REASONS: for Anti-Semitism

[citizenbfk]

I have 'crystallized,' I believe, certain cornerstone reasons for Anti-Semitism.

Issues #1) I'm not sure if you want to hear them.
Issues #2) I'm doubtful of their efficacy.

But perhaps discussing some of my thoughts about this topic may be of some value in the threads stated goal: "Tackling Anti-Semitism."

If anyone has any suggestion how to proceed, please post.

If this topic has no interest to anyone, that's fine; I have other things to do.

Sincerely,
citizenbfk: USA citizen/son of Irish Immigrants, life-time social and political activist, 5 children, writer & web designer; photographer and videographer.

[Cellis]

-If this topic has no interest to anyone, that's fine; I have other things to do

hey, I enjoyed it. Already this chapter of forum is dead. Thank you for posting.
ps. do you have a personal webpage where I can find your works? thanks.

ps. I have an idea about anti-semitism in youtube and how to wipe it off forever...

[Reffo]

citizenbfk

First look at the thread below and then if you have anything to add.....

What are your 5 most important indicators of an anti-semite?

Who knows, you might be able to explain to me why your five kids should be judged based on what they individually do or don't do but mine should be disliked, maybe even hated, just because they are Jewish kids (maybe even very young ones)!

By the way, are you going to be and advocate or just a messenger? I wouldn't mind getting that clear right from the outset.... (if you respond that is)....

[Mil]

The problem is that Jimmy Carter knows quite some about the Arab-Israeli conflict; in fact a lot more then even most experts on the Arab-Israeli conflict know; Jimmy Carter being one of the key people who in fact participated within the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Which brings into question why did Jimmy Carter chose a provocotive title and put a one-sided monuscript when he knows all the details and the comoplexities of this situation. At the least one would expect more of Jimmy Carter then this - at least more sophisticantion (being former president and such). I read the book and was not impressed at all. I think any mediocore scholar on the Middle East would right a better book and Jimmy Carter is definetly not one of the latter; I would think. The book reads more like a popular literature on the likes of Anne Colter or Michael Savage then a serious historical/political analysis one would expect from the sophisticated persona-expert like our former President. A president who presided over nothing less then Egypt-Israel peace accords; one of the few Major events in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1948.

I have a few theories:

1. Jimmy Carter became senile at his age
2. Jimmy Carter has a political agenda of some sorts
3. Jimmy Carter wants to make some money and retain fame by controversy
4. Jimmy Carter does not like Jews
5. A combination of 1 to 4

[Illuminatus]

I have 'crystallized,' I believe, certain cornerstone reasons for Anti-Semitism.

I think this thread should discuss why citizenbfk is Anti-Semitic.

We can then start and proceed in all honestly and discuss the true nature and reasons for Anti-Semitism.

Tell us what books you've read, what lectures/conversations have you had. What imaginary opportunity, income or promotion or award or dream was lost or denied becuase of "the all consuming power of international jewery"?

What personal resentments do you harbor, probably passed down from dad or grandpa, what were your childhood/teeange/academic personal experiences that consumes and focuses your attention and resentments on Jews? What compels you to assert that the Jewish community in the US (or the world) controls governments, the media, international business, and the financial world?

.......and don't start by telling me: "I ain't no anti-semite...why in fact, some of best friends are Jews".

Like it or not, and as Jimmy Carter has found out throughout much of his political career, when you make the diabolical comparison of Israel to the Afrikaner system of permanently separating the indigenous black from the European white in all aspects of culture and society (A part heid) - that was no mere criticism of Israel, that was Anti-Semitism at its core.

A teenager by the name of Anne Frank wrote in a diary -- entry: April 11, 1944

[.. Who knows -- it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason alone do we now suffer. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or representatives of any other country for that matter. We will always remain Jews. ..]

Is that what you resent citizenbfk? That that they remained Jews for thousand of years and all this time in the face of invasions, pograms, exile, empires, slaughter and evil?

The hard reality that the Nation of Israel and Judiasm are inexplicably linked is precisely where I say that Anti-Semites like Jimmy Carter (and Mel Gibson, who now claims he needs "therapy") fail to comprehend their own resentment.

(it is only fitting that Jimmy Carter now realilzes (too late) that his political legacy and memoirs will be forever magnified and tied to his personal hatreds and resentments, first and foremost)
------------

epilogue: had there been an Israel and an IDF in 1944, today that teen would have been an boring anonymous old lady to the world, and a dotting grandmother, a loving mom & a devoted wife to a few in Israel.

