Winds of Change.NET: Anti-Semitism Has Returned: What To Do About It

Anti-Semitism Has Returned: What To Do About It

by Trent Telenko at February 23, 2003 12:02 PM

David Brooks, a senior editor for the Weekly Standard, has a very depressing article/op-ed on the return of socially acceptable anti-Semitism into national society from the American Left.

From the article:

Not long ago I was chatting with a prominent Washington figure in a green room. "You people have infested everywhere," he said in what I thought was a clumsy but good-hearted manner. He listed a few of "us": "Wolfowitz, Feith, Frum, Perle." I've never met Doug Feith in my life and Wolfowitz and Perle I've barely met. Yet he assumed we were tight as thieves. After a few minutes of jibing I finally pointed out that there were many non-Jews who support the president's policy against Iraq. I mentioned Bob Kerry. "He's a shabbas goy. He's got a lot of Jewish money supporting that school" he shot back. Shabbas goys are Christians who perform tasks for observant Jews on Saturdays.
I am the last person who used to suspect people of anti-Semitism. I was never really conscious of it affecting my life until the last few weeks. But now I wonder. I watched a town meeting in northern Virginia a few weeks ago. A Vietnam vet got up to rail against U.S. policy on Iraq, which he said was engineered by "Paul Wolfowitz and Daniel Pearl." He got the wrong Pearl. He accidentally mentioned somebody who was beheaded for being American and Jewish. But the crowd didn't seem to notice. They roared with approval and slapped him on the back as he made his way from microphone. Why didn't he say Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Powell were organizing the Bush administration policy? They're higher ranking officials than Wolfowitz and actually members of the administration, unlike Perle. Would the crowd have roared as wildly if he'd mentioned Rice and Powell, I wondered, or did the words Wolfowitz and Perle somehow get their juices flowing?

As I look at this op-ed, I cannot help but thinking that the American Left is committing suicide by adopting anti-Semitism as its organizing principle. The American multi-cultural left on campuses, the media, and in most secular non-government organizations view Israel as another South Africa because of its treatment of Palestinians. This left them highly vulnerable to being infected by the anti-Semitic hate campaigns of Arab regimes. And infected they most certainly are.

Any time I see left/liberal Democratic operative/supporter ranting in print against the "neo-conservative influence" on the Bush Administration, I now mark the author as a closet anti-Semite.

The Right and the Republican Party has had its own problems with anti-Semitism, but its public "excommunication" of Patrick Buchanan over the issue is making this polarization/popularization of anti-Semitism a future partisan political issue.

One thing I am certain of is that the "Jacksonians" in the American public are starting to view anti-Semitism as a trait of the enemies of America. And anyone who is pro-Palestinian is an ally of the Islamic death cult. Americans have taken mortal offense to children suicide/homicide bombers and I have seen a number of polls that show a higher percentage of Americans against an independent Palestinian state than in Israel!

The only question I have is whether this "leftist flame out" will stain the Democratic Party as a whole with it as it goes down. I think the Sharpton-Lieberman exchanges in the 2004 Democratic Presidential primaries will do much to shape this outcome.

The Democrats are going to have to visibly cast out anti-Semites in their party caucus at the 2004 national convention to be creditable on the subject. And they won't. I just don't see them ejecting the majority of the Black Caucus and the Campus Left.

This rising tide of "Respectable from the Left" anti-Semitism is making the Republican choice of New York City look for their 2004 convention more and more inspired. Republicans could easily pick up the NY City Jewish vote over a Democratic flinch on anti-Semitism. This will give them NY state and doom Democratic Presidential hopefuls for a generation as there is no Presidential electoral combination possible for them without N.Y. state.

I hate to say this, but this next paragraph really pisses me off.

It's not just the things people say. It's the things that are now socially acceptable. The leftist group ANSWER has a long and well-documented record of anti-Zionist statements so extreme and inflammatory that they are truly offensive. (Not to mention a record of supporting murderers and tyrants that is appalling and inhumane.) When the thousands gathered for the peace rally ANSWER co-organized on the mall in Washington, I figured most of the marchers didn't really know the true nature of the group. But now principled liberals and many others have exposed its vicious and Stalinoid nature. And the peace marchers don't mind! They still flocked to the ANSWER-organized marches last weekend. The fact that the Jewish liberal Michael Lerner wasn't permitted to speak didn't bother them either! Would they march at peace rallies organized by the KKK or the American Nazi Party, groups that are about as despicable as ANSWER? Is all hatred now socially acceptable if it is organized in the cause of "peace?"

Both David Brooks and Michael Lerner demonstrate here that they have a really anemic and bloodless view of free speech. Holding hands and singing "Kum-buy-ya" showing how great you are isn't "free speech." It is simply a form of speech.

Free speech isn't speech, it is an _absence of rules_ on speech. The only rule is that there are no rules. And using your free speech rights to silence someone else is allowed.

When the Klan tried to march in Skokie, Ill., they were faced with a mob of counter demonstrators who were out to threaten, intimidate, humiliate, shame, harass, spit on and otherwise use their full right of free speech to silence bigots in bed sheets.

Leftist anti-Semites are just another kind of bigot in Palestinian bed sheets and deserve the same treatment. The Skokie treatment should be the fate of ANSWER where ever it appears.

Who are the leaders in ANSWER? Where do they live? Where do they get their money?

That information should be published on the internet so people can picket their homes and the homes of their American money men.

Getting in their faces yelling, during picketing, that they are anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist and that you are going to watch and report their actions to the FBI is free speech.

Setting up video web cams to watch your picketing and put organized anti-Semite's faces, homes, business, and vehicles on the internet is free speech.

Taking video or setting up web cams to watch their demonstrations, particularly ones where these people dress themselves and their own children as suicide/homicide bombers, is also an effective intimidation tactic.

The only rules here are be prepared to defend yourself if the anti-Semites attack you physically and just win baby.

"All it takes for evil to win is for men of good heart to do nothing."

Americans have freedom of speech.

So why aren't you doing something?

Update 1:

Donald Sensing sends this link.

Update 2

Dean Esmay sends links one and two.

I updated the text above to more closely reflect what I intended to say versus what I actually wrote in the first draft about taking video of anti-Semite's kids.

The point I intended to make was to advertise the anti-Semites _dehumanizing their own kids_ and not doing that yourself as a part of counter protesting.

The use of kids to blockade abortion clinics was one of the things that drove me out of the pro-life movement and it is very much of a hot button with me. It was I had in mind with the first go around.

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