Posted on 05/24/2004 6:02:26 PM PDT by SeenTheLight
There’s been a lot of talk since 9/11 about anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination, and yet according to actual hate crime statistics, it is Jews who have had the most to fear. According to the FBI’s Hate Crimes Statistics Report for 2002, there were 155 anti-Islamic incidents and 931 anti-Jewish incidents. And as anyone who follows these developments knows, the majority of these anti-Jewish acts were perpetrated by Arabs and/or Muslims.
Of course, the media has remained largely silent on this issue, preferring instead to stick to their usual script of brown victims and white oppressors. But Jews themselves do not have that luxury. In contrast, many young Jews who never before encountered anti-Semitism are now reading daily about synagogue burnings, blood libels, grave defacements, school fire-bombings, and the cold-blooded and deliberate murder of Jews. They are also experiencing hatred on a personal level for the first time.
My own brush with anti-Semitism, in the post-9/11 landscape, first came while counter-protesting at ''peace'' rallies in San Francisco leading up to the war in Iraq. Most of the vitriol was couched in anti-Israel terminology, such as the hysterical accusations of ''genocide'' displayed on signs and the ''Intifada'' T-shirts worn by members of the crowd. On one occasion, I was called a ''Zionist pig'' for daring to wave an Israeli flag. But it was the Arab teenager with the ''Kill the Jews'' sign that made the most lasting impression.
Actually, I became aware of Arab anti-Semitism long before 9/11, mostly through my neighborhood grocery stores. San Francisco has many such corner stores, the nicest of which are owned and run by Arab-Americans.
A former neighbor of mine made the mistake one day of engaging in a political conversation with our local Arab store owner. Somehow the subject of Australians came up and she mentioned in passing their attitude towards the British. Not knowing she was Jewish, the man nodded in agreement, saying how much he hated Jews. Dumbfounded, she simply walked out the door without comment. From then on, the store became known as the ''Jew-Haters.'' We continued patronizing the place, joking about how we were going down to the ''Jew-Haters'' for some milk or a loaf of bread. But our casual indifference concealed a real fear--evident in the fact that we both tucked our Star of David necklaces into our shirts whenever we went in after that.
I later switched neighborhoods and hence corner stores, but in a cruel twist of fate, it turned out the ''Jew-Haters'' owned another store in the vicinity of my new address. A friend of mine, who isn’t even Jewish, ended up in an argument one day with the owner, who blamed Israel for the 9/11 attacks and conjured up the conspiracy theory that 4000 Jews stayed home that day on a tip from Mossad. My friend pointed out how ludicrous these accusations were, but to no avail. Not being able to stomach giving money to the ''Jew-Haters'' any longer, neither of us returned to the store
Years later, I still frequent my local, Arab-owned corner stores, mostly out of necessity, but also because, ironically, they provide the friendliest service in the city. But in the back of my mind, there lingers a nagging question. I can’t help wondering if they would be as friendly if they knew I was a Jew? In fact, I wonder if they would want to slit my throat if they knew I was a Jew? As the young men behind the counter smilingly hand me my change, such are the thoughts that go through my mind.
Having lived most of my life as a tolerant, egalitarian type, I dislike feeling this way, but I’ve read too many passages like the one in the Koran where Muslims are instructed not only to avoid befriending ''disbelievers,'' but to kill them as well. I’ve seen the videos of Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg, both Jews, beheaded like animals by calm, cool, Arab terrorists. I’ve seen the photos of Palestinians triumphantly holding up their Jewish-blood-stained hands, and dancing gleefully in the streets--the heads and remains of Jewish soldiers held aloft. But it is the story of Sébastien Selam, the young Jewish DJ in France who was murdered last year by his Arab neighbor, that haunts me the most. The two young men had been friends, but after slitting Sebastien’s throat and mutilating his face with a fork, the Arab youth simply said, ''I have killed my Jew. I will go to heaven.'' How one reconciles a sense of humanity with such callous indifference to life, is a question I continue to struggle with.
The mundane nature of evil has confounded mankind throughout history and the current situation is no exception. Today’s ''monsters'' could very well be the shopkeeper down the street, a neighbor in your building, or even someone you think is a friend. And for Jews in particular, such realities raise difficult questions. All too often, these concerns go unspoken for fear of giving offense, but the rising bodycount should add some perspective. We have seen where such willful ignorance has led in the past. Can we really afford to go down that path again?
Good Lord. I'd do without the milk and the bread, before I'd spend a dime in a place where I felt threatened enough to do that.
The McCoys and the Hatfields were cousins; so what!
I agree. Perdition would freeze over before I'd go to their business.
You wouldn't dare replace "arabam" with "iudeam," would you?
Advocating genocide is disgusting no matter who the proposed victim is.
And keep in mind what Rome got as a reward for her brutality against the Carthaginians.
"Who lives beneath the Punic curse
And strangles in the strings of purse
Before she's well
Must sicken worse."
