The More Urgent Bigotry

The Attorney General, Eric Holder, made waves several weeks ago with his admonition that America is a “nation of cowards” when it comes to conversations on race. Indeed the question of race has become increasingly difficult to discuss. African Americans advocating ideas contrary to the popular and lucrative victimization mindset are marginalized, if not harshly demonized, a la Bill Cosby and Clarence Thomas. Even worse, a white person espousing such views is automatically a racist or out of touch bigot. If we are to venture down this path I propose that we call upon Mr. Holder to launch the first prompt, just what does he think of white people?

America has come a long way since the days of sit-ins, freedom rides, and Bull Conner. In less than 50 years since the need for civil rights legislation, this country has elevated African Americans to unprecedented levels of power, even electing a black president. Institutional racism in the United States is largely dead. There are the ignorant scattered few who harbor evil thoughts and spew hatred, but when revealed as such become de facto social pariahs. One of the most feared insults is the assertion that an individual is racist- a moniker with the potential to result in the loss of jobs, friends, and respect.

America is going gangbusters when it comes to racial parity. The more pertinent conversation is perhaps less visible, as it is one which has been relived almost since the beginning of time. What we truly need now is a conversation about the rise of anti-Semitism in America and, quite frankly the world. In the most recent study on the subject, the Anti-Defamation League released the findings of a survey, which positively identified “an increase in the number of Americans with anti-Semitic attitudes,” from a 1998 percentage of 12% to 15% of “unquestionably anti-Semitic” citizens. While racism has been decreasing, anti-Semitism has been increasing.

That same study U.S.“ and further that “anti-Israel feelings are triggering anti-Semitism.” Between the perennial vandalism of temples with swastikas and defamatory scribble, there have been more explicit displays of bigoted viciousness. January of this year in Fort Lauderdale, for example, during a protest against Israeli action in Gaza, three hundred demonstrators shouted for Jews to “Go back to the ovens! You need a big oven” and chanted “Go to hell; go to hell; go to hell!” That same month in Washington D.C. 1,000 protestors cried “death to Israel and Zionism.” And the Cybercast News Service has further reported that “demonstrators in New York waved signs reading “Israel: the Fourth Reich” and “Palestine is our Land, the Jews are our Dogs.” And that “signs at a protest in Seattle called Gaza ‘Auschwitz’ and ‘A New Warsaw Ghetto.’“ Sadly these are but a few of the most recent chronicles of hatred aimed at the Jewish population.

Distressing still is the fact that abroad the situation is much worse. Several weeks ago The Anti-Defamation League again reported “that a survey it commissioned found nearly a third of Europeans polled blame Jews for the global economic meltdown and that a greater number think Jews have too much power in the business world.” Further the study revealed that 44% of Europeans think “Jews talk too much about the Holocaust.” Anti-Semitism has also been apparent in various episodes of vandalism and slurs. Recently the most visible was, of course, the February 14^th Neo-Nazi demonstration in Dresden commemorating the Allied bombing of the city in 1945. United Press International reported that an “estimated 6,000 neo-Nazis in Dresden [had] staged one of the biggest far-right demonstrations Germany [had] seen in decades.”

 On a more institutional level, however, has been the continued equation of Zionism with racism. Outside of the palpably anti-Israel policies adopted by the United Nations, Morris B. Abram, Chairman of the United Nations Watch has highlighted two of the most egregious demonstrations of Anti-Semitism perpetrated by this supposedly neutral international body. “During the 1991 session, the Syrian Ambassador repeated the Damascus Blood Libel that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to make Matzoth. The Western democracies could not be stirred to challenge this age-old anti-Semitic libel …On 11 March 1997, the Palestinian representative charged, in a chamber packed with 500 people including the representatives of 53 states and hundreds of non-governmental organizations, that the Israeli Government had injected 300 Palestinian children with the HIV virus. Despite the repeated interventions of the Governments of Israel and the US, and UN Watch, this modern Blood Libel stands unchallenged and unrefuted (sic) on the UN record.”

Most recently the Associated Press reported on March 5^th that several western democracies have or are considering a boycott of a United Nations conference on racism due to, as Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini put it, “aggressive and anti-Semitic statements.” Such action would spur an incident much like the 2001 conference of the same title in which the “U.S. and Israel walked out midway through the conference over a draft resolution that singled Israel out for criticism and likened Zionism — the movement to establish and maintain a Jewish state — to racism.”

            Americans ought to be open to conversations regarding prejudice, but anti-Semitism is the most pressing of all issues. The Jewish people are perhaps the most resilient race in history, having faced persecution for thousands of years in manners ranging the gambit from passive hostility to enslavement to mass extermination; and yet they have thrived, individually composing one of the most successful groups of people on earth. They have not used their status as victims of prejudice as a crutch, instead they have fought their way into the upper echelon of society. Despite their success, the anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head in this the presumed era of sensitivity is unacceptable and must be exposed. Perhaps Mr. Holder should call upon Americans to engage in a meaningful dialogue on Judaism and the beauty of religious acceptance.