So Yashiko Sagamori is a pseudonym

Link from IsraPundit: Part 2 from "Yashiko Sagamori". It is long, but well worth the read.


It's All about Jews, Part 2
A wonderful exchange by an outraged Chinese e-mailer, complaining that Yashiko Sagamori (not the writer's real name) ignores the major contributions and importance of China and instead to devotes so much space and energy to the tiny and insignificant Israel. And Sagamori's great rejoinder. This is via e-mail and thus has no URL, though the writer's site is listed.
A friend of mine has forwarded me your June 30th article titled: “All about Jews”, and as a Chinese, I feel deeply offended by it. Are your articles intended exclusively for Jewish consumption, and no Chinese are welcome to read them?
There have been no major events in the lives of Israel and the Jews during the last couple of weeks, so probably you had been afraid that your readers may forget you, and you wrote this senseless piece that has no any new information but repeat old Jewish assertions about being offended by the hostile world. As an example for comparison, this time you chose my country of origin. This is what you wrote:

“Compare, for example, two ancient nations, China and Israel. About a quarter of the world's population are Chinese. China is occupying Tibet and is waiting for an opportunity to gobble up Taiwan. Its systematic, daily human rights violations have by far surpassed the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union combined, which is quite an extraordinary achievement. It is the only country in the world that routinely executes thousands of convicts every year in order to harvest their organs for sale.

Jews, on the other hand, barely amount to one quarter of one percent of the world's population. The number of Jews in Israel is just about one one-thousandth of all people on earth. For more than half of its long history, Israel was banished from its homeland. In the last 2,000 years, it never committed or even contemplated an act of aggression. It never occupied even a square inch of foreign land illegally. Whatever territory it has gained by force was won in defensive wars, which, according to international law, makes the winner legally entitled to keep it — unless the winner is Israel, of course. Obeying its special status according to this rule, Israel has voluntarily ceded most of its gained territories to its enemies, hoping to assuage their hostility; as we know, that didn't work. Needless to say, Israel has never attempted to force its enemies to compensate it for the terrible losses inflicted on its people by the ongoing Arab aggression.”
What do you think about me starting a web page for the Chinese only (no Jews are welcome) and writing there something like this?

“Compare, for example, two ancient nations, China and Israel. About a quarter of the world's population are Chinese. China has been a home of one of the most creative civilizations in the human history, which invented paper and paper money (2 thousand years ago), book printing, porcelain and china (so-called because the English-speaking world has credited us with this invention), gunpowder etc. It has been a home of the marvelous architecture, enchanting landscape painting, literature and poetry. Today it boasts one of the most vivid economies, and Ms./Mr. Sagamori surely has more Chinese artifacts in her/his household than those imported from any other country. Throughout the history China has been much less aggressive than many other countries — in opposite, it was a frequent victim of foreign aggression. China has always been very tolerable to foreigners, and it is one of the few countries in the world without traces of anti-Semitism. In the Middle Ages there was a rather large Jewish community in China, but it peacefully disappeared by assimilation because there were no prosecutions at all. In the 20th century China hosted many Jewish refugees from the Nazi Europe. Thanks to a foreign financial help, those Jews frequently lived better than the surrounding population, but still there was no trace of hostility whatsoever.

Jews, on the other hand, barely amount to one quarter of one percent of the world's population. The number of Jews in Israel is just about one one-thousandth of all people on earth. Still, this nation is rather known for its aggresive behavior. To find out about it, we do not need to read the notorious 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'; but we'd rather turn to the Jewish Bible. This is how the capture of Palestine about 2500 years ago is described in the Book of Joshua, 6/21 & 24: 'And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass with the edge of the sword... And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein.' Their famous mutual hatred brought the destruction of the Benjamin tribe (Judges, 20). In our times they occupied the land with a huge Arab population and has been maintaining the occupation during 37 years in spite of a strong protest of the Arabs. They sprinkled the land with their own settlements that is in obvious violation of the international law, which requires the occupying power not to change the character of the occupied land. Under great pressure and as a result of rebellion of the population they involuntarily ceded some of its gained territories. Israel has never compensated the millions refugees it has displaced for their terrible losses. The Jews do not have many friends in the earth, and to create an impression that they do have some among the Japanese, a Jewish girl or boy from Brooklyn has assumed a pen name Yashiko Sagamori. She-He is so xenophobic and right-wing that even such a friend of Israel as President Bush is no good for him/her, and She-He joins forces with an extreme left-wing guy Michael Moore and writes that Bush has 'close personal ties with the Saudi rulers'!”

