Tag: Anti-Semitism

The Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism

One of the more bizarre trends in America and Europe of late is the mainstreaming of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism, which had been widely discredited after the revelations of where it lead to in Nazi Germany, seems to be making a comeback in the West.

For example, Muslim extremist Fawaz Damra is currently on trial in Ohio accused of lying on his immigration forms in an effort to hide a past that includes ties to alleged terrorists. Prosecutors have videotapes of Damra giving fundraising speeches for the Islamic Jihad in the 1990s in which he apparently yells out calls for the destruction of the Jews.

In his defense, Damra is employing one Scott Alexander who is associate professor of Islam and director of the Catholic-Muslim Studies program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Alexander’s job is to convince the court that when Damra called for the destruction of the Jews, he didn’t really mean it. As the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported,

“The rhetoric is principally used by political and religious leaders to galvanize resistance to what Palestinian Arabs consider to be the patent persecution of their people by Jewish immigrants to the Middle East,” Alexander said in a report filed in federal court.

“As unquestionably hate-filled and thus morally reprehensible as such language is, when Palestinians refer to Jews as ‘descended from apes and swine’ or encourage support for those who ‘kill Jews,’ they do so with the reasonably justifiable self-image of victim and persecuted, not of victimizer and persecutor.”

What a disgusting line of reasoning which, of course, could easily be employed by a variety of racists extremists who generally view themselves as victims and persecuted by the groups they rail against.

The judge in the case still has to decide if a jury will hear Alexander’s twisted view on anti-Semitism, so there’s still hope this sort of nonsense won’t find its way into American courts.

Source:

Damra didn’t promote violence, defense expert says at hearing. John Caniglia, Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 8, 2004.

Google and JihadUnspun.Com

I happened to run across an article written a couple weeks ago about Google News’ disturbing decision to include JihadUnspun.Com in the mix of sites that are indexed as part of Google News. Now on its web site, Google says of its criteria for inclusion in Google News only that,

While the sources of the news vary in perspective and editorial approach, their selection for inclusion is done without regard to political viewpoint or ideology. While this may lead to some occasionally unusual and contradictory groupings, it is exactly this variety that makes Google News a valuable source of information on the important issues of the day.

Apparently they’re serious about no regard to political viewpoint or ideology since JihadUnspun.Com is an openly anti-Semitic website. For example, currently News.Google.Com indexes, among other stories, Marc Glenn’s One Less Than Six Million from JihadUnspun.com about the Holocaust,

Whereas the murder of Christ by the leadership of Israel formed the basis around which the religion of Christianity would be formed, now the murder of the decendants of those leaders at the hands of those professing to be Christians has supplanted what was the religion which helped to create Western Civilization.

. . .

In the first case, the suffering of the Palestinian people, now almost a century long in its duration, has been completely cast aside as a necessary evil in redressing the crime committed by the National Socialists of HitlerÂ’s Germany. In such a way, the pimps of Holocaustism (manifested in the out-in-front/in your face stance of those who shape American sentiments towards Israel and by default public policy) have revealed what are the undeniable dogmas upon which their new religion is founded. For them, the fact that the murder of six million, or six thousand, or sixty million, or whatever number in actuality it is, takes on a more sober, somber, serious tone when it happens to fall upon their particular group reveals in and of itself what are the racist, exclusivist, self-absorbed sentiments which form the operating ideologies of their agenda.

. . .

His statement reveals what has historically been a secretly nursed hatred for the Jewish people which has been entertained by those occupying positions in their leadership for the last 2,000 years. Historically, they are individuals who have schemed and plotted for their own benefit, using those under them as stepping stones in their ascent to power. Whether their leadership has been religious or secular in nature, they have over the centuries of the Diaspora planted the seeds of suffering which would later blossom into the same anti-semitic presecutions by which they have advanced their power. Tragically, those who have drunk from the poisoned well of Zionist Marxism and who have elevated men like Herzl and others to positions of sainthood and respectability do not realize what an injustice they are doing to themselves and those who follow after them. If the members of modern day Jewry were truly concerned with isolating what have been the root causes of their persecutions and suffering, they would then come to the undeniable conclusion that it has been their leadership which has been the source of their suffering for the last 2 milleniae. From the Pharisees of the Sanhedrin to the Pharisees at the ADL, it has been the racist, exclusivist mindset entertained by those in leadership positions which have been the cause of friction between Jew and Gentile which has led to anti-Semitism.

What’s next? Is Google News going to start featuring the Final Call or Tom Metzger’s latest rantings?

EC Outraged by Accusations that It Encourages Anti-Semitism — Cancels Seminar on Anti-Semitism to Make Its Point

European Commission President Romano Prodi was apparently not pleased after World Jewish Congress President Edgar Bronfman and European Jewish Congress President Coby Benatoff accused the EC of promoting anti-Semitism. So he took the obvious retaliatory step — he cancelled a planned seminar on anti-Semitism.

Prodi certainly knows how to make a point.

Source:

EU suspends anti-Semitism seminar. Douglas Davis, Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2004.

Barbara Streisand’s Political Donations

USA Today’s Life section had a front page story today about Hollywood liberals who donate to Democratic candidates — no big surprise there. One of the people they highlighted as a Hollywood donor was Barbara Streisand. Again, no shock there that Streisand gives freely to Democratic candidates.

What did shock me was the list of precisely who Streisand had given money to — specifically that she had donated $1,000 to the campaign of Al Sharpton.

I knew Streisand was out there on the Democratic fringe, but I didn’t realize she supported even extremists like Sharpton. It amazes me that a man with a history of anti-Semitism and of encouraging violence is allowed the in Democratic debates and receives the supporter of people like Streisand (and, no less, by people who accuse Bush of being a frightening extremist).

Source:

Candidates bask in Hollywood glamour, greenbacks. Cesar G. Soriano, USA Today, December 8, 2003.

Eric Alterman’s Rationalization of Anti-Semitism

Eric Atlerman is taking some heat over comments he made regarding
attacks against Jews in France. Alterman complains,

I got a ton of mail yesterday, some of it abusive,
complaining about my comments on attacks against French Jews.
Roughly half of the e-mails accused me of “blaming the victims”
because I stated that the attacks, undertaken virtually exclusively
by young immigrant Arabs, were inspired by the Israeli occupation of
Palestine and could be ameliorated by ending that occupation. Well,
I didn’t “blame” anyone. I merely explained what I understand to be
the sources of Arab anger.

Give me a break. Of course Alterman was blaming the victim. Can you
imagine him seriously writing something like,

Roughly half of the e-mails accused me of “blaming the
victims” because I stated that the attacks against abortion
providers, undertaken virtually exclusively by pro-lifers, were
inspired by the large numbers of abortions and could be ameliorated
by overturning Roe v. Wade. Well, I didn’t “blame” anyone. I merely
explained what I understand to be the sources of Eric Rudolph’s
anger.

or maybe,

Roughly half of the e-mails accused me of “blaming the
victims” because I stated that the attacks against African
Americans, undertaken virtually exclusively by young white males,
were inspired by affirmative action and could be ameliorated by
overturning affirmative action policies. Well, I didn’t “blame”
anyone. I merely explained what I understand to be the sources of
racist skinhead anger.

Okay, maybe Alterman would be willing to rationalize that these are
anything other than blaming the victim, but would anyone take him
seriously? No, of course not.

Talk About People Without Ethics

Dave Winer’s been going on and on about journalistic ethics, but how about getting some ethics of his own? Winer has a habit of talking about things that he doesn’t understand, but why was he dissing a site that he apparently didn’t even read?

In this post he disses the so-called warbloggers, apparently jealous of the attention they’ve been getting from the media,

While we do bash egos from time to time in TechBlogLand, we’re getting a lot more work done these days, using weblogs as the venue for sharing stuff. I like to tell the reporters that SOAP and XML-RPC, RSS and OPML could never have happened without weblogs. I asked the reporter if they could ask Glenn Reynolds to tell them when Hollywood is screwing computer users, or if they ever come up with a solution to the Microsoft antitrust case. And by the way, whose software do you think they use and do they even know how to use it? Andrew Sullivan just discovered permalinks a few days ago. Heh. Believe me there’s more work to do, and it’s going to be programmers and information mavens that lead the way.

BTW, I have something of an advantage, in that my blog predates the media rage that centered on the Pyra crowd, so I’ve been through this before. Someday Glenn Reynolds will be shocked to find out that he’s not the darling of the bigpubs anymore, then someone else will be blustering how they made him obsolete. It won’t be any more true then than it is now. This is meta-news. Boring.

At the time I thought the line about Hollywood and Microsoft was odd since Reynolds has indeed talked about intellectual property issues in the past, but I didn’t post because I’d filled my anti-Winer posts quotient for the month. But Winer’s post today is really outrageous,

OK, I admit it — I’m clueless.

No kidding!

What exactly is a warblogger?

I’ve been reading Glenn’s site every time it updates for the last few days. I don’t see a warrior. I see a mediator.

He links to differing points of view. He cuts through the rage and says “That’s not anti-Semitism, Jason. It’s just opposition to Israel’s policies.”

Is Glenn a warblogger?

If so — where’s the war?

So, Winer insulted Reynolds, Sullivan and other warbloggers without bothering to even read their sites. And he’s criticizing Dan Gillmor’s committment to journalistic ideals? Please.