Anti-Semitism, a Growth Industry in Bad Times

By Alan Caruba

In bad times, anti-Semitism seems to crawl out of the sewers like a repugnant odor. It is not subject to a rational response. It is pure emotion and a very nasty one at that. Lately we got a whiff of it at some of the Occupy protests.

On November 3rd, the Anti-Defamation League released a nationwide study that found that “anti-Semitic attitudes have risen slightly in America, demonstrating once again that ‘anti-Semitic beliefs continue to hold a vice-grip’ on a small but not insubstantial segment of America.”

“The ADL survey found that 15 percent of Americans—nearly 35 million adults—hold deeply anti-Semitic views, an increase of 3 percent from a similar poll conducted in 2009, and matching the levels of anti-Semitic propensities recorded in the U.S. in 2005 and 2007.” Even so, what passes for anti-Semitism today is not remotely comparable to earlier, pre-World War Two generations.

One of the lesser reported aspects of the Occupy Wall Street movement has been a strong element of anti-Semitism. Little wonder that it has been endorsed by the American Nazi Party and other extreme groups, both Left and Right.

As Abraham H. Foxman, the ADL National Director, noted, “The fact that anti-Semitic attitudes have increased significantly over the past two years is troubling and raises questions about the impact of broader trends in America—financial insecurity, social uncertainty, the decline in civility and the growth of polarization—on attitudes toward Jews.”

For example, 19 percent of those polled answered “probably true” to the statement that “Jews have too much control/influence on Wall Street”, an increase from 14 percent in 2009. This indicates that Jewish stereotypes remain strong; particularly claims that Jews control Wall Street and the media.

This reflects events and attitudes in Europe as well. In an article published in the UK newspaper, The Guardian, on November 6, Emine Bozkurt, a Dutch MEP who heads the anti-racism lobby at the European Parliament, was quoted saying that “We are at a crossroads in European history. In five year’s time we will either see an increase in the forces of hatred and division in society, including ultra-nationalism, xenophobia, Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism, or we will be able to fight this horrific tendency.”

Thomas Klau of the European Council on Foreign Relations, referring to the study, said, “As anti-Semitism was a unifying factor for far-right parties in the 1910s, 20s and 30s, Islamaphobia has become the unifying factor in the early decades of the 21st century.”

The difference worth noting is that the Jews of Europe never had any intention of taking over those nations while Muslims have made it clear they want to impose Sharia law.

Kristallnach 1938

November 9-10 is the anniversary of Kristallnach in 1938 (the Night of Broken Glass) in which Jews and their synagogues suffered violent attacks throughout Germany, the recently annexed Sudetanland, in Hanover, and the free city of Danzig. It was the beginning of what would evolve into the Holocaust, the deliberate extermination of Europe’s Jews.

Some Jews, in response to Europe’s entrenched anti-Semitism, joined the Zionist movement, beginning in the 1890s to create a Jewish homeland in Israel, moving there before the cataclysm of the Holocaust. At the time it was a protectorate of the British. Post-World War Two Holocaust survivors moved there and, in 1948 Israel declared its sovereignty. Thereafter, many Jews fled Middle Eastern nations for the sanctuary Israel provided and were later joined by Russian Jews fleeing the Soviet Union.

These days, the Holocaust-deniers in Iran openly boast of their intent to destroy Israel (and America) with the nuclear weapons they are developing.

The ADL report’s findings are unpleasant, but hardly surprising. Anti-Semitism in America is a phenomenon of the fringes of political movements of the Far Right (neo-Nazis) and Far Left (Communists).

In these times, however, Israel has no greater support than among American conservatives and evangelicals; Jews have no better friends.

The American historian and scholar, Thomas Cahill, said, "The Jew gave us the Outside and the Inside—our outlook and our inner life. We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best words, in fact—new, adventure, surprise, unique, individual, person, vocation, time, history, future, freedom, progress, spirit, faith, hope, justice—are the gifts of the Jews.”

© Alan Caruba, 2011

The Lone Gunman

By Alan Caruba

As the details about James W. von Brunn, the alleged killer of Holocaust Museum security guard, Stephen T. Jones, make their way through the media, we are sure to be told that he was “mentally ill” or at least perceived to be by those who knew him.

A deep hatred of people because of their race or religion is not so much an illness as a choice. It is a choice because it gives purpose to the life of the person doing the hating. It “explains” everything he wants to know about a very complex and often frightening world.

No doubt von Brunn, like so many others, “figured out” that the Jews were to blame for everything wrong in his life and in the world. Why stop there? He also hated Afro-Americans and, one presumes, all people of color. And, largely unreported, he hated Christians. While instantly identified in the media as an instrument of the Far Right, von Brunn was, in fact, a creature of the Far Left.

