Canary in the Coal Mine, or You Could Be Next

 

After the last attacks on Israel by Hamas, the canards began to escalate against Israelis once more: they stole the land, they abuse the Palestinians—well, the list goes on. In recent months there has also been discussion on this site about whether anti-Semitic attacks in this country are increasing or not, whether the concern was being exaggerated or should be seriously addressed.

I’ve decided to take a different approach to the “Jewish question.” From my perspective, there are three types of attacks on Jews that have a great deal to teach us and serve as a warning: (1) the relevance of the merging of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist thought in these times; (2) the subtlety of criticisms of Jews, and how Jews are adding credence to these statements, (3) the lessons that need to be learned from the current situation by Jews and non-Jews alike.

*     *     *     *

So many of the arguments denying that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are the same are misleading, are lies, or are trying to use current politics to attack both mindsets. I would prefer to use long-standing tropes that try to justify attacking Israel with lies and deceptions as a means to separate out the two ideas.

First, those who deny the connection say that Jews invaded Israel and essentially kicked out the Palestinians. Anyone who has studied Jewish history knows these statements are not true. The Jews have lived in that part of the world for thousands of years, and although their population decreased, they were continuously resident. The Jews repeatedly made efforts to engage the Arabs in the region, but they refused.

Second, People think that Israelis believe that criticism about them is anti-Semitic. The problem arises when the media either ignores the actions of non-Israelis in the country or distorts the information about Israel.

Third, Israel is an apartheid state. This is an illegitimate claim. The term “apartheid” was used to describe South Africa: apartheid dictated where South Africans, on the basis of their race, could live and work, the type of education they could receive, and whether they could vote. None of these restrictions apply to Arabs in Israel. Arabs can live in Israel, have full access to schools (although more needs to be done to improve education for Arabs), live in mixed Israeli and Arab communities, and the Arabs can vote.

Israel has been condemned by the United Nations more than any other nation in the world. When one considers the atrocities and repression committed all over the globe just in recent years, one only needs to look at Syria, Rwanda, Cuba, Myanmar, South Sudan, Congo and Darfur. Let’s not forget China.

There are many other claims about the legitimacy of Israel, and as long as arguments of legitimacy are used as a cudgel, the legitimacy of the anti-Zionist argument becomes moot. It is part and parcel of the anti-Semitic rhetoric

*     *     *     *

The reason I became convinced of the merging of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism was that a definition of the former is precisely the same for the latter. Bret Stephens (whether you like him as a Conservative or not), in a panel discussion with Bari Weiss (see below), defined anti-Semitism not just as racist (technically, Judaism is not a race), but in this way:

It is a conspiracy theory which holds that Jews are imposters and swindlers. If you look at the 19th century, they were considered to be imposters: they were ‘trying to be’ Germans and French, and they were ‘stealing the wealth’ of those countries”; anti-Zionism is the same.

Contemplate that definition for a moment. The definition held true in Europe, and it holds true today in Israel—and might be emerging in our own country.

*     *     *     *

It’s helpful to remember that many bigotries against Jews were encoded in law in European countries; gradually some restrictions were removed, and Jews appeared to assimilate successfully in almost every country where they lived. But the assimilation was misleading. Jews were repeatedly expelled from countries. Just under the surface, and sometimes even blatantly, Jewish hatred reared its ugly head. Some opportunities were considered unwise to pursue by both Jews and non-Jews, whether in commerce or government; Jews were concerned about being perceived as seeking to live above their station and to rekindle the hatred toward the Jewish community. And then we endeavored to survive the wreckage and destruction of World War II.

Today, only a few people unashamedly publicly attack the Jew. We see these attacks by our own government representatives. Some people are wise enough to do it in the absence of Jewish company. There may be enough people in this country who would speak out against anti-Semitic remarks. The people who are the most tolerant of anti-Semitic rhetoric: the Jews themselves. They have lulled themselves into a sense of safety and wellbeing; after all, it’s not like they wear strange clothes or mumble in Yiddish around their friends. Anti-Semitic jokes can be brushed off or ignored. Jews take off time for the same holidays as everyone else; they eat the same foods as their secular friends. In effect, they are barely Jewish. So when they find themselves in the position of having to defend Jews, or worse yet, Israel, they put on their Progressive hats so they can blend into the crowd. They take pride in the fact that they are no different than anyone else, and as Jews have done through the centuries, they fight for the underdog—the other. One has to ask in all seriousness, who is the underdog in Israel, and how is that defined?

