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The Jew-hatred Behind the World's Problems

Melanie Sturm | @ThinkAgainUSA Read Comments - 21
Publish Date: 
Thu, 02/26/2015

 

There’s an old political saying that if your opponent is committing suicide, get out of the way. Yet Professor Sean Elias requires a response, so hateful was his odious retort in the Aspen Times to my column, ”Why coexist with a mortal Iranian threat?

                                                                                                 

Evidence that society’s oldest prejudice endures after a post-Nazi dormancy, Elias’s letter-to-the-editor reflects the bigotry that’s inciting lethal anti-Jewishness in Europe, and existential threats to Israel, the only nation-state of the Jewish people and the sole democracy in the Mideast’s radicalized swamp.

 

No other nation is surrounded by as much hostility or is targeted for destruction by governmental and terrorist groups. Yet Vermont-sized Israel, nine miles wide at its narrowest point, suffers unreasonable scrutiny, despite comprising only 0.3 percent of the region’s territory and 1.6 percent of its population. 

 

Peddling prejudices as obvious truths, Elias employs familiar stereotypes to convince you to Think Again about Jews, Israel and its leaders, hoping to incite hatred for a people who’ve suffered 2,500 years of unrelenting oppression while inspiring more free and decent societies.

 

Before the Jews, the pagan world resembled today’s Islamic State, devoid of freedom and dignity. It was “the Jews,” American founder John Adams noted, who “contributed more to civilized man than any other nation. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more than any other nation, ancient or modern.”

 

Unfortunately, “things change, anti-Semitism remains,” observed Auschwitz-survivor and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel. Because words have power, he insists, “we can bring hope, or despair -- it’s always in our hands.”

 

Elias chooses despair, scolding “Jewish fanatics;” “Jewish misbehavior;” “Jewish jingoism;” a rhetorically “handicapped rabbi;” “radicalized Jews who would have the US sacrifice its citizens to defend an Israeli state;” and “Judeocentrism” at the Aspen Times, invoking the classic canard, Jewish control of the media.

 

Calling my column a “fanatical Zionist propagandist piece,” Elias argues, “Extremist Jews like Sturm will welcome the blood-tainted, saber-rattling, opportunistic prime minister of Israel…. Benjamin Netanyahu (who’ll)…soon slither into the halls of Congress.”

 

The professor represents a growing anti-Jew movement -- thriving on campuses and in international organizations – aimed at delegitimizing and ultimately denying Jewish self-determination in the Jews’ ancestral homeland. Activists don’t care about depriving the world of Israeli innovations -- medical, technological, renewable-energy, water-conservation -- only destroying Israel.

 

Though Israel’s Arab citizens – one-fifth of its population – are freer than all citizens living in 22 Arab nations, and despite the country’s free press, independent judiciary and regular elections, anti-Jewish activists brand Israel a “racist, apartheid state,” an insult to those who’ve suffered real apartheid.

 

Last week, Stanford’s student government joined a growing list of organizations favoring divestment from Israel, citing “human rights abuses.” In a world of human rights violators, Israel is demonized as a pariah – not China, North Korea, or Iran.

 

Since Israel is a liberal, free, immigrant-friendly, multiethnic oasis in a cesspool of political, religious and sexual persecution, what else besides Jew-hatred explains the doubled standard applied to the world’s only sovereign Jewish community, and it’s singling out for isolation and strangulation?

 

Reflecting on his five-years as an AP reporter in Israel, Matti Friedman blasted the media’s “groupthink,” arguing it has “moved away from careful explanation and toward a kind of political character assassination on behalf of the side it identified as being right.”

 

New “settlement” houses are newsworthy, not new rockets smuggled into Gaza or Hamas’s placement of military installations near schools and hospitals. Deaths and injuries from Israel's defensive military operations are stories, not Hamas's war crimes, generating civilian casualties on both sides.

 

When journalists “portray the Jews of Israel as the party obviously in the wrong, when they omit all possible justifications for the Jews’ actions and obscure the true face of their enemies, what they are saying to their readers…. is that Jews are the worst people on earth,” Friedman concluded.

 

Should anti-Israel activists succeed, Friedman believes democracy and modernity will be replaced by ruthless extremism, as in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen, “ending the only safe progressive space in the Middle East, the only secure minority refuge in the Middle East, and the only Jewish country on Earth.”

 

On the frontlines of the battle to preserve freedom, Israel is the canary struggling to survive the noxious coalmine, not the cause of the deadly fumes. Hatred that targets Jews never ends with Jews. Eventually it reaches Christians, women, gays, and liberals, as evident throughout the Mideast today.

 

This will be Netanyahu’s message to Congress. Representing a people whose contributions include the ethical tenets underpinning civilization -- equality before the law, sanctity of life, freedom, social responsibility, peace as a commandment -- his goal is to join with America, history’s greatest champion of these values, to preserve them.

