellectuelen) hebben volgens Avi Becker een verbond gesloten met fundamentalisten en terroristen en dienen daarom als gevaarlijke personages te worden aangemerkt, moreel inferieure wezens die de 'morele kracht' van het Westen dreigen aan te tasten.
Uit het artikel van Avi Becker zijn de volgende fragmenten afkomstig.
Anti-Semitism in the guise of intellectualism
The decline in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe and elsewhere in recent months is deceiving. In light of international criticism, particularly by the U.S., some European governments undertook aggressive enforcement measures that for the meantime are preventing violent outbreaks against Jews. But the statistics are misleading and hide anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic trends that have taken up a central position among intellectuals and academics worldwide. Instead of burning synagogues and violent harassment of Jewish children or rabbis, a campaign of incitement is underway under cover of intellectualism.
Intellectuals and civil rights activists try to explain that the attacks on Jews and terror against Israel are, in fact, Israel's fault. Their analysis combines delegitimization of the state of Israel with traditional anti-Semitic motifs and stereotypes. According to any objective criteria, this is a new wave of anti-Semitism, unprecedented since the end of World War II, and so far it is difficult to find any sense of responsibility for it among statesmen and intellectuals.
Harvard University President Lawrence Summers recently raised a cry about the moral decline of intellectuals. A former Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration, Summers defined himself in the graduation speech at the university as an inactive Jew who had never encountered anti-Semitism in his life. In the past, he explained, he rejected attempts to label criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. But now, he said, anti-Semitism is no longer the monopoly of the lowest ranks of right-wing extremists, but is taking root among enlightened intellectuals whose anti-Israeli attitudes are characterized by anti-Semitic activity.
The new anti-Semitism eclipses reason and morality, obfuscating concepts. The unholy alliance between European leftists whose ranks include academics and intellectuals, and fundamentalists and Islamic terror, endangers Israel and the Jews, and threatens the moral strength of Western culture.
By Avi Becker, Ha'aretz 5-10-2002
The writer is the secretary general of the World Jewish Congress.
Jewish Congress Says World Jewish Population Shrinking
According to the survey, released in September, there are a total of 13.5 million Jews in the world, which is less than the total population of Madagascar or Cameroon. Of these, the largest community is 5.6 million Jews living in the United States. The second largest group is 4.9 Jews living in Israel. The third largest Jewish community is 600,000 Jews living in France.
Other Jewish populations include Russia, 400,000; Canada, 360,000; Great Britain and Ukraine, 280,000 each; Argentina, 220,000; Germany, 71,000; Iran, 25,000; Panama, 7,000; Hong Kong, 2,500; Gibraltar, 650; Yemen, 400; Syria, 100.
The most startling claim made in the survey is that because of low birthrates and high intermarriage, the Jewish population of 8.6 million living outside Israel may decline by 50 percent within a generation.
Assimilatie is een bedreiging voor het Jodendom
Niet -Israelische Joden zijn te modern
Jews are found today in more than 100 countries. But outside Israel there has been no natural growth in any Jewish community, and in some the number of births is below the number of deaths.
“In Western societies today, Jews are known to be more modern than the society around them,” Avi Becker said. “Jews today in Western societies are among the least married, with fewer children than the people around them. The growing rate of divorce and the growing number of singles in Jewish communities contributes to negative growth, in addition to growing assimilation.” (Washington Report of Middle East Affairs, 1998)