Sago Boulevard

Self-hating Jew Norman Finkelstein finds himself in a tenure battle at DePaul University. Dean Charles Suchar has recommended against tenure, claiming he found “the personal attacks in many of Dr. Finkelstein’s books to border on character assassination.” But Finkelstein doesn’t hold the university president or dean responsbile.

[Finkelstein] explained that since the fall the university has been “bombarded” with such pressure that it “had to make a choice between two disasters — deny me tenure and get outrage from students, or have me on the faculty for another 20 years and every month face another hysteria and claims that I am a Holocaust denier and a self-hating Jew. Between the short-term and the long-term disasters, it was prudent to go for the short-term disaster.”

I wonder why anybody would think Finkelstein is a Holocaust denier and a self-hating Jew.

Norman G. Finkelstein’s book, “The Holocaust Industry,” alleges that Jewish leaders have exploited the Holocaust for profit…

Let’s say an academic wrote a book about how the black community exploited slavery for profit and political gain. Do you think he would tenure at a major university?

Neighborhood Bully
by Bob Dylan

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man,
His enemies say he’s on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive.
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin,
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He’s always on trial for just being born.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.

From the album “Infidels”, Copyright 1983 Special Rider Music

David Hazony, editor of Azure Magazine, writes an interesting critique of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ in light Gibson’s other religiously-themed moves. The article’s two years old but worth reading anyway.

In other news, I’m in Israel for my vacation from school. Normal blogging should resume next week; that is, if law school doesn’t get in the way… again.

(via Susanna)

What should the Jewish community’s response be to Mel Gibson’s apology? Personally, I just shrugged when hearing it on the radio. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t believe him when he says “I am not an anti-Semite”. But, you might say, what more could I want besides a (seemingly) heartfelt, public apology? For starters, it’ll take a lot more than mere words. Apologizing for making an antisemitic movie (”The Passion”) would help too, but I’m not holding my breath.

Just in case I wasn’t already convinced that Pat Buchanan is a rabid antisemite, he makes it painfully clear:

[W]hat Israel is doing is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians, collective punishment on innocent people, to force them to do something they are powerless to do: disarm the gunmen among them. Such a policy violates international law and comports neither with our values nor our interests. It is un-American and un-Christian.

Everyone get that? Buchanan criticized the Jewish State of Israel as being “un-Christian”. Best of the Web Today’s James Taranto gets it right:

Buchanan is clever enough that he is not unwittingly applying an inapplicable standard; rather, he is accusing the Jews of not being Christians, thereby attempting to turn Christians against Jews.

I’m getting sick just figuring out how to write about this. Every American should be ashamed that something like this can still happen today.

According to Jews on First, a Jewish family in Delware filed a complaint in February 2005, alleging “that the [Indian River School] district had created an ‘environment of religious exclusion’ and unconstitutional state-sponsored religion.” The family was forced to move two hours away out of fear of retribution. The complaint recounts that on the evening when the school board was to announce their “religion policy”, the family felt intimidated enough to ask a state trooper to escort them home. If just a handful of the allegations are true, this is nothing short of a pogrom. (more…)

Israel’s Magen David Adom was finally admitted to the International Red Cross “ending decades of exclusion linked to the Jewish state’s refusal to accept the traditional cross symbol”. Let’s pause for a moment to fully appreciate the absurdity of excluding Israel’s medical and humanitarian organization because it refuses to adopt the overtly Christian symbol. Are Muslim countries required to use the red cross as their symbol? Of course not.

The simple red cross on a white background — the reversal of colors of the Swiss flag — was adopted as the emblem of the movement when it was founded in 1863 by Swiss humanitarians trying to care for battlefield casualties who otherwise were left to suffer.

But the symbol unintentionally reminded Muslims of the Christian Crusaders, and they insisted on their own red crescent in the 19th century.

When Israel’s society bid for membership was turned down in 1949, it objected to using either the cross or the crescent, and the Red Cross movement refused to admit yet another emblem.

Because admitting another emblem is so costly and difficult, right? So has the Red Cross finally permitted Magen David Adom to use the Jewish star? Sort of.