 

Think Again – As Wiesel urges, by bringing hope, not despair, to public discourse, we can help the forces of tolerance, freedom and peace repair the world.

 

 

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It makes sense that as the

It makes sense that as the Esthers stand up and speak out, that the Hamans are compelled by their hatred to spew it forth. I'm not Jewish but I find it interesting that the Feast of Purim is this week. May every Haman be revealed by Esthers everywhere.

The world is very lucky to

The world is very lucky to have a country like Israel. Very lucky to have a country like the USA as well. However, the world is not so lucky when those 2 countries make huge political mistakes.

No government is perfect for sure and of course Israel is surrounded by madness. Some of your commentators are wholly blaming the left. They are totally generalizing. I think the main problem in the world are people on the extreme fringe whether they are on the left or right. Everywhere. They can be Muslim, Jewish , Catholic, Born-Agains , you name it.

I am glad that the US supports Israel and Israel supports us as well. Who else in that part of the world can kick some ass when need be ?? Israel does things that need to be done. Certainly mistakes have been made that don't help out though. Israel is not always perfect. I think the rest of the world, be it Great Britain, France , USA , Russia ,China etc..., has not helped make the situation better. In fact, they've made things worse. I also think a lot of religious groups need to teach tolerance and respect.

I know people of all religions that are generally respectful and sweet and understanding. I also know some of them that are really fundamentally extreme and harsh and overbearing. I think education is the key......

I have been extremely

I have been extremely grateful and it is so refreshing to
know there is a voice such as yours in our Mountains (I reside in Edwards).

Over the years, our public press and daily papers haven't printed views that differ from their tired liberalism. New-worthy topics in our communities are seldom covered and there is no investigative reporting exposing issues behind or backing most liberal topics affecting our schools, neighborhoods, or elections.

It is disconcerting to read the vehemence in Mr. Elias's letter. Your response was appropriate and factual. May our public discourse continue without fear, and strengthen in resolve to not be silenced.

Thank You

Melanie - the difficult part

Melanie - the difficult part must have been editing down all that you could have said into a concentrated readable message. You kept it concise and filled with positives. Wear those comments the professor from "the dark side" wrote about you as badges of honor and evidence that you are being effective.

In the old days in Aspen, I spent a lot of time with Terese David, her husband the film director, fled France before Paris fell with nothing but a backpack. Terese would point to small menorah on her kitchen shelf and say," "That was one of the things Charles carried out of France on his back," Terese said the anti-Semitism in France just went underground and never went away. She was appalled that Aspen chose for her Sister City in Germany, Garmisch, which continued to be, in her opinion, an unrepentant hotbed of Nazi culture.

Everyone I met who survived or escaped the horrors of the Nazi era predicted that open hostilities against Jews would arise again even in the US, but who would think the winds that swept through Europe in the 1930's would be roused again within a generation? And in this country via the liberals!

A few years back before 9-11, I was shocked by anti-Semitic posters and (small) demonstrations in front of San Francisco State University. One time, a lone beautiful Israeli woman student took on the hostile protesters with brilliance and poise. What courage!

You are joining the voices of other sane people sounding the alarm. He who watches over Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers Psalm 121 -- however we are called to do our part and be watchmen and even warriors.

Blessings

The views of the Jews and

The views of the Jews and Israel by Elias is based on pure hatred not on any true facts; those who are open to facts would know that Israel is the only true free nation in that area. Because of such dangerous thoughts it is obvious that Israel MUST survive as the sanctuary for us.

It is obvious that Elias'

It is obvious that Elias' remarks are not out of ignorance of the true freedom in Israel but from true hatred of Jews. He and others like him are the reason that Israel MUST survive; it is the true sanctuary for us. History continually shows that the Jewish people are never accepted in any country other than Israel.

I just read your article and

I just read your article and then the letter-to-the-editor you referred to. Given how irrational and repulsive the remarks were, I think you showed remarkable restraint. Things are indeed eerily echoing the 1930s. VERY SCARY!

May God give you strength,

May God give you strength, Melanie, and the health to continue writing: defending Israel, the loyal remnant of the Jewish people, the Judeo-Christian outlook, and the America that we cherish, that does not need wholesale Obama, leftist, "transformation".

What a horrendous,

What a horrendous, catastrophic state of affairs that you have to write a column like this to counter that letter!! It is indeed reminiscent of the early 1930’s in Germany.

The Stanford kids (and many others) say “divest from Israel.” The nazis said “Kauft nicht bei Juden” (dont' buy from Jews). What’s the difference ???

Thank you for all your

Thank you for all your courage. I am so glad you addressed this terrible issue head-on. I've been appalled by the rise of Jew-hatred in recent years. It scares me. I am not a Jew, but the West and particularly America owes a great deal to Jews. I love to tell people that our Revolutionary War was financed by a Jew.

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