I love this radical Aussie magazine. Nexus has been coming to my home for at least ten years, probably longer. I don’t believe every suppressed science & UFO conspiracy theory printed in its pages, but there’s always something stimulating and provocative to read. Plus it has funny cartoons.
My one complaint is that this magazine periodically runs a blame-Israel piece. Some piece of excrement like: the tragedy of 9/11 was orchestrated by Israel!! In the current issue was a glowing book review of a book that blames Israel while also pointing out that people who blame Israel come under fire for being anti-Semitic.
Well, Duh. Blaming Israel–for 9/11, the war in Iraq, or any other evil in the world–is just the next layer of the anti-Semitic onion. People have been blaming Jews for stuff for the past 2000 years. If the pages of NEXUS are any indication, they will be doing so for the next 2000, too–only shifting the level of discourse slightly to blaming Israel.
It’s not just NEXUS that does this. My beloved MI-5 ran an episode with an evil Israeli extremist. Here’s a question: why wouldn’t Israelis be hyper-defensive, when their immediate neighbors want to annihilate them? I don’t watch MI-5 anymore. But I will still get NEXUS, enjoy the articles, and wonder why an otherwise open-minded periodical persists in prejudice against Jews.
Actually, people have been blaming Israel for things for more than 2000 years. Israel has been picked on and hated by many cultures before Christianity existed. The Palestinian/Phillistine dislike goes back all the way to the time of Moses and Joshua. There was also the situation with Haman. When you say 2000 years you imply that Christianity is solely responsible for this hating. I DO believe that Christianity –especially the European and Roman Catholic expression of it– has definitely created anti-Jewishness. But hatred against the Jewish people has existed long before Christians.
A thought: My Arab friends tend to dislike the idea of Semite being defined as Jewish only. IT is a bit like folks in the United States calling themselves Americans when Latin America is also part of the Americas. Arabs are also Semitic.
Anti-Jewishness also connects to the rise in many population of certain populations. Anti-Jewishness in France for instance totally surprised me and my friend Yvonne who is a Jew who was raised there. Back in the day she felt free to walk about. But the rise of the Muslim population has made the lives of French Jews hell. So, in this case, it’s an age-old cultural hatred between Arabs (muslims or not) and Jews that still exists.
There are also many Africans who dislike Jews for some reason I can’t fathom. I think it has to do with Israel and the help it gave to South Africa. Many Africans and Muslims live in Britain but I don’t know if that has to do with the anti-jewishness. Anyway, just saying that throwing out generalized statements don’t help the cause of religious tolerance if you’re hinting that Christians SOLEY are behind Jewish Oppression. At Purim, most of my Jewish friends remember that they survived as a people….and they don’t limit their suffering to the last 2000 years.