Genuine Evil, the Counterpart to Baseless Hatred

IsraPundit ^ | 2/11/08 | Bill Levinson

[Winged Hussar]

No Place For Slander In Jewish Discourse by Ira N. Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council warns against sinat chinam, or baseless hatred. History abounds with examples, such as anti-Semites attempting to blame problems like bad harvests and plagues on Jews, Nero blaming Christians for the fire that destroyed Rome, Inquisitors and witch-hunters inventing heretics and witches to justify their existences along with the worst atrocities in history, and so on. Orwell’s 1984 includes a fictional example of a subversive named Goldstein, who may or may not even exist.

Sinat chinam, or baseless hatred, also has an opposite: the sanitization, whitewashing, or denial of genuine dangers and evils… and this seems to be what NJDC is trying to do with Barack Obama and his anti-Semitic and anti-Israel connections.

[Winged Hussar]

Obama is most certainly not a Muslim. He is a long-time member of a Christian church, albeit one whose pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is a racist who says that “white America” got its “wake-up” call on 9/11. The statement that Obama took his oath of office on the Koran is confusion, whether innocent or deliberate, with Rep. Keith Ellison. We think, however, that the NJDC will have a lot more trouble convincing anyone that Obama does not cavort with anti-Semites.