When Zionism Is Racism: Ron Dermer And Bibi Netanyahu, On The Record

[Purveyor]

When Zionism is racism: Ron Dermer and Bibi Netanyahu, on the record

By Larry Derfner |Published July 10, 2013

Ron Dermer, who was named by Netanyahu yesterday to be Israel’s new ambassador to the United States, is known as an even more right-wing Republican version of his boss. Haaretz‘s Barak Ravid wrote:

Dermer’s positions on policy are far more extreme than Netanyahu’s. European and American officials have expressed shock by his positions on the settlement issue, on peace talks with the Palestinians, and on the principle of an independent Palestinian state.
It gets worse, though. Dermer is also a proud champion of about the ugliest possible anti-Arab views, having defended Bibi publicly when his mentor made the single most offensively racist remark of his career, which is going some.

This episode took place at the beginning of January 2007, when Netanyahu was out of power, preparing his run for the prime ministership again, and wanting to mend fences with the supremely important ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) voting bloc. They had supported Netanyahu en masse in his successful 1996 race, but he had alienated them in the early 2000s as finance minister in the Sharon government, when he slashed government child subsidies, which badly hurt large, poor families, who are especially prevalent among two population groups: the Haredim and the Israeli Arabs. So Netanyahu went to talk to a gathering of Haredi municipal officials, putting a positive spin on the cuts he’d imposed. His speech was written up in Haaretz and Yedioth Ahronoth. From the latter:

In his speech, Netanyahu referred to the cuts in child pensions, saying that since they were implemented “two positive things happened: members of the Haredi public seriously joined the workforce. And on the national level, the unexpected result was the demographic effect on the non-Jewish public, where there was a dramatic drop in the birth rate.”

MORE...

http://972mag.com/when-zionism-is-racism-bibi-netanyahu-and-ron-dermer-on-the-record/75515/

[oberliner]

1. If there's anybody who knows racists, it's Larry Derfner

The irony of Larry Derfner taking these statements and condemning them in this fashion while staunchly defending the "misunderstood" Greta Berlin's "Zionists Ran the Holocaust and the Concentration Camps" comment is staggering.

That anyone could publish anything this man writes is a baffling mystery.

[azurnoir]

2. and Ron Dermer what's your opinion of him?

not that I expect an answer, seems you just drive by to drop a nugget of ummm 'wisdom'

[delrem]

3. This quote is thought provoking:

Ron Dermer, at the time the Minister of Economic Affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, defended the statement in a sarcastic reply in the Post titled “The nerve of Bibi”:

/quote/ Netanyahu was caught red-handed. Who would have thought that an Israeli leader circa 2007 could think, let alone say, something so shocking? And we thought the quaint notion that leaders of the Jewish state wanted more Jews than non-Jews in it was passe. /unquote/
___________________

delrem: As concise as a slim silver stake through the heart of *them*.

[oberliner]

4. This is the first I've heard of him

Seems like a typical RW conservative, Israeli-version.

[Scootaloo]

6. Having grown tired of your constant whining, I decided to go have a read...

You're referring to this article by Derfner, with your incessant griping, aren't you?

He's not arguing that Berlin is "misunderstood." He's arguing that interested sources are guilty of a lie of omission regarding her. He points out that context is not only missing from the Berlin story, but was actively removed. In fact, to the point that until digging up the particular article there, I was actually unaware there as more context (go figure!)

As we have seen from your fellow "Liberal Zionist" poster Shira, among others, this story has since been used to characterize absolutely everyone involved even marginally with Free Gaza as being a "Greta Berlin Jew-hater," in an obvious effort to smear the entire organization and absolutely anything / everything it has ever done.

I've got no idea what's going on in Berlin's head, if she's telling the truth in her apology or not. But I can say given the obvious interest bias on the part of those who "reported" about her, and the frequency with which they lie to me about pretty much everything, I can't say I'm particularly inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, either.

And you're not exactly elevating yourself any at all - after all, your entire thrust here is to equate Derfner with Berlin, and then utilize that contrived "link" as an effort to silence him and 927mag as a whole from use as a source on DU.

[bemildred]

5. Starving kids so Mom won't have more. Well, nothing original about that.

A bit more overt than usual.