Money for Barry Chamish, No Money for Gush Katif Families
Over three tons of winter clothing arrived from America meant for expelled families from Gush Katif. Clothing drives were held for warm winter clothing for families who have been cut off from their clothing and posessions. While Israel shipped over 90 tons of relief supplies for Katrina evacuees, its own citizens expelled by their own government have been left without basic necesitties. People who have not forgotten their brothers and sisters, Jews and non-Jews, have stepped forwards and donated clothing, time and money to help.
Enter Barry Chamish.
Barry Chamish is a UFO researcher, conspiracy theorist and a Jewish holocaust denier who has become affiliated with some on the right, an affiliation that is entirely one sided because Chamish has always been out for himself and only himself. Of all the contempt, apathy and condescension directed at the refugees of Gush Katif, Chamish achieves a new disgusting low of hate and greed.
Chamish who has previously directed hateful and contemptous language at settlers that is the equal of anything Shulamit Aloni or Shinui have said and that we would all be condemning if someone on the left had written things like,
"So stop looking for handouts. Stop the sob stories of being forced out of hotels you thought the government was going to actually pay for. Quit the tales of misery and alienation."
"This is one of the better appeals for money for the Gush Katif refugees. Don't give them a nickel!"
"But more to the point: Screw You, Gush Katif."
"Nobody admires a beggar for long."
Now Chamish sinks to a new depth repeating his message and continuing to advocate against any donations to expelled families while smearing those same people.
"I further warned, that anyone who propped up their misery through charity would be dooming the refugees to permanent poverty. I wish it wasn't true, but all media reports illustrate that in just three months, the once thriving residents of Gush Katif have sunk into violence, despair, divorce, drug abuse, crime and hopelessness."
Let us look at these 'beggars' that Chamish sneers at, who according to him are now the lowest of the low, criminals and junkies. Deprived of money and basic necesitties, communities have stayed together and stuck together caring for each other and each other's children chipping in for generators and tents and sharing cooking duties. Atzmona completed a temporary school building and some residents are making plans to rebuild their towns on their own. The secretary of the former Alei Sinai refused to release the names of residents for charity requests because it would damage their dignity. These are Chamish's beggars.
Compare this to New Orleans, compare it to refugees in Africa and Indonesia, compare it to the Palestinians that Chamish has called for reducing them to.
"After the deluge, a friend of mine told me she had spent the day helping the Gush Katif refugees, bringing them food and setting up their computers. I asked her, "Are you nuts? You're not helping them, you're helping the "government" of Israel. They got them into this mess, now they can get them out of it. Learn from the Arabs already. Do not rehabilitate the refugees."
In Chamish's warped worldview, as in Sodom, charity is evil. The charity that has unified the refugees is evil. To give warm winter clothes to children now living in the cold of the Golan Heights is dooming them. Jews helping their fellow Jews is evil. Not quite though.
In a display of shameless greed that even shocked me, after the cry not to donate to the expelled families of Gush Katif, in the very same post; Barry Chamish called for donations...to himself.
As much disgusting displays as I have seen in the last year, the level of cynicsm involved in Chamish demanding donations for himself and condemning donations for refugee families is still shocking. There are depths to which people sink to that are almost incomprehensible.
After smearing the people who were thrown out of their homes and lost everything as criminals, junkies and human refuse who shouldn't even be given warm winter clothing, Chamish goes into a long convulted tale involving crooked publishers, the mafia (yes the mafia) and loan sharks and cries that he's on the verge of bankruptcy and in danger of his life and needs money and solicits donations.
It continues to be mindboggling to me how anyone who claims to be a Jew, who claims to have integrity, who claims to care about Israel and Yesha would associate themselves with such bottomfeeding filth. His work on the Rabin assasination does not begin to excuse everything he has done afterwards.
It does not excuse his Holocaust denial and his affilation with Neo-Nazis which has been extensively documented including his affiliation with Rense.com, a neo-nazi site which claims Jews are out to take over the world and supports Ernst Zundel, his accepting an invitation to a Holocaust denial conference to sell his books there and his claims that the Holocaust was funded and executed by Jews such as the Rothschilds.
He has obstructed the fight against disengagement with conspiracy theories, false rumors and random libels accusing anyone who disagrees with him of working for Shabak or the New World Order.
He has now turned into open and explicit greedy self-promotion while smearing the heroes of Gush Katif in vile ways that would be at home in Shinui or Meretz. His main outlets remain Neo-Nazi and conspiracy theory sites, yet he continues to be published and defended by Reuven Koret of Israel Insider and occasionally interviewed on Arutz 7. His rantings continue to be distributed and people defend him with variations on 'yes, well, but he was right about Rabin.'
He was right about Rabin but wrong to get in bed with Neo-Nazis, to smear the expelled refugees of Gush Katif as drug addicts and criminals, to promote Holocaust denial, to solicit money for himself while smearing those who really need it, to disgrace all of us with his very presence. It's past time to bring an end to Barry Chamish's presence on the right.
After a previous round of mocking the refugees, Chamish wrote to promote his own books; "I will be at your rally in Jerusalem. I will set up my table and hope my books fall into the right hands. Don't anyone ask me to dance."
Don't dance Barry, just go.