To stay focused on the subject we're discussing and avoid
branching into tangents, we begin with the definition of the important terms
we'll be using. This should prevent us from inadvertently steering too far away
from the intended meaning of those terms. The two most relevant ones to this
discussion are the following:
Anti-Semitism means we do not like what the Jews are doing
to us, ordinary people, here at home. Anti-Zionism means we, ordinary human
beings, do not like what Israel
is doing abroad, especially to the people of Palestine whose country it is occupying.
Also, the one thing we need to establish at the outset is
that the people who consider themselves offended by what they call
anti-Semitism, and the people who consider themselves offended by what they
call anti-Zionism, cannot deflect criticism by saying that other peoples do
what they do, but they alone are being singled out. Imagine a bank robber
complaining to the officer arresting him, or asking the judge that's trying
him, to dismiss the charges because he is being singled out. He'd be lucky not
to get extra time for that.
The fact is that everyone is being criticized for one thing
or another. When they first came to this continent, the Irish were criticized
for who they are, and for how they lived their lives. And so did the Italians,
the Germans, the Poles, the Jews, the Chinese, the Pakistanis and what have
you. They each had their moment of grilling, and then things went to being
normal for these people.
The peculiar thing, however, is that of all these groups,
only one kept returning to the abnormal state of being criticized again and
again. These are the Jews whose painful journey is an ongoing cycle that
refuses to end. The phenomenon seems strange to those who do not know world
history, but not so strange to those who are familiar with world history. It is
that the phenomenon of the Jews finding themselves in hot water has been a
recurring theme throughout their history everywhere they went on this planet.
The question is: Why is that?
We can get a glimpse as to why this happens to the Jews when
we study the article that came under the title: “Free Speech and
Anti-Semitism,” and the subtitle: “Obama's anti-Israel politics show the need
for the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act.” It was written by Ruth R. Wisse and
published on December 30, 2016 in the Wall Street Journal.
The 23 words of the first sentence in the article hit the
reader in the face like a mad baseball player who thinks that a human face is a
ball that needs to be hit twice to go anywhere. Look at this horror: “December
began with the passage by the Senate of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act and
ended with President Obama's betrayal of the Jewish state.” First, Ruth Wisse
says that one chamber of the legislature has passed a bill imposing the Jewish
will on the entire American population.
Second, Ruth Wisse accuses the American President of
betraying Israel ,
which she calls the Jewish state. Why is that? Because she says that the
President did not stand up – not just to the American population this time but
the entire human population that dared to say enough was enough; Israel must
stop stealing Palestinian lands and properties to give to people invited to
come from abroad and live in the occupied territories.
No one else makes the kind of demands or the kind of
accusations that the Jews make in America . It is a reality that
becomes apparent from Wisse's own account of history. In each case, the Jews
were seen as plotting to take control of the government and ultimately the
country. This means that the Jews had infiltrated the government and went too
far wielding the power for no purpose but to acquire more power ... the way
that the Jews are now behaving in America . The ordinary people of those
countries rose up in the old days, and Ruth Wisse calls it a manifestation of
anti-Semitism.
As to Wisse accusing the American President of betraying Israel , she
displays a mentality of the kind that people everywhere have punished the Jews
in the most horrifying of ways. It is that even if America
had never done anything to help Israel ,
an accusation of this kind would prompt any normal human being to tell her: Get
your stinking presence out of my sight before I do something that's contrary to
my nature. Move! On the double!