The Washington Post continues to dig up these relics from the past, yesterday's men, in their relentless sanction of jihad and sharia. Every week, they publish column after column by judenrat defending the jihad against the Jews, or worse, trolls for Khomeinists like Reza Aslan. But they refuse to run an oped from me or my colleague Robert Spencer.
Edgar M. Bronfman in this WaPo op-ed epitomizes what is wrong with the Jewish community in America today: reflexive, unthinking leftist political correctness, and a suicidal, Jewicidal willingness to throw fellow Jews under the bus in the naive and foolish hope of achieving an alliance with people who are committed supporters of the genocidal jihad against Israel.
It's deja vu .... Bronfman is part of that same failed Jewish establishment that persecuted Peter Bergson duirng WW2 for trying to draw attention to the plight of European Jewry. Unconscionable.
Bronfman shills for a virulently anti-israel Obama, aiding the jihad against Israel without realizing it. Clueless or complicit? Who cares? The damage is the same. He has the audacity, or the willful blindness, or both, to say that Obama has made Israel more secure, when actually he is the most anti-Israel president we have ever had. And Carl in Jerusalem points out:
Israelis are more than happy to work toward peace with the 'Palestinians' and to help them build the institutions that are a prerequisite for self-governance. Unfortunately, the Obama administration's pressure on Israel is telling the 'Palestinians' that they don't need to build any such institutions. The 'Palestinians' believe that they just need to sit back and wait for Israel to be handed to them on a silver platter. Seeing Israel's friends like Edgar Bronfman criticizing us for not cooperating with President Obama's plans only convinces the 'Palestinians' that their strategy is correct. In diplomatic-speak, Bronfman's remarks are 'not helpful.'
And Tabitha Korol wrote:
Mr. Edgar Bronfman, Former CEO of Seagrams; former President of the World Jewish Congress, wrote an an-open-letter/ I experience deep sadness when I read of Jews betraying Jews, whether they intentionally or unknowingly misinterpret Israel's situation, and then proceed to deceive the uninformed.
I have answered the charges he makes in this article countless times. Here again: Bronfman claims that the ad "by implication" says that all Muslims are savages. But in fact, the ad doesn't mention Muslims at all. The idea that
it impugns the character of all Muslims is a fiction invented by
enemies of free speech such as the Hamas-linked Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The ad mentions jihad. It is asking
people to oppose those who commit jihad attacks against innocent
civilians, and those who celebrate the attackers as heroes. All jihad
terrorists are Muslims, but not all Muslims are jihad terrorists. So why
should any Muslim who opposes jihad feel his character impugned?
The ad refers not to all
Muslims, but to to those jihadis who rejoice in the murders of innocent
civilians. The war on Israel is a war on innocent civilians. The targeting of
civilians is savage. The murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens was savage. The
relentless 60-year campaign of terror against the Jewish people is savage. The
torture of hostage Gilad Shalit was savage. The bloody hacking to death of the
Fogel family was savage. The Munich Olympic massacre was savage. The
unspeakable torture of Ehud Goldwasser was savage. The tens of thousands of
rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel (into schools, homes, etc.) are
savage. The vicious Jew-hatred behind this genocide is savage. The endless
demonization of the Jewish people in the Palestinian and Arab media is savage.
The refusal to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state is savage. The
list is endless. And Edgar M. Bronfman, of all people, should know that.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet ..... and a jihadi by any other name would still be a savage. And no amount of pussyfooting around it is going to lessen the bloody price we will continue to pay. On the contrary, this weakness makes for easy prey.
How could any decent human being, Jewish or not, not call the war against the Jews anything but savage?
Jewish activist: ‘Hate speech must not be accepted as civil discourse’ Edgar M. Bronfman Washington Post October 12
Controversial posters on the Israel Palestinian conflict are placed at U Street Metro stop and three other Metro stations after a court battle. The same posters were also placed in the NYC subway system where they were vandalized. Some consider them 'hate speech' since they imply the Palestinians are "savages.” (Astrid Riecken - FOR THE WASHINGTON POST)This week’s U.S. District Court ruling forced the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to place ads in the D.C. subway system reading: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” These ostensibly pro-Israel billboards that deem iihadists, and by implication Muslims, as “savages” do not serve the interests of anyone involved, and in fact inflict great harm.
How many times do you think Edgar M. Bronfman has written about jihad attacks against Israelis and Jews around the world as inflicting "great harm"?
Both Jews and Muslims lose when rhetoric like this is put out into the world. It is a dangerous conflation of two things that are not equivalent: that supporting Israel means hating Muslims, and that Israeli versus Arab equates with Jew versus Muslim.
It is Bronfman who is conflating things that are not equivalent: he is saying that to resist jihad is to hate Muslims. But...but...but doesn't he also believe that all Muslims except a tiny minority hate and oppose jihad terror? So why would resisting jihad bother them? And which is worse: Muslims who murder Jews and then pass out candies to celebrate, or my ads calling for resistance against those barbarians?
These ads are an unfortunate case of enforcing the first article of the Bill of Rights to protect what is essentially hate speech. They are an abuse of rights we hold dear as Americans: freedom of speech and freedom of religion. It’s both offensive and ineffective. I, for one, will not tolerate such bigotry put out into the world in the name of my religion.
"An abuse of rights." That means he wants my ads banned. He will even throw the freedom of speech under the bus to appease Muslims.
I am a committed Zionist with a deep love of Israel and a proud Jew, but it is clear to me that the messages conveyed by these billboards only serve to further factionalize an already deep divide and bolster dangerous stereotypes. As heirs to the Abrahamic tradition of welcoming strangers into their tents, American Jews and Muslims must serve as examples for civilized dialogue and coexistence between the two faiths. Together, both communities have a great potential to inspire hope and a responsibility to serve as role models of mutual respect. After all, if we as Americans can’t learn to be respectful of each other, what chance do our brothers and sisters have in the Middle East? We have an important opportunity to model democracy in action to the people who share our faiths throughout the world.
Which Muslims does he think are going to join him in modeling this mutual respect? Is he aware of the blood-curdling Jew-hatred preached regularly in Judea and Samaria and Gaza? Is he aware of how deeply Islamic antisemitism is rooted in Islamic texts and teachings?
While we cherish free speech, we must also be vigilant about its potential harm. We are all Americans and our shared love of freedom should not be abused. In the case of these billboards, neither Jews nor Muslims should suffer from assumptions about their beliefs and loyalties. As a Jew, I can’t imagine that my desire for mutual respect and dialogue instead of inflammatory rhetoric is any different than a Muslim’s.
Mutual respect -- note the Obamoid language. But when, exactly, has a Muslim group shown real respect for Jews, Judaism and Israel?
The real hate, disdain and distrust is coming from the imams in the mosques. I hope Edgar M. Bronfman wakes up to that and stops defaming defenders of freedom, before it's too late.Having my faith associated with hate speech placed on billboards on subways, I feel as alienated and stereotyped as I imagine Muslims do by being branded as terrorists. Hate speech must not be accepted as civil discourse. We can make a more powerful statement against terrorism by showing the world how people of different faiths and political views can disagree peacefully and respectfully. Surely that is a better message to spread than one that perpetuates hate, disdain and distrust. That should be self-evident, but sadly it isn’t, and it is often further obscured by the political diatribes that are put forth in the name of religion.