How would you like me publishing this kind of newspaper, Sensei Sagamori? Every significant ancient nation — Chinese and Jews among them — has many facts to be proud of and some facts to be ashamed of. It is grossly unfair to choose bad facts for another nation but only good ones for your own folk. In this way you will never gain any friends. With respect,

Sincerely yours,

Sun Man Chen

manchen41@hotmail.com



Dear Mr./Ms. Sun Man Chen,

Many readers write to me how much they appreciate my views and the way I express them. Obviously, I enjoy letters that praise me; however, we both know that constructive criticism helps one keep one's skills sharp. Unfortunately, most critical responses I receive come from angry Arabs and aren't really that constructive. This is the first time I have received a letter from an angry Chinese person, and I enjoyed it tremendously. Please convey my gratitude to your friend for forwarding my article to you.

Although I represent a distinctly Jewish point of view, I do not write exclusively for the Jews. Everyone, including Chinese, is welcome to my articles, and if there is something they don't like — well, this is still a free country. Since I wasn't trying to put anyone down, I sincerely regret offending you. At the same time, I'd like to point out to you that even though I failed to provide a full historical analysis of Chinese achievements throughout the ages, whatever little I said about your country was accurate, unlike most of the things you wrote about Israel. I was comparing Israel to China, trying to show that, despite the stark contrast in the sizes of their population, Israel has influenced Western civilization with much greater impact than China has.

A fair measure of a nation's contribution to civilization is the number of Nobel Prize winners among its members. I'm sure you aware that while Chinese outnumber Jews more than 100 to 1, Jewish Nobel Laureats outnumber Chinese Nobel Laureates at least 50 to 1. If this simple math makes you feel uncomfortable, please feel free to conclude that Jews control the Nobel Prize Committee.

Like most of my readers, I am well aware that paper, gunpowder, rockets, china, and many, many other wonderful things were first invented by the Chinese centuries ago, while Jews didn't even begin inventing things until the Industrial Revolution. (If you follow me carefully, you can tell me at this point how much I am omitting: the discovery of monotheism, the idea of universal preciousness of every single life, the distinction between right and wrong, and a few other equally vague concepts that form the ethical basis of our civilization. And if you're looking for more tangible contributions, then how about banking?) Unfortunately, by the time the Industrial Revolution unfolded, the Chinese, for whatever reason, dropped out of the invention business. Obviously, this is not because your people are less intelligent than any other people on earth. Judging from the huge number of brilliant, successful Chinese scientists in the West, I can only offer the backwardness of the mainland Chinese society as a possible explanation for the fact that your country has remained on the periphery of Western civilization, while Israel has always been at its center.

You may argue that China, unlike Israel, is a civilization in itself, and I will agree with you wholeheartedly. But I was writing specifically about Judeo-Christian civilization, of which China even today is not really a part. You invented rockets, but to launch your satellites you have to use second hand technology that comes from the West — some of it bought, some stolen. You invented gunpowder, but the Chinese assault rifle is, essentially, a copy of the Russian AK-47. You invented paper, but Israel prints more books per capita than you do. I believe you when you say that Chinese poetry may be breathtakingly beautiful, but you know as well as I do that it does not translate into Western languages, which guarantees that I will never be able to appreciate its beauty. And while the West had to reinvent much of what your folks had invented so many centuries earlier, some of your achievements have never been repeated. For example, those tiny little shoes that have turned generations of Chinese women into cripples. And should we count the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap among your people's accomplishments or should we pretend they have never happened so you wouldn't be offended by those references?

I'm sure you have mighty counter-arguments ready for everything I say. The problem is, I state facts, while you, out of either malice or ignorance, resort to libel against my people. To prove it, I would like to point some of the many inaccuracies in your letter.

