Helen Thomas's stomach-turning comments about the Jews returning to Germany and Poland, where six million were gassed and cremated into piles of ash, are striking for their racism and insensitivity. Whether she said them out of senility or anti-Semitism are beside the point. Either way she has no business working for any respectable media organization or sitting as the senior White House correspondent directly in front of the President of the United States. When Don Imus made racially charged statements against a woman's basketball team, candidate Obama demanded he be fired. It will be interesting to see how President Obama, who could not offer a single word of support for Israel since the flotilla affair, will react.
One can only imagine the uproar against Thomas had she said that all blacks should go home to Africa, or illegal immigrants to Tijuana. It seems that Jews are the only group that you can attack with impunity because they are the only ones unwise enough to tolerate it. Better yet, we're the only group often so filled with so much self-loathing that we actually initiate many of the attacks.
Few of us are surprised that it is a coterie of Jewish advisors to President Obama who have joined him in condemnations of Israel over Jews building in Jerusalem. This week the New York Times published an article by Michael Chabon arguing that many Jews are 'blockheads' and notions of Jewish intelligence are highly overrated. He may be correct. But as I read this strange screed from one of America's most celebrated Jewish novelists I wondered if, say, Maya Angelou would ever pen an article about how many black dumbbells there are. Attacks on one's own seems to be an art form perfected specifically by Jews.
Helene Cooper wrote a column in the New York Times (funny that so many derogatory articles on Israel and Jews always appears in a Jewish-owned newspaper) asking whether Israel has become a strategic liability to the United State. She quoted many senior Jewish political advisers to the democratic party who advised that if Israel continues to embarrass the United States it might be time for the superpower to distance itself from the little Jewish irritant. The criticism made for interesting reading, implying as it did that while Israel is an embarrassment to the United States, its relationship with such great human rights exemplars as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey ought to be sources of downright pride.
Turkey merits special mention because not only does its media accuse the American military of harvesting organs from helpless Iraqis, which it cites as one of the reasons for the American invasion, but because Prime Minister Erdogan sees fit to call Israel barbarous, lecture Jews about not murdering, and refers to Hamas as freedom fighters. Curiously, at the same time he was spewing his venom toward the Jewish state this past week, the Pope was in Cyprus where he was being publicly begged by Archbishop Chrysostomos II, the leader of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, to stop the illegal Turkish occupation of Cyprus, now in its thirty-fourth year, and protect Christians from growing attacks by Turks.
Just prior to the Pope's visit a Christian bishop had been stabbed to death outside his home in the Mediterranean port of Iskenderun. The archbishop said that Turkey had "barbarously invaded" Cyprus and "continues to carry out its obscure plan, which includes the annexation of the lands now under military occupation and then conquest of the whole of Cyprus. They wish to make everything Greek and Christian disappear from occupied Cyprus." Of course, Turkey won't even acknowledge its genocide of the Armenians, a position that President Obama has shamefully supported in order not to offend Turkey's belligerent leader.
Of course, Cooper's article quotes the ubiquitous J Street head Jeremy Ben-Ami whom journalists have come to appreciate because of his consistency and reliability in always saying something disparaging about Israel. In this case Ben-Ami is quoted as saying 'he represents Jews who... are raising the issue of Israeli government actions as a strategic liability for the United States.'
I lived in England for 11 years and was sickened by the regular abandonment of Israel by some of the most high-profile Anglo-Jews whenever Israel's actions became controversial. For those wondering why a floodgate of anti-Semitism has opened in Britain over the last few years, look no further than the fact that Israel's greatest haters can often point to Jewish critics as being much more strident than them. And still it continues, with even high profile Jewish leaders like Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks remaining mum on Israel even while it was assailed by countless countries for enforcing a blockade against a terror organization that has fired 10,000 rockets against it.
Still, I never believed that American Jewry would emulate this cowardice. But President Obama's public abandonment of Israel is directly traceable to the small price he pays among American Jews. On my radio show on WABC in New York many callers contend that President Obama is an anti-Semite. I condemn such character-assassination in the strongest possible terms. Obama has elevated Jews to some of the highest positions in the land, including his most recent nominee for the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan. Rather, the President's inability to support Israel, which is a stain on his presidency, results from his considerable moral confusion and a misguided sense of right and wrong. Under Obama, America has retreated substantially from President Bush's policies of promoting democracy and human rights and has reverted to Kissingerian realpolitik, ready to make deals with tyrants so long as it promotes an artificial sense of peace.
But Obama can get away with it because American Jewry has become so silent and so weak. Whenever Israel undertakes controversial action, American Jews begin writing op-eds in The Atlantic and The New Yorker about how the once-moral nation has lost its way. Funny how those same writers do not condemn President Obama's policy of Predator drone strikes against Taliban leaders that inevitably involve considerable civilian collateral casualties.