*     *     *     *

So, where do I find myself in this discussion? If it’s possible, I’m more zealous than ever in my support for Jews all over the world, and especially for the state of Israel. I’m not going to make apologies for my stance. I am critical of Israel when it does foolish things, but I will attack the lies, too, like these:

Palestinian land (despite the fact that Israel vacated the territory from which it was subsequently attacked) and wanton violence against Palestinian civilians, particularly children (despite the fact that Israel regularly warned its targets to vacate buildings before targeting them) — can’t help but make me think of ancient libels about Jewish greed and bloodlust.

or vociferously:

For example, when you hear that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, which it of course manifestly is not, you are abusing that word and trafficking in a classic anti-Semitic trope, suggesting that the Jewish people have a particular kind of bloodlust. Or if you say that Israel or Israeli leaders have hypnotized the world to get them to do their bidding, that again, goes back to an old anti-Semitic trope.

*     *     *     *

If you’re not Jewish, why should you be concerned? Because in this country, it isn’t the Jews who have a bloodlust; it is the Progressive party. And it is against anyone who doesn’t adopt their program and its propaganda. I’m suggesting that the Jews are not the only ones in the sights of Jew-haters; they are just the canary in the coal mine. If you’re Christian, a gun owner, a Conservative, a cop or former military, get ready.

You could be next.

The one-hour panel on The Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism: How Should We Respond, particularly the first nine minutes

.

Published in Foreign Policy
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  1. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    kedavis (View Comment):
    Maybe that’s a problem with rather loose and expansive definitions of “war crimes.”  If expelling people who would do you harm is a “war crime” then the definition needs improvement.

    So if people are inconvenient, if they get in the way of making a State that is both Jewish and Democratic, it’s okay to expel them?

    • #91
  2. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Zafar (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):
    Maybe that’s a problem with rather loose and expansive definitions of “war crimes.” If expelling people who would do you harm is a “war crime” then the definition needs improvement.

    So if people are inconvenient, if they get in the way of making a State that is both Jewish and Democratic, it’s okay to expel them?

    You may think they were just “inconvenient” but that’s your definition, doesn’t make it definitive.

    • #92
  3. Mikescapes Inactive
    Mikescapes
    @Mikescapes

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Rodin (View Comment):

    Deny liberty unjustly to one, you deny liberty unjustly to all. Slander and libel are foundational to injustice.

    So true. And yet I think so many believe that it’s somebody else’s problem, @ rodin, and doesn’t apply to them. I can’t help asking myself, over and over, how did we get here?

     

    • #93
  4. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    The attacking Arab countries promised the Israeli Arabs that if they fled, they would be rewarded with the spoils of war after the Jews were either driven our or exterminated.

    Apparently that’s not true. Hasbara.

    I have no idea what Hasbara is.

    Given that the general Arab cultural position then…

    ???

    How do you know the general Arab cultural position then or now?

    Because Arabs come right out and say it. 

    https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/myths-and-facts-quotes

    https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/05/hamas-leader-quotes-antisemitic-quran-passage-says-we-want-you-to-cut-off-the-heads-of-the-jews-with-knives

    https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/05/hamas-leader-quotes-antisemitic-quran-passage-says-we-want-you-to-cut-off-the-heads-of-the-jews-with-knives

    Also, in recent decades, polling has been done in the Middle-East showing overwhelming hatred for the Jews, especially among Palestinians.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-93-of-palestinians-hold-anti-jewish-beliefs/

    Geneva convention rules may be fine for most situations, but this one would have destroyed Israel before they could finish singing “Hatikvah.”