You write: “In our times [the Jews] occupied the land with a huge Arab population and have been maintaining the occupation during 37 years in spite of a strong protest of the Arabs.” In fact, Arabs do not protest against the “occupation”; they protest against the very existence of Israel. They have never even tried to conceal their genocidal intentions. At the same time, those Israeli Arabs, who are not involved in terrorism, live in Israel unmolested and enjoy freedoms that are not available to them in any Arab country — or, I believe, to most Chinese in China. As to the proverbial cruelty of the Israeli “occupation” of Israel's own land, I'm sure you will appreciate the fact that the number of Arab terrorists killed by the IDF during the four years of the ongoing intifada remains far below the number of unarmed protesters killed by your government in the course of just two days on Tiananmen Square.

Like many others, you vaguely refer to “international laws” that, in your opinion, demand Israel to surrender its territory to its enemies. Somehow, so far, no one has been able to provide a specific reference to an applicable article of that law. Can it be because no such article exists? Or do you find it perfectly natural that some kind of international law against Jews in general must be on the books?

You write: “Israel has never compensated the millions refugees it has displaced for their terrible losses.” Millions? Are you sure? Can you tell exactly how many “millions” were displaced by Israel and under what circumstances, or are you mindlessly repeating anti-Semitic propaganda? If you believe yourself to be a fair person, shouldn't you ask why Arab countries have never compensated the terrible losses suffered by over 900,000 of Jews forced after World War II out of their homes and stripped of all their possessions throughout the Middle East, in some cases, uprooting communities that had been there long before Arabs conquered those lands?

Being one of a billion and a half, you probably consider 6 million mere peanuts. And yet, shouldn't you ask why the world has never attempted to compensate the Jews for the terrible losses inflicted on us in the Holocaust? Or for the 2,000 years of relentless persecution for crimes we had never committed? And since these questions, obviously, did not come to your mind, you will have to forgive me if I refuse to consider you a fair person.

You liberally quote the Old Testament; have you missed the part where God grants all this land to the Jews?

You write: “There have been no major events in the lives of Israel and the Jews during the last couple of weeks”. Are you lamenting the brief lull in terrorist acts against Israel? Imagine what your reaction would've been had Israel bombed an Arab kindergarten. But when Arabs bomb an Israeli kindergarten and kill a three-year-old and a grandfather, it's no major event to you.

You call me “a Jewish boy or girl from Brooklyn”. Not even mentioning the fact that you don't really know my age, do you realize how incredibly, stereotypically bigoted (and, incidentally, very wrong) your assumption is?

Chinese “artifacts” in my home? Their existence stems from the fact that your impoverished countrymen are willing to slave for the lowest wages that exist on earth. Are you calling that an achievement?

In an attempt to characterize my political standing, you call me “extreme right wing” and, in the very next sentence, put me in the same camp with Michael Moor. Has it occurred to you that I am simply trying to write the truth, and the truth has very little to do with whatever labels you may have in your polemic arsenal?

You admonish me for not helping Jews to make friends. No, I am not. We have never had friends; we have always lived surrounded by enemies, and this is how it will always be. I am just trying to tell my readers the truth about it.

You are asking me how I would feel if you decided to start an anti-Semitic da-dzy-bao. Rest assured: unlike China, this is a free country. Your da-dzy-bao would be just one of many anti-Semitic publications. So, why would I care? One more wouldn't make a difference. Be my guest, make yourself heard. You have already added your voice to the chorus anyway.

And, last but not least, I would like to explain what I like the most about your letter. It's the fact that in it you implicitly admit feeling threatened by the Jews. Of course, you may object that the Chinese traditionally feel threatened by anyone; that's why your compatriots customarily refer to foreigners as foreign devils. Nevertheless, your insecurity confirms the perfect validity of my comparison of Israel to China. It also, by definition, makes you a Judophobe, my friend, and Judophobia is synonymous with anti-Semitism. Your reference to the libelous Protocols confirms my diagnosis. And thus you prove the point I was trying to make in my article: it's all about Jews, always has been, always will be.

Feeling a little jealous?

Sincerely yours,

Yashiko Sagamori

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