^_^

[Gilgamesh]

In a nut shell.

An anti semite is anybody (jew or gentile) who opposes one or more of the following points:
1. All humans deserve human rights.
2. Jews are humans.
3. Judaism is both a nation and a religion at the same time.
4. Self determination is a human right hense Jews deserve self determination.
5. Self defense is a human rights. Jews deserve the right of self defense.
6. Zionism is a political movement with the declared objective of securing the right of self-determination. The state of Israel is the manifestation of the right of self determination for Jews.
7. IDF is an instrument to manifest the right of self defense.
8. Jews do not have an hidden agenda.
9. Jews do not posses super natural powers.

[Womble]

I think this thread should discuss why citizenbfk is Anti-Semitic.

Citizenbfk is a nutjob, whose posts are unreadable and whose brain is incapable of independent thinking. 99% of his posts are borrowed wholesale from propaganda website. Just Google a few lines from his post at random.

[russellb]

I'll reply to this at face value and assume that the poster is earnest in his intentions, although there may be evidence otherwise.

#1) Jews have taken over Hollywood.
#2) Jews hate Jesus; Jews killed Jesus
#3) People will " blame [a] target hate group for a disproportionate amount of the ills in their society. They use the target hate group as scapegoats.
#4) The penetration of the U.S. media by Israeli intelligence

I do not bring up this topic/thread lightly. Books and movies have been made about it. A common one, which I've read is: "Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate," written by Jean-Paul Sartre.

None of the examples posted above constitutes reasons for anti-Semitism. Each of these are accusations, largely gross exaggeration if not outright lies, propagated by anti-Semites to justify anti-Semitism. For them to constitute reasons for anti-Semitism, one would have to accept them as being truthful, which they are not.

A more recent title, which I have not read, is: "The Politics of Anti-Semitism," edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair and available for sale on Amazon.

From the review of read of this book, on Amazon, I think several here on this forum might label this text anti-Semitic although, if so, it doesn't sound like it is stridently anti-Semitic, at least, and I only mention it as an example that this is a topic that is discussed in the past and in the present and on sites as public as Amazon.com

Anything written by Cockburn on the matter of Israel, Zionism, or anti-Semitism must be taken with a gigantic grain of salt. Cockburn is a Marxist polemicist and pseudointellectual, with no important accomplishments to speak of. His definition of anti-Semitism is largely self-serving, and if one uses the criteria for anti-Semitism set out by the EUMC (now the EUAFR), then Cockburn clearly meets the criteria for anti-Semitism:


http://eumc.europa.eu/eumc/material/...tion-draft.pdf

This academic piece discusses Cockburn briefly:

http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-chanes-s04.htm

Finally, there is Alexander Cockburn. What has not already been said about Cockburn, a fine wordsmith, a sharp polemicist - and, frankly, an intractable foe of Jewish interests? The tropes of "the Israel lobby" resonate throughout The Politics of Anti-Semitism, a collection of essays (co-edited by Jeffrey St. Clair),14 that culminate in a self-serving complaint by Cockburn himself ("My life as an 'Anti-Semite'") in which he offers his definition of antisemitism: "to have written an item that pisses off someone at The New Republic."

In fact, Cockburn and St. Clair's book does serve a larger purpose (which justifies addressing it), in that it illuminates, as does Dershowitz's book, the nuanced and highly-permeable borders between criticism of the policies of the government of Israel and "Israelophobia" or anti-Israelism. In a word, "the new antisemitism."

This, I believe, would qualify for a fifth (5th) reason for anti-Semitism:

#5). Accusation of Israel practicing apartheid in Palestinian territories.

I understand there is a common reference to: "the whole nine yards," of reasons given for anti-Semitism

Another reason would have to be:

#6) Wars in the Middle East; violent conflicts with terrorist groups, Lebanon, Syria, and now very worrisome threats of attacks against Iran and even threats of using nuclear weapons (I think).

ALTHOUGH -- having made those last suggestion, Reasons #5 and #6, it might be far better and far more accurate to say they are not really reasons for anti-Semitism, but displeasure and disagreements with the policies of the State of Israel.

The accusation of apartheid towards Israel is purely rhetorical and lacks any important basis. Even Jimmy Carter stepped back from this accusation inhis talk at Brandeis and admitted that he used more for the purpose of provocative discussion then with intent towards accuracy.