    Are you saying that Israel could not be created as a Jewish and Democratic State without ethnic cleansing of the Arabs?

    That’s basically admitting that Israel couldn’t be created without committing war crimes.

    “Ethnic Cleansing” and “War Crimes” are your words for not letting people back into your country who fought in a war against you.  I beg to differ.  If they were doing “ethnic cleansing,” then why does Israel allow Arabs to make up 1/5th of their population with the  exact same rights as Jewish citizens? 

    The country of Kuwait kicked out their entire population of one-quarter of a million Palestinians after the Gulf war simply because the Palestinians favored Saddam Hussein in the conflict.  They did not leave on their own accord and neither did they  fight with Iraqi forces.  Would you consider this to be “ethnic cleansing?”  Wouldn’t that be far worse than what Israel did in 1948?

    • #94
  5. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    I have no idea what Hasbara is.

    Literally means ‘explaining’, but is commonly used to mean propaganda. (Same word in Arabic and Hebrew.)

    How do you know the general Arab cultural position then or now?

    Because Arabs come right out and say it.

    Are those opinions typical today?  How do you know what it was then? How about in the early 1900s?

    Also, in recent decades, polling has been done in the Middle-East showing overwhelming hatred for the Jews, especially among Palestinians.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-93-of-palestinians-hold-anti-jewish-beliefs/

    That was a very interesting article.  The money quote imo:

    The top such anti-Semitism hotspot, the survey noted, was the West Bank and Gaza, where the ADL found that anti-Semitic attitudes topped 93%.

    Unfortunate result of the occupation? Unconnected coincidence? Other reason? The ADL does not say.  What do you think?

    (The ADL’s survey questions are here.)

    “Ethnic Cleansing” and “War Crimes” are your words for not letting people back into your country who fought in a war against you.

    They’re terms used when a civilian population is not allowed to return to its homes after military conflict ceases.  I didn’t make them up, war crimes are even defined in the Geneva Conventions (which the State of Israel ratified).  Unless you’re arguing that the 750,000 displaced Palestinians were all combatants, then ethnic cleansing took place.  Which is a war crime.

    I beg to differ. If they were doing “ethnic cleansing,” then why does Israel allow Arabs to make up 1/5th of their population with the exact same rights as Jewish citizens?

    Did you miss this part:

    Israel is the only “democracy” in the world that nationalized almost all if its land and prohibited even the leasing of most of agricultural lands to non-Jews, a situation made possible by….legal arrangements with the Jewish National Fund, including the Basic Law: Israel Lands (1960), the Israel Lands Law and Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), as well as the Covenants between the Government of the State of Israel and the WZO of 1954 and the JNF of 1961.

    How is that equal?

    Why was the ethnic cleansing limited? I was going to say because Israel needed the world’s sympathy and couldn’t be too openly brutal, but to be fair there were also some decent people in the Yishuv.  Plus, they got rid of enough of them.

    The country of Kuwait kicked out their entire population of one-quarter of a million Palestinians after the Gulf war simply because the Palestinians favored Saddam Hussein in the conflict. They did not leave on their own accord and neither did they fight with Iraqi forces. Would you consider this to be “ethnic cleansing?” Wouldn’t that be far worse than what Israel did in 1948?

    It was pretty bad, but the salient difference is that the Palestinians are not from Kuwait, they are from Palestine.

     

    • #95
  6. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    @stevenseward – there’s an Israeli organisation called Zochrot which documents the Nakba.  You might find their website interesting, especially the part where they present testimonies from that time, both Palestinian and Israeli.

    • #96
  7. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    I have no idea what Hasbara is.

    Literally means ‘explaining’, but is commonly used to mean propaganda. (Same word in Arabic and Hebrew.)

    Thank you!

    How do you know the general Arab cultural position then or now?

    Because Arabs come right out and say it.

    Are those opinions typical today? How do you know what it was then? How about in the early 1900s?

