Knives out for Rahm on the left?

I've been getting a lot of hits today for my post about whether Josh Bolten, Bush's chief of staff, is Jewish.

I'm guessing the sudden interest is related to the fact that Obama has now chosen Chicago thug Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. Rahm is Jewish, too, so you can stop your frantic googling right now.

But it turns out that for rabid Obama supporters on the left, being Jewish is NOT A GOOD THING AT ALL. As Omri Ceren explains at Mere Rhetoric (via Ace),

Pro-Carter shill MJ Rosenberg is asking the far left to eschew anti-Semitic attacks on Emanuel. Not because anti-Semitic attacks are wrong per se - what would the contemporary DNC ever do? More because Emanuel is apparently one of those "good Jews" that DKos cretins compare to "Likud German/Jew Fascists" like Joe Lieberman.

(More from Soccer Dad.) In my experience, a lot of liberal Jews think pretty much everyone to the right of them politically is either an anti-semite or a Jesus freak, which is probably about the same thing to them. To me, this is nuts. On the right, I've come across a small number of anti-semites, but I've been astounded at how many philo-semites there are, given that, politically speaking at least, the Jews are not terribly appealing to them.

In contrast, many Jews seem oblivious to the outright hostility toward Israel and, in many cases, hostility directly toward the Jews themselves that radiate from their allies on the left. So the way I see it is that if the Obama presidency, with Rahm as chief of staff, tests anything, it'll be the willingness of Jewish liberals to continue to turn a blind eye toward "progressive" anti-semitism.





And no, I'm not suggesting Obama himself is an anti-semite. But it would be nice if he told his anti-semitic supporters to put it where the sun don't shine.

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Wednesday linkfest

This is the place where I drop links that I've been collecting but haven't had time to write about while I've been trying to figure out my mother's taxes.

1. From the distaff side of the moronosphere, S.Weasel has a delightful tribute to Charlton Heston. Well, to his buttocks, anyway.

2. Speaking of the moronosphere, check doubleplusundead regularly for his daily roundups, called "around the moronosphere in 80 iq points." I think the Moron-in-Chief was responsible for that name.

3. Since it's tax time, I'd like to bring you this: "Woman Apologizes for Pitbull Attack on IRS Employee." (via TaxProf Blog)

4. Here's the barbecue guy who loves the NoKos. The FBI already knows about him, thanks to his dad. Really. Will there be a place for him as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration? And this: A coincidence?

5. Will you be more in love with your wife if she learns to play poker? This article says you will. It sounds totally asinine to me, because you play poker precisely to be alone with the boys, but there are some other tips for women that sound a little better than that.

6. If you live in Minnesota, your tax dollars are funding what may be a madrassa.

7. Ace writes about a post by a user at Obama's site attacking the Jews. A commenter finds the cached link after the post is taken down.

8. From the Department of Old: "Woman's Lawsuit Claims Bra Injured Her / Victoria's Secret Denies Claims." (via Ace's headlines last week)

9. From the Department of Not So New: Starbucks won't let you customize your card with "Laissez Faire" but will let you use "People Not Profits"? (via Volokh)

10. Child "maths" genius-ette becomes a call girl (with probably NSFW photo) (via Fark)

11. Get your ice cold Mets motivational poster, courtesy of Baseball Crank. Not that I've already given up on them -- that'll take another few days like yesterday.

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Liberal anti-semites and their friends

This is old in internet years, an internet year being defined as approximately 12 hours, but it's good. Slate has a quiz to determine whether you are a liberal anti-semite. Take it. (hat tip: A.)

Personally, I scored a big fat zero, but I would, being a neanderthal wingnut and all.

These guys, on the other hand, would probably score off the charts:

Award nominations are generally occasions for exaggerated compliments and air kisses, so it was something of a surprise when Eliot Weinberger, a previous finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, announced the newest nominees for the criticism category two weeks ago and said one of the authors, Bruce Bawer, had engaged in “racism as criticism.”

The resulting stir within the usually well-mannered book world spiked this week when the president of the Circle’s board, John Freeman, wrote on the organization’s blog (bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com): “I have never been more embarrassed by a choice than I have been with Bruce Bawer’s ‘While Europe Slept,’ he wrote. “It’s hyperventilated rhetoric tips from actual critique into Islamophobia.”

(hat tip: Number One Son)

There's much to love in that short article, but I'd be remiss if I left this out. "Imam Fatih Alev, a board member of the Islamic-Christian Study Center in Copenhagen, has not read Mr. Bawer’s book," but he managed to say exactly the right thing to liberal ears:

“In many senses it is a constructed idea that there is this very severe difference between Western values and Muslim values,” he continued.

What's a little difference of values on beheadings, after all?

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Christian Zionists and left-wing anti-semites

Judith Weiss at Kesher Talk recently wrote an interesting and provocative post suggesting that the Christian Zionists' Bible-based rationale for Zionism is not an unalloyed positive. She wrote:

Listening to Pastor Hagee, I felt grateful that he recognizes the genuine existential threat to Israel, without being intimidated by political correctness; has the energy and persistence and personal authority to convince and mobilize others to use political clout and monetary donations to support Israel; and exhibits genuine courage and humility by doing so in the face of both death threats from antisemites and ongoing suspicion from the Jewish community (both of which he describes in the conference call).