The reality is that there are very few who argue points #5 and #6 in a manner which shows any in depth understanding of Israeli policies.

This might be a good place for me to stop, at this time, because it does hit the nail on the head of what I see is one of the most difficult entanglements and strong feelings about his issue, a potential mix-up that I see again and again; and again:

Jews making a direct correlation between criticism towards Israel with anti-Semitism.

This is a canard used by many who would have us believe that discussion of Israel's policies is stifled. In point of fact, it is usually made by those who have little to no knowledge of any Israeli policy.

Legitimate criticism of Israel's policies is not anti-Semitic. The singling out of Israel for unbalanced, one-sided criticism while ignoring its security concerns or denying its right to exist as a Jewish homeland does, more often than not, constitute a form of anti-Semitism

For immediate example, perhaps the book by former President Jimmy Carter: "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," is the Perfect Example.

Overnight Jimmy Carter went from being a nice guy to being labeled an anti-Semite, as if he had written Mein Kampf, or something!

Not only do I see this false portray of Jimmy Carter based on this book as not only an extreme overreaction but also how this extreme over-reaction once again prevents the issues from being discussed!

Also, Jimmy Carter worked tirelessly for peace in the Israel-Palestine Conflict and had not Israeli Prime Minister Rabin not been assassinated by a right-wing fanatic perhaps a more peaceful situation could have happened.

He's a guy who has spent most of his retirement, for pete's sake, building homes for the homeless, which is far from proposing any group of people be marched off to gas chambers.

I have found reactions like current diatribes against Jimmy Carter very difficult to deal with.

While some have attempted to paint Carter as an outright anti-Semite, I don't share this point of view (it's much more nuanced than him being a pure anti-Semite), and the vast majority of critiques of his new book from mainstream Jewish sources have not called him anti-Semite. This is, again, largely a canard used by those who haven't carefully read what people such as Dershowitz have written. The crititicisms have been harsh towards Carter, but are mostly justified. But it is not the majority who have branded him an all-out anti-Semite.

I know, for example, that I could say: "O.J. Simpson is a murderer," or that Michael Jackson deserves his nickname of "Wacko Jacko," and almost NO BLACK PEOPLE WOULD THINK I WAS A RASCIST AGAINST BLACKS.

In fact, I think the majority of black people would agree with me, AND I think that those who would not agree with me still would NOT think of me as being a rascist for those comments.

Perhaps the latter is correct, but I disagree with the former. The race card was played heavily during the Simpson case.

BUT if I say something about, um...about Irving Lewis Libby, or Jack Abramoff suddenly the issue is treated as if I was attacking all Jews or trying to smear Jews.

I didn't even realise that Libby is Jewish. I have not seen a single mainstream Jewish media source indicate that attacks against Libby or Abramoff are attempts to smear Jews as a whole.

Perhaps this is a good point to end on, 4sure, since it is the cause of distress I find when trying to discuss any topic concerning any Jew or any issue with Israel.

You haven't made a clear argument at this point. For starters, you will need to comment on the first 4 points that you made regarding reasons for anti-Semitism. If you believe them to be true, then you will need to support your argument.

[andak01]

In a nut shell.

An anti semite is anybody (jew or gentile) who opposes one or more of the following points:
1. All humans deserve human rights.

That says nothing about anything. What are human rights? You must be an anti-semite, because I can hardly believe that you think terrorists deserve human rights.

2. Jews are humans.

I'm sure plenty of anti-semites acknowledge Jews as human.

3. Judaism is both a nation and a religion at the same time.

That's a Jewish religious tenet that isn't even held by all Jews. Neither the continuation of Judaism nor the continuation of the state of Israel, nor for that matter the continuation of Zionism rests on whether everyone believes in it.

4. Self determination is a human right hense Jews deserve self determination.

Fine.

5. Self defense is a human rights. Jews deserve the right of self defense.

Absolutely. So does everyone else.

6. Zionism is a political movement with the declared objective of securing the right of self-determination. The state of Israel is the manifestation of the right of self determination for Jews.

You're contradicting yourself. If 3 is true, then Zionism isn't a political movement, it is a manifestation of Judaism. Why don't you cut to the chase and say that if you aren't Zionist, you are anti-semite?

7. IDF is an instrument to manifest the right of self defense.

That's fine. But just like everyone else, they should adher to international laws of engagement or be subject to scrutiny and criticism.