    They didn’t do polls back in the early 1900’s but they do record  massacres of Jewish civilians by Arabs.  It mostly started in 1920 and continued through the 1930’s. The most famous of these was the “Hebron Massacre.”  It took 17 years before the Jews started fighting back.  This convenient chart on Wikipedia outlines all the fighting:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_and_massacres_in_Mandatory_Palestine

     

    • #97
  8. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    Also, in recent decades, polling has been done in the Middle-East showing overwhelming hatred for the Jews, especially among Palestinians.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-93-of-palestinians-hold-anti-jewish-beliefs/

    That was a very interesting article. The money quote imo:

    The top such anti-Semitism hotspot, the survey noted, was the West Bank and Gaza, where the ADL found that anti-Semitic attitudes topped 93%.

    Unfortunate result of the occupation? Unconnected coincidence? Other reason? The ADL does not say. What do you think?

    Yep, I would strongly guess that the lower regard for Jews among the Palestinians is because of their close proximity and number of conflicts with them.  The most recent developments have several Arab countries signing peace accords with Israel, post-dating that survey.

    • #98
  9. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

     

    “Ethnic Cleansing” and “War Crimes” are your words for not letting people back into your country who fought in a war against you.

    They’re terms used when a civilian population is not allowed to return to its homes after military conflict ceases. I didn’t make them up, war crimes are even defined in the Geneva Conventions (which the State of Israel ratified). Unless you’re arguing that the 750,000 displaced Palestinians were all combatants, then ethnic cleansing took place. Which is a war crime.

    I beg to differ. If they were doing “ethnic cleansing,” then why does Israel allow Arabs to make up 1/5th of their population with the exact same rights as Jewish citizens?

    Did you miss this part:

    Israel is the only “democracy” in the world that nationalized almost all if its land and prohibited even the leasing of most of agricultural lands to non-Jews, a situation made possible by….legal arrangements with the Jewish National Fund, including the Basic Law: Israel Lands (1960), the Israel Lands Law and Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), as well as the Covenants between the Government of the State of Israel and the WZO of 1954 and the JNF of 1961.

    How is that equal?

    I did miss that part and haven’t had time to look at it yet, so I can’t comment.

    Why was the ethnic cleansing limited? I was going to say because Israel needed the world’s sympathy and couldn’t be too openly brutal, but to be fair there were also some decent people in the Yishuv. Plus, they got rid of enough of them.

    I would just say that some Arabs were civil and some were not so civil, as with any peoples.  The civil ones stayed behind and became an integral part of the country while the not so civil ones chose war, intifada’s, terrorism, etc…

    The country of Kuwait kicked out their entire population of one-quarter of a million Palestinians after the Gulf war simply because the Palestinians favored Saddam Hussein in the conflict. They did not leave on their own accord and neither did they fight with Iraqi forces. Would you consider this to be “ethnic cleansing?” Wouldn’t that be far worse than what Israel did in 1948?

    It was pretty bad, but the salient difference is that the Palestinians are not from Kuwait, they are from Palestine.

    What difference does that make?  They were living in Kuwait.  Their ancestors who inhabited Palestine in the early 20th Century were mostly not from Palestine, either.  They emigrated from surrounding Arab countries during the British Mandate period.

     

     

    • #99
  10. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    This convenient chart on Wikipedia outlines all the fighting:

    I have to admit I find wikipedia corruptingly convenient.  Linked to your link:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercommunal_conflict_in_Mandatory_Palestine

    From which some interesting snippets:

    Arab opposition was of course known to the Zionists. Ben-Gurion said in 1918: “We as a nation want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs”. Resistance was to be expected. Jabotinsky said in 1921: “I don’t know of a single example in history where a country was colonised with the courteous consent of the population”.

    And

    According to C. D. Smith the British adherence to the terms of the mandate meant that there was no political way for the Palestinian Arabs to counter the loss of their country. “Eventually violence became the only recourse.”

