Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act....

[Owlet]

This is a job for the U.S. State Department? Sheesh....

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1095131871555


More than 100 religious leaders, former US officials, writers, artists, and academics, have written to US Secretary of State Colin Powell to protest the State Department's opposition to a congressional bill that would require the department to set up an office dedicated to combating anti-Semitism, and issue an annual report on anti-Semitism around the world.

(The bill is Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act H.R. 4230, authored by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), the only Holocaust survivor serving in the Congress.)

The State Department has said it opposes the bill because it would show favoritism by "extending exclusive status to one religious or ethnic group."

<snip>


Those who signed the letter to Powell included former secretary of housing Jack Kemp, former US ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick, former CIA director James Woolsey, former national security adviser Anthony Lake, Yale University Divinity School Dean Harold Attridge, writer Cynthia Ozick, and Richard Perle, a former Pentagon adviser who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Many who signed the critique, like Perle, are strong supporters of the Bush administration.

[mmonk]

1. What would the bill do

that groups aren't already doing (like ADL)? Alot of people seem to forget separation of church & state.

[shadu]

5. the bush crowd has finally done something right

[mitchum]

2. Is there an exemption for Perle, Norman Podhertz, Irving Kristol,...

Midge Decter, David Horowitz, Michael "Savage" Weiner...

I'm just asking

[oldhat]

3. Amazing!

It took only two posts for a DU member to say something really retarded in regards to anti-Semitism and/or the Jews on this thread!

[mitchum]

4. Uh, I'm a Jew (and not a self loathing one)

However, since I also work with intellectually disabled children, I find your use of "retarded" as a pejorative to be HIGHLY OFFENSIVE.

Careful on that high horse, pardner

[mitchum]

8. Well...

are you suitably embarassed or did that high horse gallop away?
eagerly awaiting your reply,
mitchum

[jdj]

12. wow, a duel.

this is a good one.

"I find your use of "retarded" as a pejorative to be HIGHLY OFFENSIVE."

this is terrible, but that made me laugh out loud. I am still laughing. I'm a schmuck, but it's probably one of the best retorts i've heard in a while.

[mitchum]

16. Thanks!

:) Nothing wrong with laughter.
Don't worry, you're no schmuck. I know schmucks...

[AntiCoup2K4]

14. No, it's just the opposite of that

These traitorous pieces of shit - the ones you named and the rest of the PNAC'ers - are already trying to categorize any opposition to their policies as "anti-semitism". Now they want to go beyond rhetoric and have the US government officially say so. And from there it's not much of a jump to say that anyone opposing them is a "terrorist".

And while it seems ridiculous to think that things like this could ever happen in this country, think of this nearly "unanimous" vote in Congress to tie Iraq to 9-11, and tell me AIPAC didn't have a lot to do with it.

[mitchum]

17. In all seriousness, you are correct

That is absolutely their intention

[DrWeird]

6. Is this about all anti-semitism?

Or just the anti-Jewish kind?

Because it seems that Islamophobia and anti-arab bigotry is a major and increasing problem these days.

[mitchum]

9. Excellent point, Doctor!

[jumpstart33]

10. How about anti-Semtisim against Arabs?

Seems like there is much more of that and it's practiced a lot by Israelis.

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. Um..."anti-Semitism" refers specifically to bigotry against JEWS...

Arabs may be a Semitic people, but historically and in common usage the term "anti-Semitism" has ALWAYS meant "anti-Jewish"; that is its original meaning (it was coined in the late 19th century by a German anti-Semite), and one which it has retained, despite "politically correct" efforts to pervert its meaning.

As such, referring to anti-Arab prejudice as "anti-Semitism" is laughable.

[southlandshari]

19. You are absolutely right

but just because something exists in reality doesn't make it fair, just, or worth supporting. And I know many, many Jews of conscience who would like to change this historical and cultural error of reference.

[southlandshari]

18. Great question

My poor Palestinian husband was under the impression that he was also a Semite, but he seems to have been overlooked in all this hoopla.

[ikojo]

7. Recently it was disclosed on jta.org that a couple of attacks in

France were not done at the hands of anti semites as was alleged but by a Jew.

Claiming antisemitism is a very effective way of cutting off all discussion...can't say anything about the neocons lest one be accused of being an antisemite (even if you are Jewish as am I)....can't criticize the actions of the Israeli government...ANTI SEMITE! Say something bad about Holy Joe Lieberman and watch the accusations fly!

Playing the antisemitism card too often cheapens the history of antisemitism, which is long and gory as Jews well know. It also hardens people when there is REAL antisemitism.

Just my opinion. IMHO, Muslims in America face far greater prejudice than Jews. Like the Irish before them, Jews were able to assimilate into white America and except for the hardcore right-wing racists, they are seen as and accepted as white and it has benefited the community greatly.



http://jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=14438&intcategoryid=2


Arrest of Jew in French arson has
community worried about crying wolf

By Philip Carmel


PARIS, Aug. 30 (JTA) — French Jewish leaders fear they may have cried wolf once too often after a Jew was arrested in connection with the well-publicized arson of a Jewish community center in central Paris.

snip

In July, an incident in which a young woman claimed she and her baby were attacked on a suburban train drew fierce condemnations from politicians and religious leaders — until it was discovered that the woman had made up the story.

Similarly, the recent knifing of a yeshiva student in the Paris suburbs also apparently was not motivated by anti-Semitism. And police still are investigating claims by a rabbi that he was stabbed outside his synagogue in January 2003m, as reports allege that the rabbi may have stabbed himself.

[Djinn]

11. what would be the point of this?

apart from making everyone wonder why there isn't an office set up for each and every form of prejudice...an office dedicated to stoping the discrimination of the intellectual disabled might be a start!

Why is "anti-semitism" (the poor allocation of this term originally and the current use to describe any criticism of Israel has made teh word meaningless) so much more important than other forms of hatred and bigotry?

"The institute, (David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.) the letter says, "has documented how, during the Holocaust, the State Department did its best to downplay the Jewish identity of Hitler's victims – even though the Nazi regime had clearly singled out Jews for annihilation."

singled out?? so much for honoring the memory of the dead socialists, trade unionists, gays, intellectual and physically disabled, the mentally ill, the Romany population. Jews were the biggest single group murdered by the Nazi's, but they were NOT singled out.

[Julien Sorel]

15. The point isn't to get this thing passed at all.

It's a negotiating strategy. This is now a chip on the table.

"We want an extra two billion dollars in aid a year, the F-22 Raptor, continued vetoes in the United Nations, an invasion of Iran, and the creation of a department devoted to anti-semitism."

"Sorry, that's too much."


"OK, we'll give you the invasion of Iran and the department of anti-semitism. But if we decide to nuke Iran, you have to support us. And make sure that spying investigation goes no where"

"Deal."


And that's how this is done, how it's been done since the 1960s.