Reporting on FrontPageMag.com, Ben Johnson wrote that, “A review of his lengthy associations reveals Von Brunn hardly fits the stereotype of a Religious Right, GOP precinct captain. He denounced the Christian faith as a dastardly Jewish conspiracy, a “HOAX” invented by the Apostle Paul to “DESTROY ROMAN CULTURE” from within by undermining its pagan virility. (All screaming capitalization and grammatical errors in this piece appear in the original.) Like others on the racist fringe, the shooter proclaimed clearly: ‘SOCIALISM, represents the future of the West.’” Read the article at
http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35192

So now von Brunn has entered the annals of the many “lone gunmen” who have sought to change history by acting out their fantasies, their hatreds, their grandiose view that, if they just kill the object of their hatred, they will transform history.

Some, in fact, do. The assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and John F. Kennedy no doubt sent the nation off in directions no one could have anticipated. In the 1960s assassins struck down Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan came within inches of being another assassination victim, but was spared. His would-be killer was, indeed, mentally ill.

I was not surprised that the murder scene was the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. There, where the stories, the memories of millions of innocent people are enshrined and where their suffering and death speak to us from the last century, the museum was a magnet for anyone so consumed with anti-Semitism that one suspects von Brunn wanted to martyr himself for one last chance to act upon his hatred.

The Holocaust Memorial Museum stands as testimony that millions of European Jews did die in Nazi concentration camps. The famed German efficiency was devoted to mass murder of the innocent and let it be said that the anti-Semitism that fueled the Nazi death camps exists still today in Germany, throughout Europe, and in Russia.

It exists in South America in places like Venezuela where the break-in of a Caracas synagogue led solely to the stealing of a computer disk with the names and addresses of that nation’s Jewish families. Time for them to leave, to flee for their lives.

The entire Middle East roils with anti-Semitism. Islam burns with it and that is why no peace was or ever will be negotiated with the state of Israel. The Muslims dare not admit that Jews have a right to their ancient homeland, let alone to live. They speak of Jews as monkeys, dogs and pigs. This is commonplace throughout the Middle East where Islam is the religion of citizen and state. They hold the same harsh views of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. Islam regards them all as infidels, unbelievers.

We would do well to remind ourselves that the very word “assassin” refers back to Muslim fanatics, active in Persia and Syria from about 1090 to 1272, who were dedicated to the killing of Crusaders.

The Jews are civilization’s canary in the coal mine. When they begin to die from causes other than natural death, it is a signal that something evil is loose in the world and, if history is our guide, it signals that countless thousands who are not Jews will die as well.

The Obama administration has let the world know it intends to turn away from our nation’s historic and spiritual relationship with Israel. His former pastor of two decades, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, just complained that “them Jews” around him would not let him talk with his famed former parishioner.

If things go terribly wrong in America, I am sure that, along with Barack Obama, the blame will fall or be shifted to “them Jews” in his administration.

The lone gunman has done his job though he has inadvertently focused our attention on the evil from which we want to avert our eyes. We do so at our peril.

Shootout at DC Holocaust Museum

By Alan Caruba

Our prayers are with the family of the slain security guard killed today at the National Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Anti-Semitism killed six million of Europe's Jews in the last century. The same Nazi criminals killed five million Christians and others designated "enemies of the state."

Anti-Semitism is the refuge of despotism. Its victims cry out from their graves for justice still today and must be heard because they speak for all humanity.

Never forget!

Striking Iran

By Alan Caruba

“DEBKAfile's military sources cite some Western intelligence and nuclear weapons experts as predicting that Iran could turn out nuclear weapons some time in the next 12 months.”

Anyone paying any attention to Israel these days knows that it is preparing its own citizens and the world for a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Except for foreign consumption, the Israelis have largely abandoned talk of peace with the Palestinians or hope for any other alternative other than to punish an Iran whose leaders are totally obsessed with the destruction of their homeland, sacred to millions of Christians as well

The military action against Gaza was designed to neutralize its military capabilities and to warn Hamas against taking further action against Israel. Take a look at a map. Gaza is a thin strip of land, but it seethes with hatred for Israel because its inhabitants are mere pawns in the larger game the Arabs play. I doubt Arab nations are bothered greatly by keeping this group of people stateless refugees for at least two generations. The Palestinians, however, have consistently refused to accept statehood.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah has been unusually quiet of late. As for the rest of the Arab nations in the region, all would be delighted if Israel takes out the Iranian nuclear capability. They cordially hate Iran for its hegemonic ambitions to control the Middle East. Iranians who are Persians, not Arabs, may share Islam with the rest of the region, but they have far greater cultural and historical roots.