The decision early Thursday completed a complicated process that included the creation of the optional, third emblem — a blank, red-bordered square standing on one corner — that could stand alone or frame the Israeli society’s red star.

The emblem — dubbed the “red crystal” — was approved over Muslim objections in a hard-fought diplomatic conference last December. But that was only the first step, and the conference was called to complete the job.

Is anybody surprised that the Muslim representatives objected? Anybody at all? I wonder if the objections had any content at all, besides “we hate Jews”.

Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the Darfur rally on Sunday and I’m a little embarassed to admit that I only started following the situation there recently. The more I read about it, the sicker I feel. We really have no excuse not to raise our voices in protest.

This past week was a particularly appropriate time to show support for the victims of genocide as April 25th was Holocaust Memorial Day. I’m proud that Jewish groups were well-represented. Our national history demands that we not turn our backs while others are slaughtered. In his 1986 acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, Elie Wiesel said:

Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

We need to pay attention to Darfur right now. We need to do what we wish others had done for the Jews of Europe.

A school in Florida surprised students with a Holocaust education project that didn’t exactly have the desired effect (via LMOM).

[E]ighth-graders with last names beginning with L through Z at Apopka Memorial Middle School were given yellow five-pointed stars for Holocaust Remembrance Day. Other students were privileged, the report said.

Father John Tinnelly said his son was forced to stand in the back of the classroom and not allowed to sit because he was wearing the yellow star.

“He was forced to go to the back of the lunch line four times by an administrator,” Tinnelly said.

Tinnelly said the experiment upset his child.

“He was crying,” Tinnelly said. “I said, ‘What are you crying about?’ He said, ‘Daddy, I was a Jew today.’”

I’m not sure that reaction should be the goal of Holocaust education.

We should take notice of any legal action that limits freedom of expression, even if it turns out to be justified. Libel and slander laws, for instance, explicitly limit free speech and that shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s justified, not because free speech doesn’t apply, but rather because the negative externalities of limitless libel and slander outweigh other considerations.

The anti-Holocaust-denial legislation that helped convict David Irving should be viewed in this light. The question isn’t whether or not it violates free speech (of course it does). It’s whether or not allowing public Holocaust-denying is better.

From what I can tell, the discussion over Irving’s conviction seems to be about censorship in general. Alonzo Fyfe argues:

[C]ounter-words are the only legitimate response to the claims that David Irving made. Responding to his words with violence (including the violence of state-imposed punishment) is no different that Muslims responding to the Mohammed cartoons with violence.

Jim Lindgren writes similarly:

I don’t think that holocaust denial… should be a crime… [T]he cartoon riots have confirmed and strengthened this opinion. The Imams are right to point to the inconsistency in European treatment between holocaust denial and blasphemy against Mohammed.

The comparison with the Danish anti-Muslim cartoons misses a crucial difference. Holocaust denial conjures up an image of violence. It has been and continues to be used by anti-Semites to rally against Jews and against Israel. It should come as no surprise that Arab countries that deny Israel’s right to exist and sponsor terrorism against it, regularly support claims that Jews exaggerated the Holocaust for political purposes.

This is not the case regarding the Mohammed cartoons. Although a negative reaction from the Muslim world was surely expected, there is no particular violence against Muslims that the cartoons represent. I think it’s reasonable to distinguish between the two on these grounds. Holocaust denial is clearly associated with violence against Jews and thus, qualifies as incitement. In countries where this is especially true (i.e. Austria) I think legislation criminalizing it is justified.

From the Washington Post:

Iran’s best-selling newspaper has launched a competition to find the best cartoon about the Holocaust in retaliation for the publication in many European countries of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad.

How in the world is making fun of the mass slaughter of Jews a retaliation for a Danish cartoon of Mohammad?! It still amazes me (even though I should expect it by now) how antisemitism find its way into every major conflict.

At the very least, maybe this episode will show the world the difference between Jewish and Muslim protest. My guess is that you won’t see Jewish groups blowing up Iranian embassies.