Sunday, July 12, 2009

Which smear has greater effect--self-hating Jew or anti-Semite?

Helena Cobban asked in an email yesterday-- apropos of the report that Netanyahu has called powerful Jewish aides to Obama "self-hating Jews"--which is worse: to be called an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew? Which calumny is more effective in preventing criticism of Israel? I say: to be called an anti-Semite. My reasoning:
(Mondoweiss)
And here's Helena Cobban's article
(Justworldnews)

4 comments:

  1. "You can be sued for wrongly accusing someone of being an anti-Semite. I don't think you can be sued for calling someone a self-hating Jew."

    We are a litigious people :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I posted this on Mondo -

    We are also a litigious people...lol One has only to look at how the twisting of accusations are used in an official and semi-official sense. Even governmental organizations can be twisted to stifle debate, hence the battle regarding academic freedom, see -

    http://www.usccr.gov/campusanti-semitism.html

    Note the definitive language -

    "Campus Anti-Semitism reports that many college campuses throughout the United States continue to experience incidents of anti-Semitism, a serious problem warranting further attention. Anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist propaganda has been disseminated on many campuses that include traditional anti-Semitic elements, including age-old anti-Jewish stereotypes and defamation. For example claiming that the Jew are responsible for the killing of Christ or alleging that Zionism is racism."

    This takes it one step away from a courtroom by defining antisemitism in an official government organization. The next step will be full fledged prosecution like the European arena.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It is derived from this link (above) -

    http://notinhisname.blogdrive.com/archive/cm-09_cy-2007_m-09_d-01_y-2007_o-0.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good article by Helen also. It is interesting to note how nations use their poor (respectively speaking) and destitute for their dirty work. The symbiosis of the settlers/idf is a good example.

    ReplyDelete