Anti-Semitism Lives

he other day a neighbor came by. He was troubled, he said, by the outbreak of anti-Semitism around the world. "I thought it pretty much ended after World War II. I guess I was being naive."

My neighbor is a good man, a sincere man, and I recognized his kind words as an invitation for me to talk about my own encounters with Jew-haters.

But I couldn't. The truth is, I'm 54 years old, I've been a Jew all my life and I have never met an anti-Semite.

For example: A lot of German politicians are very upset by the Israeli-Palestinian war. Fair enough. Norbert Bluem, the former labor minister of Germany, has even accused Israel of waging "a war of extermination."

Germany has a small Jewish community (most German Jews killed themselves during World War II), but that didn't stop the Jews there from launching vicious charges of anti-Semitism against various German statesmen like Free Democratic Party leader Guido Westerwelle.

"This is an outrage," Westerwelle replied. "One must be allowed to criticize Israel's military policy without being pushed into an anti-Semitic corner."

Westerwelle is right. These days, in Europe, the slightest criticism of Israel or Jews gets blown up into a charge of anti-Semitism.

For example: Last week, in Kiev, a mob of Ukrainians chanting "Beat the kikes!" chased two Jews into a synagogue, tossing one of them through a plate-glass window. As usual, the Jews portrayed themselves as victims. Ukrainian police put that slander to rest by declaring that the incident "had nothing to do" with anti-Semitism.

Or take the case of Tom Paulin, an Oxford professor and frequent contributor to the BBC. His only crime was telling an Egyptian newsweekly that American Jews in Israel "should be shot dead. I think they are Nazis and racists. I feel nothing but hatred for them."

Paulin was immediately attacked for this observation. Fortunately, he was able to clear his reputation by declaring himself "a life-long opponent of anti-Semitism."

Former French Prime Minister Michael Rocard has "fought anti-Semitism" since he was "very young." That's what he told Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in an open letter. He brought this up after asking rhetorically in the letter if Israel is planning to kill "half a million" Palestinians.

Rocard then warned that Israel's war on terrorism would lead to what he evidently considers a justified "torrent of worldwide anti-Israeli-ism."

There are non-anti-Semites on this side of the Atlantic, too. Minister Louis Farrakhan is one. Just this week, Farrakhan declared that he has nothing against Jews. "What I'm 'anti' is the type of control that some interests of that community exercise over our community."

Farrakhan, Paulin and Rocard may not like every single Jew or support every last Israeli policy. Neither do Pat Buchanan, Edward Said, David Duke, Ramsey Clark, Gore Vidal, John Trafficant and the Saudi royal family, but does that make them anti-Semites? On the contrary, these men have taken the extraordinary step of publicly declaring that they don't hate Jews.

That's why I told my neighbor to relax. If people like these aren't anti-Semites, there's really no such thing anymore.

The problem with the boy who cries "anti-Semite" too often(see post #8 for example) is that when he calls a real anti-Semite "an anti-Semite" no one knows whether to believe him.

Or believes him but is sick to death of his whining. I think that is what we are seeing in the world press and in the EU today. They've had enough. Sick of their corporations being shaken down for money, sick of having Holocaust museums shoved down their throats, sick of being made to say this or say that lest they be called an antisemite. Huge difference in world opinion between now and 1967. In the 6 Day War, people cheered Israel on. It was the little guy against the world. After 35 years of being beaten over the head by a little guy who grew up to be a bully, people are not so enthusiastic.

In theory, what you are saying makes perfect sense. However, the reality is that before you had whiny, demanding Jews, you had open, flaming, institutionalized anti-Semitism, in America, and everywhere else. So, your claim that today's anti-Semitism is the result of pushy Jews, won't wash.