8. Jews do not have an hidden agenda.

I'll go farther. They don't have a single agenda.

9. Jews do not posses super natural powers.

Based on Jesus (SAW), I'd have to disagree.

[Illuminatus]

Sounds like we're being argumentative just for the fun of it, pure and simple andak01 - you know exactly what Gilgamesh was conveying.

That says nothing about anything. What are human rights? You must be an anti-semite, because I can hardly believe that you think terrorists deserve human rights.

That (Gilgamesh's #1 point) says everything about the root causes of human conflicts and wars for the past 10,000 years.

Human rights are those basic standards without which people cannot live in dignity. To violate someone’s human rights is to treat that person as though she or he were not a human being. To advocate human rights is to demand that the human dignity of all people be respected.

Terrorists (also known as "freedom fighters" to certain Islamists) lose their human rights the moment they actively plan, financially support, materially or silently assist to take away those rights from innocent civilian victims.

In case you're wondering andak01, these basic standards are clearly defined in the second and third paragraphs of the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948 without a dissenting vote -- which btw, was just seven months after PM David Ben Gurion pronounced the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14th.

^_^

[andak01]

Sounds like we're being argumentative just for the fun of it, pure and simple andak01 - you know exactly what Gilgamesh was conveying.

That (Gilgamesh's #1 point) says everything about the root causes of human conflicts and wars for the past 10,000 years.

Fine, but we were looking for a definition of anti-semitism. Under the definition that he gave, both of you are anti-semites because you wouldn't afford human rights to terrorists. I'm not sure I disagree, but I certainly don't think that is definition of anti-semitism.

Human rights are those basic standards without which people cannot live in dignity. To violate someone’s human rights is to treat that person as though she or he were not a human being. To advocate human rights is to demand that the human dignity of all people be respected.

Terrorists (also known as "freedom fighters" to certain Islamists) lose their human rights the moment they actively plan, financially support, materially or silently assist to take away those rights from innocent civilian victims.

Then, if you believe that, you are an anti-semite according to Gilgamesh first rule. Unless you believe that terrorists aren't human and then by rule 2 that Jews are, and by extension that Jews can't be terrorists.

In case you're wondering andak01, these basic standards are clearly defined in the second and third paragraphs of the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948 without a dissenting vote -- which btw, was just seven months after PM David Ben Gurion pronounced the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14th.

Unlike many around these parts, I'm fond of the UN and think that international law should apply to everyone. That said, I'm pretty content with the human rights definition in the Declaration of Independance and the Bill of Rights.

[Gilgamesh]

One cannot have rights without reponsibilities.
The responsibility is to accept the human rights of others, uncondionaly.
Terrorists are humans who made A FREE CHOISE to ignore their responsibilites. How can they ask the same treatment as if they were innocents or inresponsible for their atrocities?

Human rights is more of a international understanding then actuall laws. You can't have some of it for some of the time, whenever it suits you, and dictate to others what to think or do. Either the Arabs accept the whole package or stay out of it.

"Palestinian" may have any right they wish, only their only declared objective is to deny our rights. "Palestinains" demand their rights entirely on us, Jews expance.

Universe is based on action-reaction relationships. How can the Arab terrorists demand to be spared from the outcomes of their own doings?

[Aviva]

A substantial difference in the thread you mentioned and my idea for this thread is that I was looking to talk about the reasons for anti-Semitism, not the indicators or definition of anti-Semitism, as the other thread focuses on.

The reasons for anti-Semitism historically begin with the Christian Church.

Everything else is a mixture of European racism, jealousy and historical prejudice and hatred towards a group of people who are proudly different, with no desire to assimilate into the majority population.

[Gilgamesh]

I'm sure plenty of anti-semites acknowledge Jews as human.

You are an anti-semite, do you acknowledge Jews as humans? Can you make your answer believeable?
It's a crime you were not banned so far.

That's a Jewish religious tenet that isn't even held by all Jews.
Neither the continuation of Judaism nor the continuation of the state of Israel, nor for that matter the continuation of Zionism rests on whether everyone believes in it.

Zionism is a modern expression of Jews demand for human rights. The idea for full and equall human rights first apear in the Jewish bible and in Jewish thought, let alone Jew's own rights for the land and national identity.