They are the enemy within, at least one of them. There are a few others, like the media, and some democrats.
The Jews are the ones who are hated the most, besides President Bush, and Rush of course. So sick of this I could just scream at the injustice and stupidity of it all.
Several hundred years of prosperity and relative peace.
Several hundred years of prosperity and relative peace.>>
Not hardly. Kindly reread *I Claudius.*
The politicians continued to scheme, plot, and murder, but the peasant out in the countryside could continue to til his soil without fear of pillaging barbarians for a long time after Carthage
If I were a Jew in that neighborhood, this guy would be flayed alive, and then have his head replaced with a pig's--to cancel his visit to Allah's rape-paradise. Then his entire family would be killed and his home burned to the ground, Keizer Soze-style. Only when Jews start ruthlessly avenging their own, this will continue to happen.
I was commenting on the fact that the term "Anti-semite" is generally believed, or used by many, to mean 'Anti-Jewish'. That, as you know, is an incorrect use of the term. It just seems logical to me that since we are all people, who use words to communicate, we should use the words to mean what they mean.
Huh? Why would I want to? It was Arabs who killed several thousand Americans in the World Trade Center attack, who kill thousands of Christians and pagans in the Sudan, and who espouse an Islamic religion that holds as its right the conquest of the world and the subjugation of the peoples of the earth to the Moslems, and who want a theocratic state where there is no liberty. The Jews aren't doing any such thing.
My attitude towards the Arabs is simple: if they're willing to leave the West, and Western civilization alone and sell us the oil we want, they could have whatever sort of dark age barbaric culture they please and stagnate forever. But, on the evidence, the Arabs are NOT willing to let the West do as it pleases, they're the ones who have been at war with us. After all, they started the wars of conquest in the 7th century and have been trying to take over the world ever since. Recent history shows they haven't changed.
As far as I can tell, it's them or us. If that's true, then I'm all for it being us who survive and them who doesn't survive. The instant the arabs and other moslems abandon any claim to world dominion, and demonstrate by their behavior that they've really changed, then I'll stop issuing Cato's warning. I'm not advocating genocide as you call it, only killing those who have declared their intentions to kill us.
Others have suggested, whatever the curse, Rome and the civilized world had something like 400-500 years of relative peace and security after the plough passed over the ruins of Carthage.
Fair enough..
That's right, you wouldn't want to do that. It would make your exterminationism and moral equivalent to Naziism obvious even to you.
If you want to advocate the extermination of an entire people, knock yourself out. Don't expect those of us who understand what you are about to remain silent, however.
You are truly a fool. In the case of the Nazis, the Jews were not trying kill Germans when the Germans decided to kill the Jews. In the case of the Islamofascists, they are the ones who have declared war upon, and wish to kill all who will not submit to rule by Islam. They are the equivalent of the Nazis. I would exterminate only those who, unless exterminated, will continue to seek to kill me and all those who do not wish to submit to the whims of their religion.
Cato, I think you've just won the prize for understatement of the year.
Sometimes, the traitors in our midst proclaim the most noble, and purely fictional, reasons for their treason. RBJ is one of those.
You are truly a fool. In the case of the Nazis, the Jews were not trying kill Germans when the Germans decided to kill the Jews. In the case of the Islamofascists, they are the ones who have declared war upon, and wish to kill all who will not submit to rule by Islam. They are the equivalent of the Nazis. I would exterminate only those who, unless exterminated, will continue to seek to kill me and all those who do not wish to submit to the whims of their religion.
>>
Even if the Islamonazis want to rape my children that doesn't give me permission to exterminate the entire Arab race!
I've seen, personally, first hand, 4000 dead Muslims who were murdered by people who think like you do.
You speak Latin. Try "anathema sit" on for very personal size.
I highly recommend you read the works of Bat Ye'or on the Dhimma and dhimmitude.
Unless the Arab race is willing to (i) take care of the Islamonazis themselves so they are not a threat to the world, (ii) at least totally disavow the Islamonazis and shun them completely so that we can take care of just the Islamonazis, or (iii) a combination of the above, then the Arabs cannot complain if the are lumped together with the Islamonazis as a deadly threat to civilization, and as such, subject to being exterminated. Ugly, and appalling? Surely. However, the West's first duty is to protect civilization against Islamonazism. Better safe than sorry, as it were. Surely, knowing (a) that the West is not willing to let itself be destroyed, and (b) knowing the Islamonazis represent a threat to the West, it is incumbent upon the rest of the Arabs to make it clear they're not part of the bad guys. Hasn't happened.
Some of us cannot read Latin. Can you translate?
Don't you think that the average Arab-American is just as fearful of the Islamofascists as anyone else is--probably a lot moreso, in fact. Speak out and get your store firebombed, or your brother mugged. Why else would there be such deafening silence from the ranks of Muslims who barely even identify with their religion, much less practice it?
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