At this point, all of President Obama’s efforts to “reach out” to the Iranians have been rebuffed and now they are holding an American journalist hostage. The Iranian revolution began by holding American diplomats hostage for 444 days and they have routinely taken hostages as playing cards.

Neither America, nor Israel, takes hostages. We both, however, have a good track record for killing our enemies.

Israelis have had their soldiers taken hostage, often killed, and have been trying to get one returned from Hamas control for several years now. Arabs know that every Israeli is the concern of the whole nation. This contrasts greatly with the incessant rocketing of southern Israel that Hamas engaged in until the Israelis had no alternative but to retaliate. Then their leaders hid in safe bunkers while the populace was left to fend for their own lives.

These are not nice people. The Iranian leadership could have opted to join the modern world, benefit from their oil riches, built and upgraded their refineries, and done all those things nations do to improve their infrastructure and compete in the global marketplace.

Instead they used the oil wealth to sponsor both Hamas and Hezbollah and, of course, they have invested millions in the pursuit of nuclear power, not for electricity, but for the waging of war and, in particular, for the annihilation of Israel, a goal articulated over and over again by its President, Mamoud Ahmadinejad, and the handful of ayatollahs that rule with an iron fist.

The Israelis have learned the lessons of the Holocaust; the deliberate murder of men, women and children who were Jewish. They will not let that happen again. They will strike at Iran and, unfortunately, they will not have the support of the United States’ current leadership who are either too naïve, too willfully blind to the threat, or just too inept to deal with the Iranians.

It would not surprise me if the United Nations took the occasion to expel Israel as a member nation. It would be a good, but lost, opportunity for the United States to announce its withdrawal from the stinking heap of offal that passes itself off as an international institution worthy of any support.

A Dangerous Place for Jews

By Alan Caruba

The world has always been a dangerous place in which to be a Jew.

The climax of modern era anti-Semitism came during my lifetime in the last century with the Nazi Holocaust, the wholesale effort to kill every Jew, man, woman and child in Europe, with the “Final Solution.” It promises to repeat itself if Iran is permitted to obtain nuclear weapons.

Despite having been the creation of the United Nations, largely in response to the Holocaust, the last sixty years of Israel’s existence have been marked by wars and constant terrorism that continues to this day. The UN has become the global locus of anti-Semitism and it will be on display at its next Durbin conference on racism. The last one was an orgy of anti-Semitism and similar ugliness.

In August, UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights group, expressed alarm over the declaration adopted by the African regional meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, which will shape the UN world conference to be held in April 2009. Among its elements was an attack on guarantees of free speech, the positioning of Islam above all other religions, and an attack on Israel and only Israel.

The growing Muslim populations in Great Britain and throughout Europe have led to a rise of anti-Semitism, but it was always latent among the non-Muslim native populations.

The embrace of Israel by America’s evangelical faith communities and the general good will toward American Jews remains intact. The problem for Jews, however, is that bad economic times never fail to raise charges that Jews are the cause.

For American Jews, this isn’t just historic paranoia. Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard University professor of law and prolific author, has just had his latest book published; “The Case Against Israel’s Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace.” It is a disquieting sign when a former U.S. President is an active anti-Semite, though Carter is not held in high repute, nor should be.

Dershowitz also takes note of two famed commentators, Patrick Buchanan and Robert Novak. Both have demonstrated their antipathy to the Jewish State, but the greater threat that he cites is clearly a resurgent Islam and, most particularly, Iran’s ranting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose threats against Israel are an offense to all humanity.

As America comes to grip with a serious financial crisis, its Jewish community will be watching carefully for an indication of the libel that it is somehow responsible for the problems that ensue. Two generations have come of age since the dark days of World War II.

Perhaps no where else on Earth have Jews found a true paradise than in America. It has a long history of being congenial to Jews, though that history has been a long period of overt anti-Semitism that existed up to the revelations of the horrors of Holocaust.

No one can predict the future, but Jews have survived in many cases by being able to anticipate a reversal of fortune and the lucky ones fled to whatever sanctuary they could find.

For Israel, a nation of 5.3 million Jews and 1.3 million Muslim and Arab Christians, the threat at this point is deemed “existential”, but it grows more real with every passing day. Its fate hangs in the balance. For Jews around the world, memories of the Holocaust are never far from their thoughts.

On October 9, Yom Kippur, Jews around the world will pray for repentance and forgiveness of sins, but these are a people more sinned against than sinning.