Originally posted by EricD

Originally posted by Chilled1

Which essentially means that their isolationism has led to their beliefs of racist supremacy... I know jews that say "Oh- I'm Ashkenazi Jew and we're the smartest race of people".. to that I say go (blank) your racist self. It's also disturbing the way you reference these "views" are used by anti-semites- well, honey, that is ploy- if anyone is to raise any of these views you are a racist, anti-semite, nazi, blah blah blah blah.. because I'm a jew blah blah blah blah.. It's really quite a pathetic ploy to denounce and suppress any intelligent dialog .

Fake jew or non-fake jew your argument doesn't paint any better picture and as one other poster stated- certainly doesn't justify their actions against the helpless Palestinian people that they have been starving and imprisoning with in the Gaza borders, prior to and following Israel's military attacks. Rocket and tanks versus stones and home-made rockets.. 417+ lives vs 6 Israeli lives.. Give me a break.. We pro-Palestinian posters still have a lot to be upset about.

I should probably read the whole thread to see if anyone replied to this yet, but I'm feeling a bit lazy and churlish.

Could you please clarify a bit of what you have written here? Was it Ashley that you were calling 'honey'? Were you claiming that she identifies herself as a Jew? Is it your contention that this thread and especially the OP were not a catalyst for intelligent discourse?

Are you having difficulties in separating this thread from the issue of the current state of the Israel/Palestinian conflict? Do you really think that anyone is saying that pro-Palestinian posters don't have anything to be upset about or that the op is an attempt to mute dialog? Or was that just a very obvious strawman argument?

I apologize in advance if I'm just being dense here.

Eric

In light of all evidence, most scholars and historians have rejected or abandoned the conspiracy theory altogether. The remaining proponents of the theory generally consist of various groups and organizations seeking to undermine Israel's sovereignty, its citizens right to the land, and to propagate anti-semitic information.

Originally posted by GoldenFleece
Why are the Khazars and the Khazarian Empire not mentioned in any history books?

Why have Jewish historians and authors like Arthur Koestler meticulously documented the Caucasian ancestry of Ashkenazim Jews if it wasn't true?

Koestler stated that part of his intent in writing the book was to defuse anti-Semitism by undermining the identification of European Jews with the Jews of the Bible, rendering anti-Semitic epithets such as "Christ killer" inapplicable. Arthur Koestler himself was a Hungarian Ashkenazi Jew by ancestry.

Koestler himself was sympathetic to Zionism on secular considerations, and did not see alleged Khazar ancestry as diminishing the claim of Jews to Israel, which he felt was based on the United Nations mandate, and not on Biblical covenants or genetic inheritance. In his view, "The problem of the Khazar infusion a thousand years ago ... is irrelevant to modern Israel". In addition, he was apparently "either unaware of or oblivious to the use anti-Semites had made to the Khazar theory since its introduction at the turn of the century." Nevertheless, in the Arab world the Khazar theory has been adopted by anti-Zionists and anti-Semites; such proponents argue that if Ashkenazi Jews are primarily Khazar and not Semitic in origin, they would have no historical claim to Israel, nor would they be the subject of God's Biblical promise of Canaan to the Israelites, thus undermining the theological basis of both Jewish religious Zionists and Christian Zionists.

No modern mainstream scholars support Koestler's hypothesis. As Bernard Lewis wrote:

This theory… is supported by no evidence whatsoever. It has long since been abandoned by all serious scholars in the field, including those in Arab countries, where the Khazar theory is little used except in occasional political polemics.

Koestler's historiography has been attacked as highly questionable by many historians; it has also been pointed out that his discussion of theories about Ashkenazi descent is largely unsupported; to the extent that Koestler referred to place-names and documentary evidence his analysis has been described as a mixture of flawed etymologies and misinterpreted primary sources.[6] Commentators have also noted that Koestler mischaracterized the sources he cited, particularly D.M. Dunlop's History of the Jewish Khazars (1954).