Monday, February 26, 2007

The question whether a book or an essay is antisemitic is sometimes hard to determine. As we have seen in the case of Mersheimer & Walt's "Israel Lobby" paper or Carter's recent book which slaps Israel with Apartheid tag. Jewish professors who provide well argued, factually grounded and historically reliable rebuttals are dismissed as "Jewish" therefore automatically suspect of trying to silence criticism of Israel. It's a well known ploy, often repeated without even an attempt to address the concerns raised by the challengers. That, in and of itself, smells badly, really badly. But nothing is more decisive on this matter when the book or the essay is being picked up by well known antisemites as desirable reading material for their constituencies. Thus we have seen David Duke linking to the M&W paper in his website and now, Louis Farrakhan urges his flock to read Carter's book, side by side with other explicitly hate literature such as

"... “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews,” which claims that the slave trade was dominated by Jews; “The Secrets of the Federal Reserve,” which claims that the world’s banks are controlled by the Jews; and Carter’s “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” which alleges that Israel has set up a de facto apartheid system for Palestinians in the West Bank.

Copies of “The Synagogue of Satan,” a book written by a Nation of Islam member which says that the world is being manipulated and corrupted by Satanic powers led by Jewish elites, were available for purchase at the event."

I guess this can serve as a rule of thumb for clinching the matter of whether something is antisemitic or not. Let's see who endorses it enthusiastically and why.

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