Jewish continuation and Jewish national rights for the land of Israel are fundementals of Jewish religion and culture. One can not be a real Jew and ignore or denounce it. We can't avoid having some deviates and charletans among us. Thouse anti semties love to turn their full attention to these lot, and made generaliztion on the rest of them.

The fact I consider Druz Arabs or Bahai to be good and fair people, it wou'd be wrong of me to generalize all Arabs or Iranians along these lines.

You're contradicting yourself. If 3 is true, then Zionism isn't a political movement, it is a manifestation of Judaism.

Zionism is a manifestation of an aspect of Judaism. Zionism is not equall with Judaism.
Zionism has narrow objectives, where Judaism is a way of life and world view.
Zionism is modern movement using modern arguments. Judaism is ancient and sometimes mystic.

Why don't you cut to the chase and say that if you aren't Zionist, you are anti-semite?

Zionism means equall human rights to Jews.
Anti-Zionists deny equll human rights to Jews.
Hence, Anti-Zionists are anti-semites.

That's fine. But just like everyone else, they should adher to international laws of engagement or be subject to scrutiny and criticism.

Whose laws and whose scrutiny? and what scrutiny?
Most scrutiniy we get from the likes of you are about denial of our right of self determination and our right of self defense. Naturaly, these must be ignored.

I'll go farther. They don't have a single agenda.

Generaly, Jews have always showed the way toward progress for the rest of mankind. Progress is the Jewish agenda. The only inner debate among Jews is about the choise of the best route.
All anti semties, like the Nazis and Arabs, are for fanatism and ignorance. The fear and despise progress, and hate Jews for it.
Should any of those anti-semites were successful, the world was plunged into a new middle ages.

Based on Jesus (SAW), I'd have to disagree.

As a Jew, I don't belive in Jesus, I doubt his existance, and even more so doubt his deeds.
Miracles in Judaism are not against nature but part of it.

[Mediocrates]

http://hnn.us/articles/35951.html

In Response to Timothy Furnish's "Anti-Semitism in Islam: Israel Didn't Start the Fire"

By David H Slavin

Mr. Slavin is an adjunct at Emory University.

HNN is a valuable resource and provocative opinion pieces that it publishes are useful in classes and discussion groups I teach or facilitate. However, by repeatedly running articles by someone as tendentious as Timothy Furnish, HNN legitimates his position and at the same time advertises his book. This is unfair. The time and effort required to refute his observations precludes a response from anyone who is knowledgeable enough to counter his seemingly well-documented arguments. The puerile remarks dumped in the "Comments" string in response to his recent column (and his own puerile responses) are a case in point. Few people read them, and what can be gleaned from them is slim pickings. Furnish's other contributions to HNN gave me a similar impression to this essay. Using his detailed acquaintance with Islam he imposes an interpretation that does violence to the larger historical context and that promotes and rests on assumptions rooted in the "clash of civilizations" world view.

Furnish's argument about the "deep roots" of Muslim anti-semitism (a rhetorical absurdity, Furnish admits in his first footnote, unless we are talking about "self-hating Arabs") ignores the entire history of dhimmi status, protection for "people of the book" (although they were subject to additional taxes). And while he turns to the dajjal in medieval Islamic mytho-history and eschatology, he ignores a wealth of sources from Sufi and falaysuf traditions that allow for and encourage many paths to knowledge of the divine. The distortions in Furnish's perspective are compounded by his use of contemporary or post-1948 interpretations of haditha and then attributing these recent perspectives to the original sources.

The specific incident of the massacre of 700 men of the Qurayzah clan occurred in the midst of the Battle of the Trench 627 CE in which the Meccan pagans had besieged Medina and the Qurayzah, within the walls of Medina, sided with the Meccans and their allied pagan clans within Medina and in the surrounding area. The conflict with the three Jewish Arab clans, the Qaynuqah, the Nadir, and the Qurayzah, was in part no doubt based on the competition with a new revelation of monotheism. Nevertheless it was primarily a political and military struggle with those clans allied with the Meccan pagans in which the survival of the Muslim ummah or community was at stake.