    And

    In public, Ben-Gurion upheld the official position of his party that denied the necessity of force in achieving Zionist goals. Unlike Weizmann, Ben-Gurion did have a realistic view of the strong attachment of Arab Palestinians to the Palestinian soil. In 1938 he said: “In our political argument abroad we minimize Arab opposition to us. But let us not ignore the truth among ourselves. […] A people which fights against [what it conceives as] the usurpation of its land will not tire so easily.” According to Flapan, Ben-Gurion’s assessment of Arab feelings led him to an even more militant line on the need to build up Jewish military strength: “I believe in our power, in our power which will grow, and if it will grow agreement will come…”.

    And about the Mufti of Jerusalem:

    Peter Novick has argued that the post-war historiographical depiction of al-Husseini reflected complex geopolitical interests that distorted the record.

    ‘The claims of Palestinian complicity in the murder of the European Jews were to some extent a defensive strategy, a preemptive response to the Palestinian complaint that if Israel was recompensed for the Holocaust, it was unjust that Palestinian Muslims should pick up the bill for the crimes of European Christians. The assertion that Palestinians were complicit in the Holocaust was mostly based on the case of the Mufti of Jerusalem, a pre-World War II Palestinian nationalist leader who, to escape imprisonment by the British, sought refuge during the war in Germany. The Mufti was in many ways a disreputable character, but post-war claims that he played any significant part in the Holocaust have never been sustained. This did not prevent the editors of the four-volume Encyclopedia of the Holocaust from giving him a starring role. The article on the Mufti is more than twice as long as the articles on Goebbels and Göring, longer than the articles on Himmler and Heydrich combined, longer than the article on Eichmann—of all the biographical articles, it is exceeded in length, but only slightly, by the entry for Hitler.’

     

     

    • #100
  11. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Since I warmly agree with Susan Quinn’s high opinion of our cyberpal Zafar, I’m going to take his side here to some degree–not enough of a degree to satisfy his sense of justice, no doubt. 

    The Israeli war of independence and the partition of Pakistan and India both took place almost simultaneously. Both involved the collapse of the British empire’s ability to dictate the terms of its own global withdrawal.

    When I was a kid, about five years later, many of my friends’ mothers had fond memories of going door-to-door with donation boxes for the Jewish Palestine Fund, and most of them told us the same story: nobody wanted that land but us. There was practically nobody there, anyway. Obviously, this wasn’t true, though they were quite sincere about it. My own grandmother’s ideas about, say, the Reformation or the Spanish Civil War were no better grounded. 

    Many years later I read mainstream magazine articles of the era. From the late Thirties onwards, there were warnings from Arab countries that we were losing their friendship as well as, someday perhaps, access to their oil. But at that time we had plenty of oil, and in the victorious aftermath of WWII, we thought we had plenty of friends. 

    It should be remembered that for the first fifteen or so years of Israel’s existence, the US, although friendly towards it, wasn’t its main patron or its protector. Europe, France in particular, was. It was France who supplied Israel with Mirage jet fighters and the start of nuclear technology of Dimona. In 1956, Eisenhower severely frowned on the UK, French, and Israeli actions in Suez. Our state department’s Ivy League leadership treated Israel as a basically European answer to a purely European atrocity. If the US wanted to pick up honors for helping Israel, in the early days it wasn’t doing much of a job of it.

    But many non-Jewish Americans have some instinctive identification with a nation of settlers. We also like winners, and after June 1967, most Americans were either tacitly or enthusiastically on their side. That support has eroded some, but this is the attitude that’s prevailed here for most of the past half century, with the occasional disagreement like Lebanon. 

    In that light, arguments over its legitimacy are considered moot here, outside of a group of cafes in Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Berkeley. But I’d guess there are three reasons why the issue is considered moot:

    One argument: God gave them the land. This is believed by many Christians and Jews, but it was never a controlling reason why US policy is what it is or was. It’s also probably no longer a majority opinion among non-evangelical Christians, not because they don’t believe in Israel, but because they no longer strongly believe in Biblical authority, period. 

    Two, the UN and other international organizations awarded recognition.  To what degree could the UN really have been said to represent the will of the world in 1946-48? This argument cuts less ice than it used to, since those same international groups have spent decades tirelessly denouncing Israel, sometimes seemingly to the exclusion of doing almost anything else.

