Palin Calls Criticism ‘Blood Libel’

New York Times ^ | January 12, 2011 | MICHAEL D. SHEAR

[reaganaut1]

Sarah Palin, who had been silent for days, on Wednesday issued a forceful denunciation of her critics in a video statement that accused pundits and journalists of “blood libel” in their rush to blame heated political rhetoric for the shootings in Arizona.

“Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own,” she said in a video posted to her Facebook page. “Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”

Ms. Palin’s use last year of a map with crosshairs hovering over a number of swing districts, including that of Gabrielle Giffords, had increasingly become the symbol of that overheated rhetoric. In and interview with The Caucus on Monday, potential 2012 rival Tim Pawlenty, the former Republican governor of Minnesota, said he would not have produced such a map.

But in the video, Ms. Palin rejected criticism of the map, casting it as a broader indictment of the basic political rights of free speech exercised by people of all political persuasions.

She said that acts like the shootings in Arizona “begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state.”

“Not with those who listen to talk radio,” she added. “Not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle. Not with law abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their first amendment rights at campaign rallies. Not with those who proudly voted in the last election.”

[hcmama]

“Blood libel” was not a phrase used by anti-Semites; it was a term used to describe the ACTIONS of anti-Semites, ascribing group guilt and sinister motivation to a fictitious crime

Good luck, teach. This batch of students don't know what they don't know

[Syncro]

I'm urging you to have an open mind, and you come up with this?

Yes, I react that way sometimes to condescending assumptions.

I've never been able to figure out if the problem with folks who respond as you do, Syncro, is genuine lack of reading comprehension or deliberate twisting of what others say because you get off on keeping the pot stirred.

I asked you a simple question, and mentioned your use of little digs, and assured you my mind is open.

Just to discount your assumption. I don't know why posters have to make comments like that, does it make you feel better to say you have an open mind and I don't?

So where the twisting is (except in your comments) is a mystery to me.

Look, if my countering your arguments is going to alienate you, your are a little thin skinned.

Your point of view goes counter to the reality of what this thread is about (and the reality of the situation in my opinion and many others also)), so I express mine because "Whatever, you are entitled to your point of view and I am to mine."

Goes both ways.

[allmendream]

The amount of stupidity necessary to think that this is a term used by anti-Semites against Jews is simply breathtaking!

[wtc911]

From zionism-israel.com...

"Blood Libel - The blood libel is a false accusation that Jews sacrifice Christian children either to use the blood for various "medicinal" purposes or to prepare Passover Matzoth (unleavened bread) or for vengeance and mock crucifixions. It is one of the central fables of Anti-Semitism".

The ADL site offers similar definitions.

Yet you say that the exact opposite is true, that blood libel is a term to describe anti-semites....I just don't know whom to believe, Jewish historians or some anonymous internet knuckle-dragger...decisions, decisions.

[wtc911]

From the ADL's site...

"Jews were widely persecuted as barely human "Christ-killers" and "Devils." Forced to live in all-Jewish ghettos, they were accused of poisoning rivers and wells during times of disease. Some were tortured and executed for supposedly abducting and killing Christian children to drink their blood or to use to it in baking matzoh - a charge known as the "blood libel".

Are you sure you want to profess that blood libel is not an anti-semetic term but actually one used to describe anti-semites....teach.

[allmendream]

Wow, you still persist in your ignorance.

Blood libel is a false accusation. Libel is false by definition. Blood libel is a term used by reasonable people to describe what anti-Semites do and believe, it is NOT a term used by anti-Semites to describe what they are accusing the Jewish people of.

Now if I were trying to drum up hatred against the Tea Party, why would I NOT want to call what I was doing “Tea Party libel”?

Take your time in answering, I will wait........

[wtc911]

Too ignorant to bother with. Have a nice day.

[allmendream]

“a charge known as the “blood libel”.”

A charge, made by anti-Semites, and known by reasonable people to be false is “known” by reasonable people to be the “blood libel”.

Anti-semites don't know it as the “blood libel” they think it is truth not a “libel”.

If it were “known” by anti-Semites as false, and thus “libel”, why would they believe it?

Take your time in answering........

[allmendream]

If that is your assessment of yourself, then so be it.

[Wolfstar]

Yes, I react that way sometimes to condescending assumptions.

Ahhh, yes, when all else fails, accuse the person you disagree with of being condescending. Of course, you never make condescending assumptions. Nevermind these statements of yours to me on this very thread:

You and the other few Palin haters here are the cult with slavish devotion to your dislike of Palin.

Do you have any problems with the nastiness of the left?

I don't hate Palin. I don't dislike her. I am unalterably opposed to the Left and have been my entire adult life. My early posts on this thread made it clear I agree with her statement, even the use of the term blood libel. However, I disagree with your purist thought on the margins. Oh the horror! Oh the humanity! Can't have even marginal divergence of thought, now can we.

[hcmama]

You are hopeless. There are none so ....as those that can not comprehend what they read.

[JPG]

Today’s media is much different than PRAVDA, PRAVDA contained at least a bit of truth.

[Gene Eric]

Thanks for adding the link to Palin’s statement. I wasn’t sure where to find it.

[hcmama]

Face it.

You were ignorant of the true meaning of the term. And you persist in your ignorance.

And you do it in the name of portraying Sarah Palin as incorrigibly stupid.

You failed.

[Syncro]

Nevermind these statements of yours to me on this very thread:

You and the other few Palin haters here are the cult with slavish devotion to your dislike of Palin.

That was a reaction to your broad brush of Palin supporters having "...near slavish devotion to Sarah Palin here... It is a cult..."

