Hat tip to Ynet and Daily Caller
If Belgian Jews, suffering a resurgence of anti-Jew hate in Europe, thought they would receive sympathy from the US ambassador, they were disappointed at the words of Howard Gutman this week in Brussels.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4156355,00.html
This is what often happens when well-heeled campaign contributors and fund-raisers are given plum ambassadorships. Untrained in the art of diplomacy, they often stick their foot in their mouths.
In response, Newt Gingrich again showed why he is the smartest of the Republican presidential candidates when he stated that Gutman should be fired.
Update: It appears that Gutman's words may have been taken out of context to some extent. Fox News has an updated report.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/06/quote-on-anti-semitism-misattributed-to-us-ambassador-doesnt-ease-criticism/
It doesn't require intelligence to be able to mouth the opinion that someone you never liked anyway should be fired.
ReplyDeleteI would have worded it differently, but the ambassador is not wrong. Modern Muslim hostility toward Jews does stem from the perception that a state that could never have sustained itself is being subsidized by Jewish people from all over the world. A lasting peace between Israel and Palestine would in fact cool this down, in a way the the persistent anti-Semitism of two millenia would not have been ended by one event.
One does not have to hate Jews, as Jews, to oppose the incorporation of the state known as Israel. I see no point in dismantling it now, but to suggest such a thing is not merely a cover for the "same old" anti-Semitism. To reflexively reach for such pathetic cover is dishonest at best.
I started to write a long comment but decided it isn't worth it.
ReplyDeleteThe Ambassador made a dumb comment and I'll leave it at that.
An excellent video on contemporary antisemitism given by experts on the subject.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgfmvQYT_hk
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteIs it about the land-or about the religion? Let's face it. The Islamists cannot accept a Jewish state in the ME.
No, the Islamists cannot accept a Jewish state in the middle east. However, the Islamists would be a tiny little cult, if not for the conflict over land that gets them the ear of the Arab street.
ReplyDeleteYou are old enough to remember when the "Palestinian cause" was a pseudo-left wing secular Arab nationalist cause. You should have noticed, but may not, that the CIA built up the Islamists for many years as a useful counter-weight to what was vaguely considered "leftist" influence in the region. We sowed the wind, and now we are reaping the whirlwind.
In any case, hostility to Israel, as it exists in the world today, is NOT traditional European Christian and nationalist anti-Semitism in "a new form." It is a different hostility, for its own reasons, however unfortunate.