Monday, February 09, 2009

John Hari Goes Semantically Nazi

John Hari writes:

Israel is about to make a misjudgement as disastrous – and deadly – as the attack on Gaza. In a few days, it looks as if it could elect Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister once again.

This is a man calling for the violent re-occupation of Gaza to "liquidate" its elected government.


Of course, being an extreme radical progressive liberal leftwinger, and dumb, he was 'borrowing' from Haaretz's Gideon Levy, who wrote:

In his remarks at the Herzliya Conference this week Netanyahu said Israel halted the Gaza operation too soon and should have liquidated the Hamas regime in Gaza. After all, we are experts at liquidation. In 1987 Likud liquidated the Peres-Hussein London Agreement, which would have handed control of the West Bank over to Jordan's King Hussein - a solution that any right-thinking person longs for today. In its stead, we got Yasser Arafat, with whom an agreement could have been reached, but Netanyahu chose to liquidate this option as well. Instead of Arafat, we got Hamas, and after Netanyahu "liquidates" it as well, we will get Islamic Jihad and, after that, Al-Qaida.


Now, I heard Netanyahu in Hebrew and he used the verb למוטט which simply means to "knock down" or "to cause to collapse" (see here).

So, why should Levy use Nazi semantics and Hari follow suit?

Could they hate Netanyahu that much?

Sure.

After all, aren't they crazy? For them, Nazism is a weapon to use especially directed at Jews.


P.S. His email is j.hari@independent.co.uk

8 comments:

g said...

Why does Progressive necessary have to be "extreme radical"?
They don't call for revolution or any kind of anarchy. Just progressive left, i consider myself one and can absolutely relate to Levy, but don't think of myself as a radical or extreme.
I don't think they hate Nataneyahu either, but are concerned about their country.
"For them, Nazism is a weapon to use especially directed at Jews." This is overstatement.
He uses liquidate in context of liquidate regime, liquidate option, liquidate agreement, which is quite different than liguidate someone semantically.

YMedad said...

Galia, no. Not when you place liquidate in quotation marks. Doing that, you intentionally mean to convey a Nazi imagery especially as there is a Hebrew word for liquidate: לטהר and Levy didn't use it and Hari didn't think twice about using it that way.

g said...

Why can't Jews get over the Holocaust?
There's been a lot of persecutions of Russians during WW2 by Nazis and Communist,but the majority of the population has healed till now.
You people need to let it go! Let go of this victim consciousness!Crying out and searching for nazism where it doesn't exist won't do you a service. Move on!

YMedad said...

Because unlike national conflicts, territorial battles, etc., the Holocaust was sui generis. And the world stood by. Twelve years of persecution ignored and it led ultimately not to massacres like in Bosnia and Kosovo but death camps and gassing and medical experiments and ghettos.

Sorry, Galia, you won't succeed on this issue. Move on, get over it, dear.

g said...

Yisrael, i have no problem moving on from the topic, only i believe that it's in the interest of Jewish people to move on and an absolute condition for the future peace.
You should not teach your children to fear and hate the world because of your past (this will only hold you in the past and will take you nowhere), but give them a vision of possibility of peace, teach forgiveness, trust and respect for all. I'll move on from the topic, you move on from the Holocaust.

P.S. Thanks for refreshing Latin for me.

g said...

Today as i was listening to the news, they were talking about the same issue with the author of this book

http://www.powells.com/biblio/0230607527?&PID=32669

If you don't trust my opinion, maybe you'll listen to the one of a Jew

YMedad said...

Galia, I know Avrum well. He can;t get over the fact that he was raised in a national/religious Zionist household (his father was a longtime MK and Minister. He went Left, almost was arrested for financial shennanigans, took out French citizenship, etc.

g said...

You mean the fact that he was raised in a national/religious Zionist household made him into what?

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/12/former_speaker_of_the_israeli_parliament
He makes a lot of sense to me, and i don't think of myself as left or right, but independent. Are you saying his "leftist" views on Israeli future are erroneous or that he doesn't really care for Israel?