Sometimes you get your words thrown back at you. I usually don't let those foolish childish accusations stand if I see them.

They just stir the pot and just degrade a thread when they are posted.

I think it is legitimate question if you have a problem with the nastiesnes of the left, as you used it as a label of the some posts here.

I myself hate nastiness on either side, but it sure is a lot more vitrolic on the other side.

Purist thoughts on the margin?

Think what you want, I have stated I have no propblem with you stating your opinions.

Oh The Hugh Manatee!

Thanks for clearing up a few things, I'm all for a truce

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Yep. Palin was being personally singled out and blamed for this slaughter which is insane. She was just defending herself and she STILL gets dumped on.

They despise her because she gave birth to a Downs Syndrome baby rather than abort the child.

No greater sin, according to the godless.

[Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears]

“What worries me about this whole thing is that old saying about fighting with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”

We have no choice. And I do mean WE have no choice.

WE have to stand up and WE have to speak out, and point out the lies and slander.

WE the PEOPLE are more powerful than the media. See: Midterm Election Wipeout.

We can’t be silent, try to get along and be liked, and “hope” the media doesn’t attack. George Bush tried that, with disastrous results.

[Cardhu]

· “Blood libel” was not a phrase used by anti-Semites; it was a term used to describe the ACTIONS of anti-Semites, ascribing group guilt and sinister motivation to a fictitious crime. Please try to follow, “libel” is a falsehood, one does not usually say that they are engaged in libel when ginning up hate against a group. Do you understand that? The “abysmal lack of knowledge” seems to be on YOUR part. If Palin is a “perceived anti-Semite” then the person with the supposed perception is absolutely deluded and as confused and ignorant as you are.

This is the problem when some people cannot separate their religion from politics. They apply the same lack of logic and reason which is essential for belief to their politics and in their mind the two become inseparable.

Name calling and hatred is not a substitute for fact.

You obviously think you know more than the Jewish groups listed below - delusion is not a good thing in discussions or politics.

A NAZI POSTER

… the lie that Jews used the blood of Christian babies to bake Passover Matzoahs,.

Palin is not Jewish - she is not the victim, Gabrielle Giffords, is the victim and is Jewish.

the president of the pro-Israel, pro-peace Jewish lobby J Street, Jeremy Ben-Ami, said he was “saddened by Governor Palin’s use of the term ‘blood libel,’” adding that he hopes “she will choose to retract her comment AND apologize“:

Jewish groups are taking offense to Palin’s choice of the term. Noting that accusations of blood libel have been “directly responsible for the murder of so many Jews across centuries,” the National Jewish Democratic Council condemned Palin’s use of the term:

This is of course a particularly heinous term for American Jews, given that the repeated fiction of blood libels are directly responsible for the murder of so many Jews across centuries — and given that blood libels are so directly intertwined with deeply ingrained anti-Semitism around the globe, even today. <...>

****** We hope that Governor Palin will recognize, when it is brought to her attention, that the term “blood libel” brings back painful echoes of a very dark time in our communal history when Jews were falsely accused of committing heinous deeds. When Governor Palin learns that many Jews are pained by and take offense at the use of the term, we are sure that she will choose to retract her comment, apologize and make a less inflammatory choice of words.

Blood Libel - The blood libel is a false accusation that Jews sacrifice Christian children either to use the blood for various "medicinal" purposes or to prepare Passover Matzoth (unleavened bread) or for vengeance and mock crucifixions. It is one of the central fables of Anti-Semitism of the older (middle ages) type. The blood libel is a phenomenon of medieval and modern Christian anti-Semitism, but spread to the Middle East as early as 1775, when there was a blood libel in Hebron. A second blood libel occurred in Damascus in 1840 and one occurred in Cyprus in the same year. As the blood libel was the subject of folk ballads and literature, it was not simply a religious superstition in Europe, but a staple of popular culture, like most anti-Semitic prejudices.

Blood libels in the both the West and the East were generally occasions for large-scale persecution and judicial murders of Jews, as well as the basis for expulsions and pogroms. There have been about 150 cases of blood libel that were actually tried by Catholic authorities, and many other rumored cases that never came to trial.

The enduring nature of the blood libel is one of its most remarkable features. It was an invention of the pagans. It was revived and exploited in medieval Christian superstition, later promoted deliberately by the counter-reformation and the Inquisition, By the 19th century, much of the "old" anti-Semitism of the medieval period had passed from the world, but the libel persisted. It has been transplanted to the United States and the belief flourishes in Muslim countries as well. Investigations, instigations and enforcement had been transferred in part from the Roman Catholic Church to lay authorities: Tsarist police, Polish police and even New York State Troopers.

What you or I think is immaterial - what the people outside of this forum think will be the deciding factor.

[Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears]

“I contend that it is stupid to use the phrase specifically because it opens Palin up to even more obvious and predictable attacks. If it is her intention to escalate then she has succeeded but one would ask why? “

Because the best defense is a good offense. Because she is telling the truth, and it resonates with America.

Because rolling over, second-guessing yourself and otherwise being a weenie and a wimp is just about the most stupid thing conservatives could do right now.

This is the survival of our nation, not beanbag, and it is not a sport for cowards and wimps.

[se_ohio_young_conservative]

Give her a chance please. Keep an open mind. I imagine that when gas prices are up to 4 to 5 dollars this summer, she will be the best GOP candidate on energy policy.

I am not trying to insult you. But do you know what Reagan Conservatism really is ? I mean really.

Lead from a position of strength on national defense. Supply side low tax economics. and then let the American people make their own choices and control their own destiny without a bunch of useless regulation. 80 percent of Reagan Conservatism is just getting the country to believe in itself again.

she can inspire that.