Scary Stuff

When the offices of Charlie Hebdo were attacked on January 7th, 2015 in Paris, the second thought, after retaliation for an anti-Muslim cartoon, was antisemitism. That thought was shored up by the attack on the kosher supermarket 2 days later, on January 9th. In all the chest pounding and acts of anger, one heard little about Jews being under attack, only that French freedom was. That's because the Jews brought this on themselves. Or so some people said. 

When Black Lives Matter published their manifesto early in the summer, the only country singled out for a variety of offenses was Israel. There is no mention of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, or Lebanon, all countries where Palestinians are only one group of people indiscriminately abused. That's because Jews have no place on this earth, even they are the original indigenous people. Archaeology supports this as fact, not fairy tale. Just ask any Muslim what was on the Mosque of Omar mount before the Mosque of Omar.

There is significant movement in the direction of antisemitism during this presidential cycle. Alt.right, the shorthand for the alternative right, is self-proclaimed as white supremacist and virulently antisemitic. Don't believe me? Here is one link to another blog: Alternative Right. Read it and weep. They support one candidate en masse.

What does this all mean? Well, if you're a Jew of a certain age, and fewer and fewer of those are left, the rhetoric is not-so-vaguely familiar. It's very familiar. Too familiar. There's a charismatic leader with no experience in governance and he is promising that he, and ONLY he, can solve all problems. He rarely provides a proposal or a program that would be instituted, but makes broad sweeping promises that, from day one, he will fix everything because he alone knows everything. 

Hitler was good at blame: 

For this reason the Jewish-democratic press of America had to accomplish its masterpiece - that is to say, it had to drive into the most horrible of all wars a great peace-loving people which was as little concerned in European struggles as it was in the North Pole: America was to intervene 'in defense of civilization,' and the Americans were persuaded so to do by an atrocity propaganda conducted in the name of civilization which from A to Z was a scandalous invention the like of which has never yet been seen - a farrago of lies and forgeries. Because this last State in the world where social aims were being realized had to be destroyed, therefore twenty-six peoples were incited one against the other by this press which is exclusively in the possession of one and the same world people, of one and the same race, and that race on principle the deadly foe of all national States. [April 13, 1923]

Trump isn't so bad at tossing the baloney either: 

John Dickerson: Let me ask you about, what does the Mexican heritage of the judge in the Trump University case have to do with anything?                           

Trump: I think it has a lot to do with it. First of all, I've had terrible rulings forever. I had a judge previous to him and it would have been a very quick case. This is a case I should've won on summary judgment. This is a case -- and nobody writes this, and they all know it, but they don't like to write it -- the plaintiff in the case was a woman.  She was so bad that under deposition it was over. I mean, she couldn't have been the -- it was a disaster. They went before the judge, they said, "We don't want her to be the plaintiff. We want to put somebody else in." So we said, "Well, that's fine. Dismiss the case. You have to dismiss the case." Wait a minute -- she gave letters, the most incredible reviews of the college you've ever seen, of the university. She gave the most incredible -- then on top of it, we have a tape where she's talking about it in the most glowing terms. You wouldn't speak about your college --   

Dickerson: But Mr. Trump, what does this have to do with his parents being from Mexico, how does that --     

Trump: Excuse me, excuse me, I'm just saying. We're getting terrible rulings. We go to the judge, we say to the judge, "Hey, you can't let her out of the case." He let her out of the case. We said, "Well, if you're going to let her out of the case, she's the plaintiff. If you're going to let her out of the case, the case is over." No, the case isn't over. OK? Now -- 

Dickerson: Give me the thought process, though, why -- how does this work?   

Trump: He has given me -- my thought process -- 

Dickerson: No, no, for him, how do his Mexican parents have to do with him not ruling for you? 

Trump: He is a member of a club or society, very strongly pro-Mexican, which is all fine. But I say he's got bias. I want to build a wall. I'm going to build a wall. I'm doing very well with the Latinos, with the Hispanics, with the Mexicans, I'm doing very well with them, in my opinion. And we're going to see, you're going to see, because you know what, I'm providing jobs. Nobody else is giving jobs. But just so you understand, this judge has treated me very unfairly, he's treated me in a hostile manner. And there's something going on. When a woman can be a plaintiff in a case and then say, "I don't want to be" -- and you know why they don't want to be a plaintiff? They don't want her, the lawyers asked that she not be a plaintiff because they would have lost the case immediately.                                                                                                                                  [Transcript from FACE THE NATION, June 25th, 2016] 

So what does this have to do with the rage of antisemitism that's happening now?

