Dean Esmay, hypocrite
Okay, I know, it’s just adding fuel to the fire, but y’know, they don’t call me the Master of Juvenile Scorn™ for nothing.
So that big post Dean put up about my refusing to agree with him over Rabbi Kahane’s Open Letter to the World? The one where he calls me a “Kahane apologist” and goes apeshit in the comments?
All I said was that Kahane’s letter is true. Which is, frankly, mostly what Dean said in his earlier post:
Otherwise, I must say I agree with damn near everything in that video.
So, even though he acknowledges the truth of the video, he can’t seem to get off the topic that Kahane wrote the text, and he seems to think he can browbeat me into agreeing with him that Kahane was a terrorist. Three words, Dean: Not. Gonna. Happen.
You know, the Google search engine is a wonderful thing. Why, look what I found with only a cursory search: It seems that as recently as July of this year, Dean didn’t give a damn about people expressing far more favorable opinions of Kahane than I. In fact, he let many instances of commenters and co-bloggers discussing Kahane’s good points go by without saying a thing. No rants about his being a terrorist, no calling them apologists.
This one’s from July, in the comments to a post by Ron Coleman. In fact, co-blogger Ron Coleman said much of what I said about Kahane, and yet, Dean did not go batshit on Ron.
I do know that Meir Kahane’s interest in the State of Israel was based on his love of the Torah, of God and of the Jewish people. I heard him speak in Chicago and a close relative of mine knew him and wrote a biography of him. His views were largely characatured. I was not a follower of his, however; not a topic for this thread. But Arnold, you’re just wrong: Kahane’s views were closer to mine than to yours.
Huh. Go figure. Here his co-blogger is, in Dean’s word, a Kahane apologist. And yet, no vitriol. I don’t get it.
In the very next comment, a regular commenter at Dean’s blog says that Kahane was no racist. And yet, Dean does not call him a “Kahane apologist” either.
And I can tell you for a fact that Kahane was no racist. He was in fact a jewish nationalist, whose views and practices were probably closer to the middle eastern Jews from the islamic lands than the Ashkenazim who constitute most of american Jewry. I know for certain that was one of the reasons the israeli cultural and governmental establishment hated and feared him. Because many of them have racist attitudes about their sefardi and oriental Jews.
I am SO at a loss to explain these discrepancies.
Here’s one from a few years ago where the same commenter says he would support Kahane if he lived in Israel (well, and if he hadn’t been murdered by an Islamic terrorist), and yet, no chastisement from Dean. Okay, it’s from 2003. I can accept the argument that Dean has changed his mind in the past few years. But since July 14, 2006? I’m thinking there’s something else at work here.
And look at this! Another one from Arnold Harris complimenting Kahane, and this one’s—wait for it—from August 16, 2006! Holy cow, that’s only three months ago! Why, it’s as if Dean only got his mad on for Kahane in my case, and ignored it in the others. But no, Dean wouldn’t be that disingenuous, would he?
Of course he would. That is Dean in a nutshell. He likes to throw mud in every direction, see what sticks, and then whine that he didn’t mean to get anyone mad, all the while crying that people are being mean to him. I know it, he knows it, hell, even his own regular readers know it, and say as much in his comments. You’d think he’d be at least a little embarrassed by now. You would be wrong.
For instance, that “personal favor” he talks about in the beginning of his post? The post that started the argument that led to my split from Dean’s little part of the blogosphere was a post with the phrase “To Judith Weiss, Meryl Yourish, and all the other resentful feminists I know.” I asked him to please remove it from Google’s cache, as I’ve been on job hunts and it comes up on the first search page when you Google my name. He did, and I was grateful. But I wouldn’t call that a favor. I would call that a long-overdue removal of an insult. Then again, that’s just me. (If you find that you simply must see the origin of the tiff, here’s a post that sums it all up. The rest you’ll have to find for yourselves.)
I figure by now Dean has caught on to my answers to the question he asks in his post. But just in case, one more time: No.
