Kooks In The Inbox
Yesterday, I received this frankly baffling email:
Hi. My name is Eugene Gershin. Perhaps we have met online, but more probably you don’t know me from Adam. I monitor blogs for SamsonBlinded, and came across your post.
I’d like to welcome you to look at Obadiah Shoher’s blog. Obadiah - an anonymous Israeli politician - writes extremely controversial articles about Israel, the Middle East politics, and terrorism.
Shoher is equally critical of Jewish and Muslim myths, and advocates political rationalism instead of moralizing.
Google banned our site from the AdWords, Yahoo blocked most pages, and Amazon deleted all reviews of Obadiah’s book, Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict.
Nevertheless, 170,000 people from 78 countries read the book.
Various Internet providers ban us periodically, but you can look up the site on search engines. The mirror www.terrorism-in-israel.com/blog currently works.
Please help us spread Obadiah’s message, and mention the blog in one of your posts, or link to us from invisiblelibrary.blogspot.com. I would greatly appreciate your comments.
Best wishes,
Eugene Gershin
First off, Eugene is right, I don’t know him from Adam. I don’t recognize him form the comment threads on any of my regular reads and he’s never commented on this blog. And seeing as he wants a link form the old blogger version that I shut down over a year ago, I’m guessing he hasn’t read anything I’ve written here lately.
But more to the point: Who is Obadiah Shoher, and how exactly does one become an anonymous Israeli politician? Israel hasn’t been around that long and it’s not that big so as to have politicians that could be anonymous, if we can even grant that there ever could be such a beast as an anonymous politician to begin with. I suspect they sit at the same lunch table with tiny giants and compassionate conservatives.
Googling his name doesn’t really answer the question, as it’s apparently a pen name for someone who describes himself as having a Machiavellian perspective, which is refreshing in it’s honesty, if still a bit scary.
Shoher’s “political rationalism” advocates an Imperialist Israel that controls the entire Middle East. He also applauded the war between Israel and Hezbullah over the summer, and seems to advocate war (nuclear or just good old killing) with well, everyone within reach of Israel’s missiles. It’s a little hard to make out just what policies he’s advocating from his site’s entries as they ramble all over the map of Cloud Kuckooland without ever making a real point. But the general impression one gets is that he’s awfully fond of the idea of starting wars he’ll never have to personally fight. Which makes me wonder how he managed to avoid getting appointed to some high ranking post in the Bush Administration. I guess that’s one of the downsides to being an anonymous politician.
I don’t know what to make of Amazon deleting reviews of his silly book, unless they were simply so racist and militant that they constituted hate speech. Which is not out of the question. Right wingers like Shoher tend to bring out the worst in those with poor impulse control and childish world views.
Why they would think I might be interested in promoting such bloody and fantastical nonsense escapes me. I doubt that Eugene is really singling me out here. This is very likely just a rare bit of kook spam but I clearly got on someone’s list because if something I wrote here or on my old blog.
So, let me make something clear: I never have and never will espouse an ideology like Shoher’s. I’m morally opposed to Imperialism and war, no matter what the excuse. If my anti-religious stance has given someone the impression that I’m just another antimuslim or antisemite ranter, let me clear that up as well: I’m opposed to religious indoctrination, not religious people. You have every right to believe any damn fool thing you like. But I am neither obligated to play make believe with you or to suffer your ignorant jibber jabber, especially when that barely coherent rambling involves celebrating murder and advocating killing as if it were just part of the daily routine of politics.
I’m not in the habit of discouraging people from reading this site but Mr. Shoher and Eugene, you are not welcome here. Tolerance only goes so far but it does not mean that I will suffer idiots and fools.
December 18th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
Hi Keith,
I, too, received this spam from “Eugene.” Thanks for saving me the time it would have taken to wade through Obadiah’s drivel. Although, maybe I’ll have a quick peak out of childish curiosity.
Thanks also for your use of the term “jibber jabber” - I was suddenly transported back to my youth spent marvelling at Mr T’s gold chains.
Cheers,
Craig
December 18th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
Huh, I just got very similar mail, and found your blog by googling “Eugene Gershin spam”. Judging by the results, Mr Gershin has been very, very busy. I suspect he has systematically gathered email addresses from blogs that mention Israel or Jews, however tangentially, and spammed them.
December 18th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
i just received the same email, also with an old blog URL of mine listed at the bottom. it seems to be spam that targets bloggers, using the blogger’s actual (if out-of-date) URL to make in more inclined to be at least read. that’s why i find this spam particularly annoying!
i visited the top level of that site and it automatically downloads the book when you visit the site! that’s REALLY annoying.
i found your post (and similar posts by others) by googling “eugene gershin”.
was the return address of yours from “list@grabtech.net” as well?
December 18th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Hi…I received this exact email from Eugene Gershin taday as well..I googled his name to find out more information and found this site…I have a blog page community.livejournal.com/dearcaptain…somehow we are in some mass email for blog owners of some kind…
December 18th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Glad I clicked this link first! I Googled Eugene Gershin when I got the same email. Figured it was spam but wanted to find out more about it. Thanks for doing the research.
December 18th, 2006 at 11:40 pm
Thanks. I got this same email. From the hits on Google, this wasn’t a hand picked group, we’re just bloggers.
December 19th, 2006 at 10:49 am
I got the exactly same e-mail today. “Stupidity is the main building block of the Universe.” - F. Zappa
December 19th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
I suspected that it was something targeting bloggers, fishing for links and traffic. That’s why I didn’t add a hot link. I’ll talk about idiots but I’m not going to validate them.
December 20th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
We got the same email this morning. I’m pretty sure he means a “pseudonymous Israeli politician”, which even a country the size of Cook County, Illinois, is big enough to support.
What puzzles me is, the email address Mr. Gershin used is not attached to a blog. And of course, we get a “Message Failed” email when we try to ask him what’s what.
Go figger, eh?
December 25th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Ya I Recieved the Same email and google his Name and “Obadiah”,
I got This webpage using his name, then I Searched “Obadiah” supposedly it is a Book in the Bible about Israel, Pretty much killing all the Edomites and Taking Control of there land.
Jews and Muslims Where Founded By 2 Brothers (taken from Bible Gensis), One started the Jewish Faith the other started the Islamic Faith
Mohammed did not start the islamic Faith he turned it in to the Muslim faith
What happen is The Brother that started the Jewish Faith got attack by there enemy (? can’t remember sry) and when He ask for help From his Brother who started Islam, He refused and God Cursed them and Choose the Jews a his “Chosen People”.
Everyone should Know, That the Jewish People Will Kill All the Edomites (Whoever they maybe) there Decendents, and start to rebuild Jerusalam, and then the Coming of the Anti-christ, and his defeat by Jesus Christ.
December 28th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
That’s quite a theory you have there, Seo. Too bad it contradicts all known anthropology, history and archeology. But why let a little thing like the facts get in your way. We are talking religion, after all.
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I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links: