Illegitimate, Soul-less Hate
By LisaB on January 12, 2009 at 9:40 AM in Current Affairs
I have never understood anti-semitism. It is morally and socially unacceptable to lump any other people I can think of into one group and say that group somehow is less than human. While we periodically go through sensitivities about different races, ethnicities or social groupings, in the end, we decide it’s not OK to suggest that any one group is somehow the root of all ills.
Anyone think it’s OK to use racial epithets for no reason other than that you aren’t part of that racial group? And while some words are more “bad” than others, using any of them in public and/or “polite society” will mark you as a bigot.
Anyone think it’s OK to even mock threaten a group with a history of persecution in the language of that persecution? In other words, is it OK to yell “get lynched” to AAs? Is it OK to tell Japanese-Americans that they should be back in internment camps? Is it really OK to tell Native Americans to stay on the “stay on the res” if they know what’s good for them?
Read the rest ->
Anyone think it’s OK to blame all muslims for the insanity of suicide bombers and crazy mullahs? Remember all the concern right after 9/11 about reprisals against muslims in America? Weren’t we all cautioned, time and again, to watch our prejudices?
Then why is it OK to hate Jews? This writer certainly would like to know why.
In Amsterdam, the crowd shouts, “Hamas, Hamas! Jews to the gas!”
In Paris, the state-owned TV network France-2 broadcasts film of dozens of dead Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid on New Year’s Day. The channel subsequently admits that, in fact, the footage is not from Jan. 1, 2009, but from 2005, and, while the corpses are certainly Palestinian, they were killed when a truck loaded with Hamas explosives detonated prematurely while leaving the Jabaliya refugee camp in another of those unfortunate work-related accidents to which Gaza is sadly prone. Conceding that the Palestinians supposedly killed by Israel were, alas, killed by Hamas, France-2 says the footage was broadcast “accidentally.”
In Toulouse, a synagogue is firebombed; in Bordeaux, two kosher butchers are attacked; at the Auber RER train station, a Jewish man is savagely assaulted by 20 youths taunting, “Palestine will kill the Jews”; in Villiers-le-Bel, a Jewish schoolgirl is brutally beaten by a gang jeering, “Jews must die.”
In Helsingborg, Sweden, the congregation at a synagogue takes shelter as a window is broken and burning cloths thrown in. in Odense, principal Olav Nielsen announces that he will no longer admit Jewish children to the local school after a Dane of Lebanese extraction goes to the shopping mall and shoots two men working at the Dead Sea Products store. in Brussels, a Molotov cocktail is hurled at a synagogue; in Antwerp, Netherlands, lit rags are pushed through the mail flap of a Jewish home; and, across the Channel in Britain, “youths” attempt to burn the Brondesbury Park Synagogue.
Of course, there’s this wonderful girl in Fort Lauderdale screaming “You need a big oven, that’s what you need!” See time 3:24 for her solution to the Israel / Palestinian conflict.
But the article asks a good question.
. . . what has a schoolgirl in Villiers-le-Bel to do with Israeli government policy? Just weeks ago, terrorists attacked Mumbai, seized hostages, tortured them, killed them, and mutilated their bodies. The police intercepts of the phone conversations between the terrorists and their controllers make for lively reading:
“Pakistan caller 1: ‘Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims. Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.’
“Mumbai terrorist 2: ‘We have three foreigners, including women. From Singapore and China’
“Pakistan caller 1: ‘Kill them.’
“(Voices of gunmen can be heard directing hostages to stand in a line, and telling two Muslims to stand aside. Sound of gunfire. Sound of cheering voices.)”
“Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims.” Tough for those Singaporean women. Yet no mosques in Singapore have been attacked. The large Hindu populations in London, Toronto and Fort Lauderdale have not shouted “Muslims must die!” or firebombed Halal butchers or attacked hijab-clad schoolgirls. CAIR and other Muslim lobby groups’ eternal bleating about “Islamophobia” is in inverse proportion to any examples of it. Meanwhile, “moderate Muslims” in London warn the government: “I’m a peaceful fellow myself, but I can’t speak for my excitable friends. Nice little G7 advanced Western democracy you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it.”
But why worry about European Muslims? The European political and media class essentially shares the same view of the situation – to the point where state TV stations are broadcasting fake Israeli “war crimes.”
You should note I’m not at all discussing the actions taken by either side in the latest never-ending conflict between Israel and Palestinians. Others can and do a far better job of talking through that morass.
What I object to is the disproportionate assignment of blame to one side in this conflict. We’re all told, growing up, that it “takes two to fight.” Yet we seem to think if the fight is asymetric that the side using “weaker” tactics is the one less blame-worthy.
Using suicide bombers and firing rockets is no less a declaration of war than is mobilizing an army. And it’s easier to do and easier to deny. We probably don’t think of that as “war” because it is not our image of war. But it is. We also don’t know how to effectively counter those tactics, and that’s unfortunate because people have been strapping on bombs in many parts of the world, not just Israel. But Israel has been the target for asymetric war over a longer and more intense period than any other place in the world.
So, Israel declares war using what we recognize as conventional war-making tactics and Jews the world over are suddenly told to “get a bigger oven.” Doesn’t that seem disproportionate? Why are Jews in Europe or the US now targets of anti-semitism? Why is it rationalized in the press?
I’ve read explanations for why Jews outside of Israel are considered complicit in actions of Israel although this is never the case with any other racial or ethnic minority. But I just don’t buy it. It’s too easy; it’s wrong; and it’s evil.
And why the particular sensitivity where Jews are concerned? For some reason, anti-semitism returns again and again. Every so often, you see epithets against Jews and justifications for anti-semitic actions from otherwise respectable organizations. I also don’t understand this. When we decide a group has been persecuted and it is wrong, people typically take steps to quash aggressive behavior toward that group by others.
But anti-semitism comes back again and again, with assaults and death. I have no idea why. But it’s no less wrong than any other form of aggression, organized or otherwise.
No doubt this post will generate a slew of comments conflating Jews around the world with the Israeli government, justifying “anger, frustration” or whatever against Jews in general. That’s weak and illogical.
There are no acceptable justifications for hating on Jews in Amsterdam because you don’t agree with actions of the Israeli government.
Someone should tell that to the girl yelling about ovens.
by Ronald Scott
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