    Three: The Arabs fought and lost. By the rough standards of world history, that settles it. That’s not the proudest of arguments, the most idealistic, or the prettiest sounding, no. Americans are pragmatic people. Israel exists and it’s not going away. 

    • #101
  12. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Zafar (View Comment):
    The Mufti was in many ways a disreputable character, but post-war claims that he played any significant part in the Holocaust have never been sustained.

    Just the Mufti, kickin’ back with his pal Heinrich in Berlin, ’41.

    • #102
  13. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    I’m going to take his side here to some degree–not enough of a degree to satisfy his sense of justice, no doubt.

    I’ll take it.

    Three: The Arabs fought and lost. By the rough standards of world history, that settles it. That’s not the proudest of arguments, the most idealistic, or the prettiest sounding, no. Americans are pragmatic people. Israel exists and it’s not going away. 

    Indeed, but neither are the Palestinians.  Hence still all the whattodowhattodo these many years after.

     

    • #103
  14. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    What difference does that make?  They were living in Kuwait. 

    I think being expelled from your own native place is different, but Kuwait acted badly there.

    Their ancestors who inhabited Palestine in the early 20th Century were mostly not from Palestine, either.  They emigrated from surrounding Arab countries during the British Mandate period.

    Mostly not.

    • #104
  15. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    I’m going to take his side here to some degree–not enough of a degree to satisfy his sense of justice, no doubt.

    I’ll take it.

    Three: The Arabs fought and lost. By the rough standards of world history, that settles it. That’s not the proudest of arguments, the most idealistic, or the prettiest sounding, no. Americans are pragmatic people. Israel exists and it’s not going away.

    Indeed, but neither are the Palestinians. Hence still all the whattodowhattodo these many years after.

    As I recall, several options have been available, all refused because they don’t result in the destruction of Israel.

    • #105
  16. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    kedavis (View Comment):
    As I recall, several options have been available, all refused because they don’t result in the destruction of Israel.

    The Palestinians have two core issues:

    Refugees, including the 1948 refugees, have a right (according to the Geneva Conventions) to return to their homes; and

    Dividing the land to make a two state solution with East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.

    None of the options proposed by Israel really addresses either.

    imo the really big one is the refugees.  Israel is right – if all the 1948 refugees and their descendents returned to Israel it would mean that the State would no longer have a Jewish majority.  Is peace even worth that?  So far it isn’t to Israel.

    But let’s say that’s a starting point in negotiations – Israel would still need to acknowledge that the refugees are a significant issue and take responsibility for creating them – and that’s something I don’t think it’s ready to do.  Hence the claims that all 750,000 were enemy combatants or that most of them moved in from Egypt the year before or whatever.  There is no partner for peace, only snappy one liners. It’s depressing.

     

    • #106
  17. Mikescapes Inactive
    Mikescapes
    @Mikescapes

    Unsk (View Comment):

    To me, not to deride the impact of the current Anti-Semitism on Jews, for they should be very afraid, this current Anti-Semitism is part and parcel of the larger, overarching Neo-Marxist/Democrat attack on America, it’s values and it’s Constitutional Rights . As the quote kinda goes…first they came for the Jews………

    Not only is this Anti-Semitism rank bigotry, it is also an attack on our right to Freedom of Religion for Jews should be able to practice their religion as they choose without harassment. It’s not like their Jewish orthodox religious beliefs are a direct threat to our Republic like let’s say …..hmmmm Islam is. It is the Jew’s right under our Constitution to practice Judaism as they choose. But the Democrats in their fealty to the bigoted demands of the Islamic Lobby choose once again to disregard our Constitutional rights in the pursuit of a bigoted and frightening Police State that gives fealty to our enemies.

     


    Susan Quinn (View Comment)
    :

    Rodin (View Comment):

    Deny liberty unjustly to one, you deny liberty unjustly to all. Slander and libel are foundational to injustice.

    So true. And yet I think so many believe that it’s somebody else’s problem, @ rodin, and doesn’t apply to them. I can’t help asking myself, over and over, how did we get here?

     

    • #107
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