But at the same time, she said she thought that his "intepretation of his religious imperatives leads him to be dismissive those of us who believe the re-instatement of a Jewish nation in Israel is more than legitimate, but think a Biblical justification is at best insufficient and at worst an impediment to the cause." She added, "If the main argument for the support of Israel is the authority of God, then using the authority of God to support the destruction of Israel (as with many Islamist theologians) can only be opposed by claiming 'my God is bigger than yours.'"

The discussion in the comments -- where she debated the point with co-bloggers Alcibiades and Benjamin -- was excellent, and I commend it to you.

I share some of Judith's misgivings, possibly because of my own religious doubts. But ultimately I think that the question is not what is the right argument for a right cause but rather what is an effective argument for a right cause. And my view is, "Let a thousand arguments bloom."

Despite my own misgivings about the nature of God-based arguments, I couldn't be more grateful for the leadership we've seen from Christian Zionists. So I was delighted to read that they have been publicly recognized -- at least once. At a dinner honoring the outgoing Israeli ambassador, Danny Ayalon, Congressman Tom Lantos, a California Democrat who's a Holocaust survivor, said what should have been said many times, and earlier. In the words of Arlene Samuels, who was there:

The chatty crowd quieted as Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), spoke eloquently about the past and the present world climate of anti-Semitism. Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor serving in Congress, disclosed, "I assumed naively that the chapter [Holocaust] of human history would be a dark nightmare moment of the past but that is not the case." He continued, "We have a new dimension, a convergence of historic anti-Semitism coupled with Muslims and the intellectual elite. This makes for a powerful cocktail yet, we have a powerful antidote [for anti-Semitism]; the decent Christians who learned the lessons of the Holocaust. The antidote to Auschwitz is the Christian community in the United States. We cannot tell you how precious you are to us. We deeply love and respect you more than you'll ever know because you represent the finest of civilization."

Rep. Lantos then said, "All Christians, please stand."

Christians don't advocate for Israel to gain accolades, yet when we stood, the sustained applause from Jewish hands settled on me like a crown. It's safe to say that other Christians in the hall, who have advocated for Israel much longer than I, felt the weight of the crown even more profoundly. With a noticeable contingent of evangelicals, including ICEJ Executive Director Rev. Malcolm Hedding, Earl Cox, (founder- Israel Always) and Ben Kinchlow, Co-hosts of Front Page Jerusalem Radio, I reveled in this historic moment in time; a moment which culminated 25 years of work and relationship-building between evangelical Christians and the state of Israel, pioneered in part by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem who planted a small seed of Christian Zionism in 1980.

As Lantos suggested, things are not so rosy on the other side of the political divide. Anti-Zionism, often indistinguishable from anti-semitism, is on the increase on the political left, more so the farther left you go, and more so the more you get in with the activists.

In fact, the Anti-Defamation League conducted a conference this weekend called "Finding Our Voice," to help left-wing Jews deal with anti-Zionism and anti-semitism among their comrades.

Workshops will feature presentations by university professors, community activists, elected officials and religious leaders. Among the titles are “That’s Not Funny: Cartoons and Editorials — What’s Legitimate and What Isn’t”; Opposing the War While Opposing Anti-Semitism”; “Breaking Through the Myth of Jewish Whiteness”; and “Using Positive Messages to Challenge Hate: Advocacy on the Campus.”

The keynote address will be presented by Anthony Julius, a British Jewish attorney who successfully defended Emory University Professor Deborah Lipstadt in the libel suit brought by Holocaust denier David Irving.

While much attention has been paid to the so-called “new anti-Semitism,” in which antipathy toward Jews is masked as rabid criticism of Israel, the Finding Our Voice conference represents the first organized effort by liberal Jews to fight back.

More on the conference here, here, and at the American Thinker and JunkYardBlog.

Anti-semites on the right have been largely marginalized. For example, Bill Buckley purged a whole crew in the 50s and again a few in the 90s. But we're still waiting for liberals and progressives to do the same.

But first, you have to recognize you have a problem. And you won't when you have headlines like this: "Unlikely source of racism spurs Jews." Nor will you when you have people who are shocked about it, like this: "'The progressive movement is about tolerance and justice and peace,' Litman said. 'It seems so strange that hatefulness can have a home there.'"

And even if you recognize there's a problem, you can't blame yourself first:

A spokesperson for Jewish Voice for Peace, a liberal advocacy group working on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said: “From our perspective, you cannot get to the roots of anti-Semitism in the progressive movement without honestly addressing the severe human-rights violations that Israel engages in every day. Judging by the lineup, that kind of honest examination is not likely to happen at this conference.”

I've used the metaphor of a boiling frog before. It works. That water is getting hotter and hotter.

Extra: The New York Times reports on an article about the American Jewish Committee's publication of an article accusing some Jews of aiding anti-semitism. (By the way, when did the Committee become a "conservative advocacy group"? What universe is the NY Times in? Don't answer that.)

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You can say THAT again!

Jimmy Carter confesses to anti-semitism?

"We are developing an ingrained hatred for people who aren't Christians," said Carter, a Sunday School teacher since he was 18 years old.

So I took it out of context. Sue me.

There's a lot more to comment on in that article, but I'll leave it there. You do it.

(via LGF)

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