It's not just what he said, it's the whole performance of it.
Conversation
And I suspect they *are* racist towards Israelis, but in much the same way as a Nazi is racist towards me, with my overly Norwegian features.
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The twistiness of American conservatives' "philo-semitism" is how it is a love for Jews as we are or Israelis as they are but rather a lot of their fantasy of what the imagine Israelis to be ... an invention that emerges from their anti-semitism.
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Not sure if I can follow your priors for that final clause.
I do understand what you mean about fantasies, of course. I've had creepy racial traits projected on me by "well-meaning" fascists more times than I'd like.
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The Israelis of conservatives' imagination do not really exist; they reflect a shallow understanding of real Israelis filtered through their unconscious antisemitism.
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An even more extreme example: a White US minstrel show audience in 1910 imagines that they are seeing some kind of portrayal of Black people as they are, because their anti-Black bigotry makes the differences from real people invisible to them.
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I understand the minstrel show reference now. I'd forgotten the exact meaning and had it stored as "theatrical quackery" a la P. T. Barnum. My bad.
I don't know if you can apply the same argument to US conservatives, but I can believe you'd know that better than me.
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My reflexive disagreement is in two parts:
1) Nazis don't seem to subconsciously hate me because they ascribe me a bunch of traits *I* find heinous.
2) I feel the wider filter US neocons and Nazis have in common is narcissistic self-orientation, almost like Han-era Sinocentrism.
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So in this view it's less about antisemitism, more they rate anyone else by how close to "American" their culture is supposed to be.
But I do realize the US has its own history with antisemitism, which complicates the model a lot.
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Yeah, this American pattern is very peculiar. I don't know of a good comparable example.
I mean, conservative evangelicals "love" Jews because we are creating the conditions for Christ's return, when we will either repent our failure to recognize him or burn in Hell.
Weird.
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As mentioned, I think historical Sinocentrism is it. Or Republican Rome.
You are worthy to the extent of your proximity, affinity, likeness and so on.
But unless you're From Here, you're still a barbarian.