Sorry guys. Israel is going to remain controversial, as one might expect from any country under a constant existential assault from nearly all its neighbors. When threatened by Hitler, Britain leveled whole German cities. The United States did the same to the Japanese. Israel has never even pondered such actions, even as thousands of its citizens have been blown to smithereens.
The Jews who were murdered in Germany and Poland cannot speak out in support of a Jewish state. The rest of us, however, have absolutely no excuse.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is founder of This World: The Values Network. His new book, 'Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life,' has just been published by Basic books. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.
Follow Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RabbiShmuley
If the entire swath of land, that is the Middle East, was always fertile land with no desert climate at all, there would of been no delusional religions built from blood and tyranny.
Abraham-ism did codify the first philosophy of racism,... the whole idea about 'Exceptional-ism' and/or, of being 'Chosen' by some all consuming powerful creator..
All 3 "great" religions are negated by this FACT.”
And you Rabbi are not being honest. Thomas, named off far more countries than Germany and Poland, you're taking her out of context.
"Poland and Germany, and America and everywhere else."
Funny, I don't remember any death camps in the US of A, do you? So the whole idea that Thomas hates Jews and/or wants to see them killed is not only absurd, it's the result of a deliberately falsified quote.
Speaking of despicable quotes, this one from Boteach deserves special attention:
"Rather, the President's inability to support Israel, which is a stain on his presidency, results from his considerable moral confusion and a misguided sense of right and wrong."
Last time I checked, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States -not President of Israel. His first concern should be for the country he gave his oath to defend, not a foreign country. The real "moral confusion" comes from American government officials who forget which country they owe allegiance to.
So there Rabbi! There's no need to be talking about issues regarding anti semitism anymore. In choosing to be Jewish, you choose to be hated because you want to be hated. The more often you say 'the hate for the Jewish people is everywhere', the faster you bring it on. Don't bring on anymore hatred to yourself. That goes for everyone regardless of religion.
Watch your thoughts, they become your words. Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions, they create your destiny. Think about the crazy things that the Jewish people have said and done throughout history, like those of ALL religions, and you'll understand why have the life you have now in the Middle East. All victims bring their dramas unto themselves, and other taxpayers have to pay for it!
Paragraph2:Blacks were forcefully brought to the new world in chains. They did not have a popular global movement to return to their ancestral homeland in rural Alabama.
Paragraph3: Let’s be clear, it is Jews building ILLEGAL settlements on Palestinian land in Jerusalem. Don’t try sweep that pile of dust under the rug.
Yes, blacks in America really love themselves, Rabbi. That’s why they’ve coined to charming little moniker of n*gger for each other. It’s a empowering phrase of mutual and self-respect. (rolls eyes)
Paragraph4: Uh, Israel has ALWAYS been a strategic liability for the US. Not an embarrassment, but definitely a liability. Supporting the foundation of a modern day state in the middle of land already populated by a different culture and religion and, In turn, creating decades of instability and conflict is pretty much a “strategic liability” in my book. I f you asked many of our nation’s leaders in private (where they couldn’t be overheard or tape recorded) they’d probably acknowledge the same.
Paragraph5&6: Cyprus? Really? Isn’t one ancient and ridiculous blood feud with no end in sight enough for you? Criminey!
A truly spiritual man doesn't judge right versus wrong based on who has done it, while a merely religious man is partisan in his views.
The ideal of a homeland for Jews has been made into a secular state for europeans whose genetic heritage isn't Jewish and whose values have strayed far from the Torah. They hold what they hold not by moral suasion but by naked displays of power.
Whether one believes that God acts to punish his chosen people when they stray, or that they bring punishments on themselves, you can't believe that they can do no wrong. So the question becomes, is what they're doing wrong? After all, "manifest destiny" worked just fine for the European arrivals in North America.
Maybe there's something different about Palestinians living in permanent structures? Having co-religionists in nearby countries? Or is it just that God gave Moses Canaan? Does that change the question of whether it's right or wrong to do the same things to them the Nazis did to you? Did the diaspora not also come from God?
It's disingenuous for the Rabbi to suggest that there are no dissenting voices among African Americans ... Bill Cosby for one has criticized what he sees as underachieving.
Justice is needed for peace to reign. Everybody must look in the mirror, even Jews.
'Sorry guys. Israel is going to remain controversial, as one might expect from any country under a constant existential assault from nearly all its neighbors.' ...continued below
What kind of 'land of the Jews' is it that is constantly attacked, that you would choose to live in? Israeli Jews choose their way of life, and you can't make excuses for your choice of living as victims. "The hatred of the Jews is everywhere"..."they hate me because I'm Jewish", your brethren have said millions of times over history. Don't you know, by now, the cliche of...
...'watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Watch your words, they'll become your actions. Watch your actions for they'll become your destiny'. The world, including the american taxpayers who foot the bill for your drama, are now becoming more of a witness to the destiny, which you are solely responsible for, and we really feel for you. It is time to ask for our money back, for you do not know how to act with dignity and grace. It's time you learned!