Furnish asserts that the standard interpretation of historians of this incident is common knowledge and conventional wisdom. This assertion is doubtful since it conflates public opinion, news commentators, and politicians with the consensus of those who have done some reading, teaching, and writing in the field. Karen Armstrong certainly represents that informed consensus, but to say informed views such as hers hold sway over US or British or European public opinion ignores the widespread acceptance of propaganda promoting Muslim fanaticism. About the massacre of the Qurayzah, Armstrong writes in Islam: A Short History (Modern Library/ Random House, NY: 2000, 2002 p. 21) "Th[is] struggle did not indicate any hostility towards Jews in general, but only towards the three rebel tribes. The Quran continued to revere Jewish prophets and to urge Muslims to respect the People of the Book. Smaller Jewish groups continued to live in Medina, and later Jews, like Christians, enjoyed full religious liberty in the Islamic empires [i.e. the medieval caliphates]. Anti-semitism is a Christian vice. Hatred of the Jews became marked in the Muslim world only after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent loss of Arab Palestine. It is significant that Muslims were compelled to import anti-Jewish myths from Europe, and translate into Arabic such virulently anti-semitic texts as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, because they had no such traditions of their own."

Armstrong concludes by saying that nowadays the passages of the Quran referring to the struggle with the three Jewish "tribes" (clans would be a more accurate term) are used to justify anti-Jewish prejudices that are conflated with anti-Zionism. But what Furnish takes as common knowledge, or the dominant discourse, is far from it. Repeatedly the print and electronic media express the idea that fanaticism and "ancient tribal conflicts" are the source of the problems of the Middle East, and these are really the dominant views of a considerable portion of the US public. The Sunni vs. Shi'a conflicts in Iraq (only a segment of the multiple dimensions of what has happened to Iraqi society under the US occupation) are now being attributed to old "tribal" animosities, and are extrapolated into a world view, the "clash of civilizations." My own research traces the immediate ancestry of the clash of civilizations viewpoint to a trans-Atlantic counter-Enlightenment of the 1920s which nakedly described the future of humankind as race war. (I have looked at the writings of Lothrop Stoddard, Madison Grant, Henri Massis, Maurice Muret, Pierre Taittinger, Charles Josey. The first four were translated into French and English respectively and exercised influence over a broad spectrum of conservative to liberal opinion in France and the US.) These white, European supremacists used the term race whereas today's cultural essentialists have discarded the tarnished word in favor of "civilizations." But in my view the race war theorists are the intellectual forbears of Samuel Huntington, Timothy Furnish, or Daniel Pipes, who modifies the clash as one of civilization versus "ideological.barbarians" while ignoring that political Islam is as much a product of US proxy wars against the Soviet Union as an indigenous movement--but a challenge to Pipes' views require another essay.

It would be reasonable to compare the treatment of Jews in the Islamic world from 622 CE to 1948 CE with Christendom's treatment of the Jews, since Jewish settlement was concentrated in these two regions. There is no comparison in the Muslim world to the frequent expulsions, confiscations of Jewish property and wealth, confinement to ghettos, progroms and mass murders of Jews that besmirch European history. It was Catholic Spain which in 1492 expelled all Jews who refused to convert. They escaped to Islamic North Africa for the most part, although many also settled in Portugal and the Low Countries. Modern anti-semitism has its ideological roots in the poisonous writings of 19th century European public intellectuals such as Gobineau, Edouard Drumont, just to name its French purveyors, and anti-Jewish parties emerged in Vienna, Germany, along with terrorist groups such as the "Black Hundreds" in Russia. The 20th century opened in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair in France and mass emigration of Jews from the Pale of Settlement to escape the Tsarist Empire, and European anti-Jewish violence culminated in the Holocaust, in which tens of thousands of European anti-semites helped round up Jews for the Nazi extermination camps (see Theodore Hamerow's "The Hidden Holocaust" in Commentary [1978] as well as numerous other accounts from Raoul Hilberg et al).

Ignorance about Islam abounds in academic circles, not to mention the general public, and it behooves HNN to provide equal time and space in its forum for rebuttal of these seemingly (because they are footnoted) scholarly estimations of Furnish and others who are trying to prove the "clash of civilizations" world view. Historians who do world history, not to mention history of the Islamic world, have repeatedly demolished these notions only to have them rise up because there is powerful ideological aid and comfort and an important political stake in maintaining them (as was the case for anti-Judaism in 19th and 20th century Europe). If any analogy applies to "clash of civilizations" thinking, it is anti-Darwinism or refusal to accept human sources of global climate crisis. I am not asking that you stop publishing this stuff, but only to provide for a responsible rebuttal that addresses the specific arguments raised.

If you are interested in an article that I found thoughtful about anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim anti-semitisms, see Maleiha Malik's "Muslims are now getting the same treatment Jews had a century ago" (Guardian).