Open Hatred Towards the Basques

My own fault, I got distracted, and because of that, back in May, at his blog Transatlantic Intelligencer, John Rosenthal splurged in a bit more of openly racist Basque bashing withot a dutiful response from this blog.

John Rosenthal who likes to talk about gaps and how he is going to bridge them doesn't seem to see the huge gap in his own credibility.

While he devotes post after post to the right of Israel to exist and how evil are all of those who oppose that, he has no qualms when it comes to demonizing the Basque push for self determination.

He loves calling anyone a bit critical of Israel by the name of Anti-Semitic. If you dare to express an opinion that he might construe as a direct attack on Israel's god given right to exist he calls you a racist pig, a bigoted monster.

But then he entertains himself by labeling the Basque right to self determination as racist, because the Basques want a nation out of ethnic nationalism, and all nationalisms are bad but ethnic nationalisms are even worst.

Well, I am here to tell him that anyone that opposes the Basque god given right (whatever that means) to exist is a racist pig, a bigoted monster and an Anti-Basque.

And being Anti-Basque is just as bad being Anti-Semitic.

Now, what he did back in May on his post titled "M 11 Revisited" was to parrot the Barcepundit's pet conspiracy theory that Al Quaeda did not act alone during the March 2004 attacks in Madrid:

Islamist responsibility and sole Islamist responsibility – i.e. without the complicity of ETA – for the March 11 attacks in Madrid has become an article of faith for Spain’s ruling Socialist Party and its allies in the media, both national and international. When I say an “article of faith”, I mean this quite literally. Spain’s crusading “anti-terror” judge Baltasar Garzón famously declared that any collaboration between ETA and the Islamists was “metaphysically impossible”. That being the case, facts apparently do not matter. It might not be very reassuring for Spaniards that the country’s leading investigative judge would adopt such an attitude.

What facts?

Where are these facts?

Only Franco Alemán and a few PP loonies who jack off to pictures of Francisco Franco saluting Adolph Hitler are saying that.

It there was any evidence, the Spanish government would be all over it.

Something that Johnny does not seem to understand is that when it comes to repressing the Basques, the PSOE is not different from the PP.

Otherwise Morantinos would not have spent time in Mexico demanding the extradition of the six Basques imprisoned in that country waiting for a Supreme Court resolution on their case. Nor would Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Baltasar Garzón's replacement, continue to prosecute four members of EHAK even if that means going against a report by Public Prosecutor Jesús Santos who stated that there was no verification of any crimes.

But to show you just how ignorant John is of what it is going on in Spain, here you have this paragraph:

BTW, on the political front, there is a further development in Spain that bears very close watching: namely, the Spanish Socialist Party’s effective rupture of its “anti-terrorism pact” with the other major national party, the PP [Popular Party], and its making common cause with the smaller “nationalist” – i.e. regional “nationalist” (or, in other words, ethnic-nationalist) – parties in offering to open negotiations with ETA. A precedent is being set and the significance of it - recall Zapatero's plea before the UN General Assembly for a "Dialogue of Cultures" - extends well beyond Spain. I hope and expect we will be hearing much more about it on Barcepundit in the days and weeks ahead.

It is the other way around mister, the ones walking away from the Anti-Terrorism Pact are the member of the PP, out of pure spite for having lost the election due to their lies and their nostalgia for Francoist style rule.

If not, why would French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy go to Spain to tell Rodriguez Zapatero we are here for you on your fight against ETA?

Finally, within the comments to this post, he answers someone that left a comment with this pearl:

Virtually every politically organized and officially recognized ethnic-nationalist movement in Europe denies it is ethnic-nationalist. This is also so for the most virulent ones: the Corsican and the Basque nationalist movements, for instance. Their leaders know that it is not exactly politically correct to say that one is a racist. Both Ibarretxe in the Basque Country and Talamoni in Corsica insist nowadays that they are defending a “civic” conception of nationality.

Ah!

Now even Ibarretxe is a virulent ethnic nationalist. Virulent as in the violence by ETA, meaning, for John Rosenthal, Basques that decry and condemn violence are just the same as the members of ETA.

Here goes one more sampler of his twisted logic:

If it is merely “civic” nationalism that inspires them, why not be satisfied with their status as citizens of Spain and France, which are, after all, precisely civic nations?

So, I answer with another question:

Why do the Jews need Israel?

Couldn't they be satisfied by keeping their status as citizens of Spain, France, Germany, the USA, Canada or Russia?

You see, unlike John who hates the Basques and simple refuses the idea of a Basque homeland, I in fact recognize the right of Israel to be. I understand how and why it came to be.

I also recognize the right of Palestine to exist, as a matter of fact, the right of Palestine and Israel to exist go hand in hand.

I do not approve of many of the actions by the Israelis in Palestine, and I condemn every single act of violence in which innocent Israelis and Palestinians die.

Why?

Because unlike John Rosenthal who acts in accordance to dogmas and paradigmas, I understand that history is a flowing process and that no people in this world should live under the booth of any occupying or colonialist power.

Why does he hate the Basques so rabidly?

Only he knows.

Funny thing is, for as much as he hates Hitler and the Nazis, one has to wonder if he knows what they did to the Basques.

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