When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place.How bizarre is that? As The Fink points out, it is now seemingly mainstream to talk about this idea that "the Jews" are in control. Worrying indeed.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Dawkins on the Jewish monopoly of power?
Danny Finkelstein has spotted and interesting interview with Richard Dawkins on the Guardian website. Dawkins says,
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Let's talk about fact. Is anything Dawkins says untrue? Is it not true that AIPAC led the charge for invasions in Iraq and now Iran? Are they not a very influential group in American foreign policy? He didn't say religious Jews controlled the world. He said "as far as many people can see" religious Jews "more or less monopolise" American foreign policy. He then extrapolates what a small proportion of that power in the hands of atheists could do to make the world a better place.
His comments aren't mainstream. It is very rare to hear anyone with a public profile to even suggest what he has. Dawkins is again breaking new ground. I don't see anything wrong with his comments but I do see how some people have fallen for the usual PC brigade faux indignation. The same one were not so long ago you couldn't talk about immigration or multiculturalism or crime amongst ethnic minorities without being called a racist.
Same old, same old. Make any rational comment about Jews and by implication Israel (Americas main foreign policy area) and you are considered anti-Semitic.
Of course to a degree he is anti-Semitic because he is also anti-Christian, anti-Islam and anti all religion.
Both Mr Finkelstein and you are trying to make something out of nothing. Dawkins may be factually correct - if so who's complaining? If Dawkins is incorrect, then his conjecture about atheists may not rightly follow. So what?
Either way, he is patently not trying to make a racist point - he is talking of the success of a particular lobby which just happens to be Jewish, and that were a lobby of atheists to have similar success the world would be better off.
Too sensitive by far, but I'm sure to get abuse from you, as is the apparent fate of anybody who disagrees with you.
If the atheists got together then it would mean that they are united by a belief...that there is nothing to believe in. The BBC has got atheism on its list of religions. I'm so confused now.
I think the assumption that being an atheist will make you better able to improve the world is pretty dangerous too. Aren't communists, by definition, atheists???
Thats lifted out of his book "the god delusion" if memory serves
What a load of total bollocks. It's a fact that the 'Jewish lobby' has been extremely effective in winning influence in Washington, and it's not anti-semitic to say to; in fact, I think it's admirable in the sense that other political campaign groups can (and indeed have) learnt from it. Plus Jewish doesn't equal 'Israeli political lobby'. Oh and some of my best friends are Jewish. Etc.
This uni-dimensional over-simplification is beneath you Dizzy, you're more intelligent than that.
Very interesting comments in here. The usual demarcation of Israel and Jews. Dawkins didn't talk about Israel, he's talking about Jews very specific and America foreign policy as a whole, not American foreign toward Israel. Of course it is correct to say that the two things are not the same, however, and in response to Kate, Dawkins does not talk about the "Israeli political lobby" he's talking about Jews and saying they monopolise American foreign policy. THe fact is that their religo-ethnicity and the fact they work in foreign affairs not just about Israel is utterly irrelevant.
Turn it on it's head for a second and ask what people's reaction would have been if Dawkins had talked about "blacks" monopolizing American foreign policy. This is not about conflating criticism of Israel with anti-antisemitism, because Dawkins hasn't criticised Israel, nor is about political correctness. It is about the fact that Dawkins is drawing a connection between someone's religio-ethnicity and their influence and seeing the two as a necessitated connection. It's just as possible that the Jewiush guys working in the State Department are really clever too, and you know, just good at their job. Their jewishness is irrelevant.
Atheism is a religious position, because it is definite on a point that cannot be proved.
The Oxford professor whom you are discussing is a clever manipulator: he has you mentioning his name now. I strongly suspect that he is on what old hippies would call an ego trip.
As to atheism improving the world, remember Stalin, Mao (Stalin's protege) and others of their kind.
Atheism may not be a mainstream view in the sense that most people aren't atheists; but it seems to be a fashion among the intellectual and media elite. A badge of cleverness, perhaps.
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