Links between Sobran and Holocaust Revisionist Groups: Sobran not only support the Institute of Historical Review, a Holocaust revionist site also associated with Holocaust deniers, but Sobran writes for them.

www.ihr.org/search_results.shtml
Codoh is the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust
Here are links to a bunch of them.
http://codoh.com/zionweb/zionsob241die.html
http://codoh.com/zionweb/zionsobpollard.html
http://codoh.com/zionweb/ziestab.html
http://codoh.com/zionweb/zionsoblbjliberty.html
http://codoh.com/zionweb/zirprsntslf.html
http://codoh.com/zionweb/zionhands.html
http://codoh.com/zionweb/zifewcrit.html
http://codoh.com/zionweb/zioncannibal.html

Joe Sobran is no anti-Semite? Check out some of his articles on his own site.
http://www.sobran.com/equal.shtml
Or try Sobran's praise for a Jew who works for Holocaust Deniers and Revisionists?
http://www.sobran.com/issuetexts/2001-06.htm
However, the latest is a real beauty, where Sobran manages to quote a Holocaust denier and compare the "Amen Corner" to the Stalinists.
http://www.sobran.com/columns/020312.shtml
However, my personal favorite is one in which Sobran creates a straw man arguement to denounce the use of the term anti-Semetism. (IM2Phat4U should like these)
Genocide and Wisecracks
http://www.sobran.com/columns/020214.shtml

I liked the article until I got to the list with Buchanan's name on it. Including Pat on a list with Louis Farrakhan and David Duke casts this article into the same category the writer is trying to cast his targets into. "I'm not an anit-Semite" meets "I don't cast labels fasely."

I do not believe that Pat hates Jews, desires to see them harmed or wants Israel to cease to exist. These are three criterea I use to determine if someone is an anti-Semite.

I note that our President's name does not appear on the list. The President refuses to characterize Yasser Arafat a terrorist despite his fifty year history of conducting, directing, facilitating and financing terrorist acts. Further the President refuses to accept that Israel has every right to defend itself. During Israel's current military campaign, Bush has demanded that they withdraw ASAP. When ASAP didn't turn out to be immediately, Bush got angry, repeated his demands saying, "I said I wanted Israel to pull out and I meant it!" While the murdering Palestinian bombers carried out their acts, Bush and his Secretary of state made very little comment in public until Israel responded. Then their comments against the Palestinian bombers was muted. But every time Israel took punitive actions designed to make those who perpetrated such attacks pay a heavy price, as well as destroy the aparatus to carry out those attacks, Bush and his Secretary of State condemned Israel immeidately and resoundly. This is much more direct evidence of anti-Semitism than anything Pat has every done. And frankly, I don't think Bush or Powell are anti-Semitic. But if Pat Buchanan is judged to be, what does that make Bush and Powell?

Folks, labels should not be thrown around losely. This article started out well, then tanked. It destroyed it's own credibility with me.

What if Jews built a million such museums? Why should anyone else care. Nobody's being marched into the museums.

Yes they are. There is a holocaust museum/memorial in a High School in Brooklyn and a state college in New Mexico. The one in DC was largly funded by taxpayers. These memorials funded by tax dollars are sometimes used for religious observances. The ADL and ACLU, of course, don't say a peep about that.

A politician who says no to a new Holocaust museum or memorial has signed his own political death warrant. He will be made an example of.

You would think with all the Holocaust memorials built across the USA, we would have one memorial up to those Americans who died in WWII. But we don't. One is planned however. We don't have a museum to the victims of communism either and, as you know, communism killed 4 or 5 times more people than Nazism did.

In the minds of younger people, WWII was the holocaust and no genocide occurred in the Ukraine.

Sobran's column -- Genocide and Wisecracks (print version)



Genocide and Wisecracks
February 14, 2002

by Joe Sobran

     The February issue of COMMENTARY magazine features a 
long essay titled "The Return of Anti-Semitism," by 
Hillel Halkin. The title contains a curious word: 
"return." Is COMMENTARY implying that anti-Semitism ever 
went away?