Plenty.

The door has been opened to very public ethnic profiling in the guise of political rhetoric. That's the kind of action that, once let out, cannot be dismissed. That blatant hatred is coming out as mainstream in the form of BDS - Boycott, Divest, Sanction. What masquerades as a pro-Palestinian movement shows not one whit of effort to assist the Palestinians in actually creating an economic entity that can morph into a self-supporting state. Instead, the focus of their actions is to delegitimize the existence of Israel. It's about pushing the Jewish population into the sea despite absolute recorded historical fact that Jews are the original indigenous people on the land and have been there continuously since before the founding of Jerusalem. Before the establishment of the State of Israel, Palestinians were Jews, Christians, and Muslims. If you lived in that area, your passport called you a Palestinian. It had nothing to do with religion. Just like being a US citizen is not based on being a certain religion. Just like being a citizen of Israel is not based on being a certain religion. Yes, kiddies, that is a true and certifiable fact.

But let's not let facts get in the way. It's easier for the Black Lives Matter folks to align themselves with BDS because they think there's some sort of oppressed relationship upon which to capitalize. They seem not to have thought this through at all. Where is their angst over the real human rights abusers....like Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, or Turkey? Where is their outrage when homosexuals are thrown off rooftops? It has nothing to do with civil rights...it has to do with Jews. 

And it's not just the US. Antisemitism has become a major issue in the United Kingdom. Jeremy Corbyn's recent handling of antisemitism in the Labour Party was a shondeh. That Corbyn sympathizes with anti-Israel politics is a source of great consternation for Jews in the UK; 92% of the Jewish Labour Movement, an arm of the party for over 100 years, has polled against their own party's candidate. 

Mr. Corbyn himself appears bemused. The mantra he repeats — that he is opposed to racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia (he rarely speaks solely of anti-Semitism) — suggests that he is wedded to the idea that anti-Semitism is chiefly a right-wing phenomenon. It is true that Mr. Corbyn’s predecessor as Labour leader, Ed Miliband, was the target of some thinly veiled anti-Semitic slurs from Britain’s tabloid newspapers. But the notion that well-meaning people on the left might also harbor bias against Jews seems to pass him by.                                                               New York Times September 12, 2016

Sound familiar?

The problem We, the People, are facing is a much more complicated one. We have a candidate who has garnered significant support from far right groups that model themselves after Germany of the 30s and 40s. They actively solicit support to remove "undesirables" from the United States. Those undesirables consist of any group that is not white, Christian, or American born. We have someone running for president who openly talks about mass deportation and his disdain for minority groups in this country. 

Manzanar

I want you all to understand that mass deportation means rounding people up and putting them in camps. It does not mean you pick 'em up in a Chevy Tahoe and drop em' off at the border. No. It means camps. Like Manzanar. Like Shatila. Like Dadaab. When politicians begin to put those things into practice, they start with one group and go on to the next. 

This is the tip of a very large, very dangerous iceberg. When you allow Jews to be singled out for hate speech, when you see large numbers of people joining organizations whose sole purpose is to commit "ethnic cleansing" of Jews even from their own homeland, you begin to look a lot like you're encouraging Hutus to go after Tutsis in Rawanda. You are tacitly encouraging gangs of youths to burn synagogues and beat up old men and women in the street. You look like blood libel is an okay thing to publicize. Never mind, where do you stop? The real question is: How do you stop? 

You don't. After you've rounded up the Mexicans, the Muslims, and the Jews, can you think of who might be next? 

As we head into election season, think about the people you love, and who will be targeted. As you listen to the media and news and the hype, consider what happens when the United States become dotted with deportation camps. NIMBY? Guess again. Wherever you are, there are illegals; they will be rounded up and have to be put somewhere. If you're a typical American, you have friends and relatives who come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and orientations. Are you going to stand silently by as their rights are stripped away? Are you strong enough to fight for them, or will you just hide your eyes like so many did in 1930s Europe. 

Not too long ago, I would've considered this blog episode to be great hyperbole. I don't think that any more. I think we are in real danger of fracturing these here United States. 

United we stand. The question is, what are we united for. I'm not sure I know anymore. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Day

Re: Hillary and Pneumonia.

Have you ever known a woman who stopped because she had a cold? 

For the record, this is the first time the GOP has ever cared about a woman's health.