Soccer Dad

Antisemitism for fun and profit

Secular Blasphemy tells of comedian Jamie Glassman who's finding that antisemitism is more and more acceptable in comedy routines. Like Holocaust jokes

But what is going on in Edinburgh now is no satire. For me, Hughes represents a growing trend among left-thinking people in this country and around the world to accept as dogma that those on the Left should hate Bush, Blair, American imperialism, Israel and, while we’re at it, the Jews. It is a cultural trend that I’ve found increasingly evident but never before has the Jew-hating element been so overt. This week has confirmed that my Jewish paranoia is not entirely unfounded. As the old saying goes: “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.”

Secular Blasphemy comments

Just in the time I have been blogging I have seen a rapid rise of acceptance of anti-semitism in Europe, where each new "critic" climbs higher on the ladder towards pure, unrestrained racism. When the left fringe openly supports Hamas and Hezbollah and few are willing to protest, we certainly know that its lip support of feminism, gay rights, anti-racism and humanism has been nothing but a shell game. Fascism, including its most virulent strain Nazism, embraced both typical left- and right-wing ideas, yet the left has convinced itself it is immune to these ideas. Today's most potent form of fascism, at least in the western world, is not the asocial, confused losers who shave their heads and have a fetish for boots. It is certainly in the far left organisations that are spearheading the new anti-semitism with its massively disproportionate verbal attacks on Israel, and their uncritical support for Islamist fascism.

But it's not just humor festivals, but art festivals too. (Of course, it bears mentioning that the art - or rather cartoon - festival in question is in Iran.) View from a Height walks us through the exhibit of Holocaust International
Cartoon Exhibition (or if you'd prefer in the original Persian)

PostWatch (where I first saw this) adds his own comments and laments

Some of the cartoons are in the familiar tradition of disgusting anti-Semitism, including a Jew holding a blood-stained menorah. That kind of depiction is routine in the Mideast. Most Americans have no idea.

You might want to laugh at the crudeness of such sentiment but as Nelson Ascher writes (h/t Instapundit)

The Jihadists have shown us how brilliantly they can manipulate for their own purposes something as irrelevant as half-a-dozen cartoons in a Danish newspaper. Thus, it is rather unimportant whether Israel’s destruction is or isn’t their main goal (it isn’t). They seem to have discovered through trial and error that the hatred of Jews is alive and well in the West and, as the Nazis did before, they are using it not only to further their own different goals, but to recruit collaborators and to paralyze whole countries and societies as well. It goes without saying how terrible this is for the Jews themselves, but it is at least as dangerous to the rest of the West that is allowing anti-Semitism to be used against itself. Hatred of the Jews and of Israel is the loaded weapon the Jihadis are putting in the hands of a civilization that’s willing (again) to commit suicide.

Fortunately (and surprisingly) a number of celebrities have come out on the right side of this. (h/t Crossing the Rubicon )

"We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas," the ad reads. "If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die. "We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs." A who's who of Hollywood heavyweights joined Kidman on the ad. The actors listed included: Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton and William Hurt. Directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi also signed their names. Other Hollywood powerplayers supporting the ad included Sumner Redstone, the chairman and majority owner of Paramount Pictures, and billionaire mogul, Haim Saban.

WizBang links to an image of the ad.

Some speculation here, I have no idea who arranged the ad but my guess is that it was organized by Haim Saban.

Many of the names are Jewish (or Jewish sounding.) Some - like Serena Williams - are pleasantly surprising. And I'm surprised that it's missing names like Ron Silver and Larry Miller. Of course, maybe this was organized on the spur of the moment. After all David Mamet wrote an excellent essay Bigotry pins blame on Jews making many of the same arguments but he wasn't on the list.

Israel is a sovereign nation, founded under the United Nations charter in 1948. Since then, she has been chronically and acutely under attack. Since 1948, Israel has staved off those invaders dedicated to killing the Jews and each time, after each war, Israel has given back to those invaders the land acquired in Israel's defense.

Israel wants peace, the Arabs want Israel gone (in 2000 Yasser Arafat, on the eve of ending a territorial dispute that would have given him 98 percent of the land he desired, withdrew and went to war). Yet most of the Western press, European and American, picture Israel as, somehow, the aggressor, and the Israelis as somehow inhuman, and delighting in blood.

There is no "cycle of violence." Israel wants peace behind the 1949 armistice borders, with some relatively minor variation. There is no indictable "disparity of force." Israeli civilians are being bombed. Hezbollah knows where the Israeli military bases are, but chooses to bomb civilians. Hezbollah puts its armaments exclusively in the midst of civilians. The Israeli aim is not to invade Lebanon (Israel left Lebanon) but to force Hezbollah to stop killing the Jews.

(also at Huffington Post)

It appears that there are those in the entertainment world who take a cavalier approach, to put it mildly towards antisemitism, it's nice to know that there are others who take it more seriously. Though I suspect they're a minority.

Buzztracker has more. As does memeorandum.

Technorati tags: Antisemitism, Culture.