     A frequent reader of the magazine would get the 
impression that anti-Semitism is one of the pervading and 
abiding realities of the world. It's in the air we 
breath, the water we drink, the language we speak, our 
culture, our religion, our heritage. Christianity is 
anti-Semitic. So is Islam. So are most of the countries 
of Europe. Many of the great writers of the West have 
been accused of anti-Semitism, including Chaucer, 
Shakespeare, Voltaire, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, G.K. 
Chesterton, T.S. Eliot, Orwell, and Solzhenitsyn.

     And no wonder. Halkin doesn't define anti-Semitism, 
but he finds it in every nook and corner. He counts 
genocide and persecution against Jews as anti-Semitic, 
which is surely reasonable, but he also counts a French 
diplomat's private wisecrack about Israel. Even a 
justified criticism of Israel, Halkin argues, can be 
anti-Semitic! "Anti-Semitism" seems to be a pretty broad 
concept, even broader than the concept of sin.

     Halkin admits that the concept can be abused, but he 
doesn't offer any helpful examples. Maybe he can't think 
of any.

     One of his chief complaints is that Israel is often 
judged by double standards. True enough, but it is also 
defended by double standards. In fact, it is based on 
double standards: one set for Jews, another for gentiles. 
That's more or less the whole idea. This is a country 
that denounces "terrorism," then chooses leaders like 
Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and Ariel Sharon.

     "Anti-Semitism" is a Soviet-style word, an all-
purpose accusation, and naturally the Soviet Union 
declared anti-Semitism a capital crime. Since it defies 
definition, it can't be falsified or refuted. In this 
court, as in a Stalinist show trial, there are no 
acquittals. Once you're accused, you're as good as 
convicted.

     That's why people in public life dread the charge of 
anti-Semitism. It not only reflects Jewish, particularly 
Zionist, power; it reflects the amazing self-absorption 
now prevalent among many Jews. Everything is judged by 
the standard of organized Jewish interests, and whatever 
impedes those interests -- even a passing remark -- 
becomes "anti-Semitism."

     So the chief purpose of the word is not to deter 
great crimes against Jews -- it isn't likely to stop an 
Osama bin Laden -- but to prevent even the most minor 
verbal offenses against Jewish amour-propre. It conflates 
mere criticism with persecution. Many blacks, feminists, 
and homosexuals try to use "racism," "sexism," and 
"homophobia" to the same effect, but these words don't 
have nearly as much power to frighten.

     Israel is far from the worst state in the Middle 
East, but we should be free to criticize it from the 
standpoints of morality and American interests. To 
criticize is not necessarily to attack; properly 
speaking, it means to measure, to put in proportion.

     If Jews tend to be self-centered, well, so do we 
all. The difference is that many Jews now expect everyone 
else to think in a Jew-centered way, as if the Holocaust 
and Israel were the most important facts of modern 
history. So to try to see these things in a different 
proportion is to outrage a certain Jewish sensibility.

     It's too bad. Not only are the taboos unfair to 
gentiles; they deprive Jews of the honest criticism 
everyone needs. Wise Jews don't want to be defined by 
anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Israel; many of them 
realize that Zionism, which dreamed of ending the tragic 
history of the Jews, may instead prove only one more 
tragic episode. Israel was supposed to offer the Jewish 
Diaspora a safe haven; instead, Diaspora Jews now have to 
worry about the safety of Israel itself. You can make a 
good case that Israel has defeated the very purpose of 
Zionism.

     What a change from the era of the Old Testament! The 
ancient Hebrews had no concept of anti-Semitism; in fact 
they were remarkably objective about themselves. They 
recorded their sins, the fierce rebukes of their 
prophets, and the divine chastisements in their holy 
books! What a contrast with the boasting, vanity, and 
self-glorification of most nations.

     Even at their most self-centered, those Jews 
retained a spirit that was uniquely God-centered. They 
remain a model for us all, and for modern Israel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read this column on-line at 
"http://www.sobran.com/columns/020214.shtml".

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