Trolls are nasty creatures that live under bridges. They’re also people who post deliberately insulting or false messages in online forums, hoping to get angry responses. This turns them on. Or something. Here’s one explanation of trolls and trolling.
Recently a friend of mine posted a message on some kind of list about recent antisemitic incidents in France. Here is what he got in return:
Dear David,
I appreciate your concern for the Jews of France, but it seems that the French people are blamed for a fire that the Jews themselves started. This is 100% an Arab-Israeli conflict fought on French soil. Every incident that you point out was executed by Arabs.
It is not the fault of the French people that IDF snipers use Gaza children for target practice. It is not the fault of the French people that Israel recently had its ass handed to it in Lebanon and retaliated against civilians by leaving millions of land mines behind following the retreat. It is not really the fault of the French people that a Jewish prime minister of France (Mendes-France) opened the floodgates of cheap Arab labor into France, spawning a population that the Jews ultimately could not control.
Frankly, since most French Jews’ primary allegiance is to Israel, and their French Arab cousins’ primary allegiance is to “Muslim brotherhood,” perhaps both parties could be deported to the Middle East where they could learn to love each other or annihilate each other. Ultimately, they are the same people. Even a recent study in Israel found that more Biblical Jewish blood flows through Palestinian veins than any other people on earth, followed by Sephardim [sic] Jews, then Ashkenazim [sic] Jews- who were virtually unrelated to the other two.
My father was a non-religious Kohanim [sic] Jew, disowned by his family when he married a Catholic. I think that I’ll crack open a bottle of French wine to celebrate the fact that he was a great man who didn’t buy into a bunch of religious nonsense. I hope that the French can remain neutral in this Arab-Israeli affair. I hope that the United States can become neutral.
It’s worth looking at how this uses so many of the smear/troll techniques that we’ve unfortunately become used to. Here are some of the outright lies, distortions, and antisemitic themes that appear in the above:
- IDF snipers use Gaza children for target practice…
- Israel…retaliated against civilians by leaving millions of land mines behind…
Israeli soldiers do not use any Arabs of any age for ‘target practice’. Period.
And Israel did not leave ‘millions’ of ‘land mines’ in Lebanon. The writer is probably referring to unexploded cluster bombs. Cluster bombs were used against the rocket launchers — deliberately sited by Hezbollah in populated areas — that were wreaking havoc in northern Israel. They are very effective for this purpose, but some percentage (not ‘millions’) of them did not explode and remain dangerous. This is hardly the same thing.
- …most French Jews’ primary allegiance is to Israel…
The old antisemitic ‘disloyalty’ accusation.
- …a Jewish prime minister of France (Mendes-France) opened the floodgates of cheap Arab labor into France, spawning a population that the Jews ultimately could not control.
Here’s a good old Jewish conspiracy theory: Mendes-France allegedly allowed Arabs into France to help the Jewish capitalists! Nothing to do with Algeria, De Gaulle, etc. Poor Pierre, whom I remember primarily for a quixotic attempt to get the French to drink milk instead of wine.
- Even a recent study in Israel found that more Biblical Jewish blood flows through Palestinian veins than any other people on earth, followed by Sephardim [sic] Jews, then Ashkenazim [sic] Jews- who were virtually unrelated to the other two.
This one is interesting, because it appears on neo-Nazi and Arab hate sites. Actually, the studies (not ‘study’) that the writer refers to have suggested that “…most of the various Jewish ethnic divisions and the Palestinians — and in some cases other Levantines — are genetically closer to each other than the Palestinians to the original Arabs of Arabia or [European] Jews to non-Jewish Europeans”. (Wikipedia). Of course, nothing is known about ‘biblical Jewish blood’!
So I suggest that the writer open another bottle of wine (I personally prefer wine from California or Israel) and go back to his or her post under the bridge.
Technorati Tags: antisemitism, troll, Israel, France
The problem is that it is impossible to have the time and patience required to respond to the hundreds, perhaps thousands of slanderous, erroneous posts which appear in regard to Israel every day. I often post on the ‘Haaretz’ site and the ‘Israel- bashers’ there too abound in misinformation, ignorance and wild unjustified accusation.
This is one of the problems not simply of the ‘Internet’ but of the human condition in general.