Arab leaders continue to support unrepentant anti-semite

The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee continues to honor Helen Thomas - not in spite of, but because of her anti-Jewish comments that she made in June as well as more recently when she spouted off anti-semitic stereotypes but tried to cover herself by using the word "Zionist."

According to Ray Hanania's Twitter feed, referring to Friday night,

Phenomenal turnout of 1,000 people at ADC Michigan banquet tonight with the great Clovis Maksoud and standing ovation salute to Helen Thomas

The Arab American News fully supports Thomas' statements, quoting lots of students and activists who support what she said. It also published a ludicrous article by the head of the ADC, claiming that Helen Thomas cannot be anti-semitic because she is a Semite:

Underlying the political struggle between proponents and opponents of Zionism in America is a definitional context. Thomas, a Semite in her own right, delivered politically charged remarks against a political entity, Zionism. Thus, one must ask, is a Semite who makes non-ethnic or non-racial remarks against a political entity anti-Semitic? The answer is clearly no. However, the denotation of "Semitic" advanced by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) not only extracts Arabs, such as Thomas, from their unilateral definition, but also narrows it to only include Jews. This may be politically expedient for organizations in America, such as the Anti-Defamation League, but is ultimately an incorrect usage of the term.

I guess that Dictionary.com is part of the ADL/Jooish conspiracy.

What makes all this defense of Thomas really funny is that, deep down, Arab Americans know very well what she meant. Amer Zahr, who appears to be an Arab comedian, says it outright in the Arab Detroit paper:

Helen, don’t you know that you can’t say the Jews should get the hell out of Palestine? Don’t you know it’s not even called Palestine? Don’t you know that there never was a Palestine?

C’mon, Helen…

People got upset and Wayne State, your alma mater, discontinued an award in your name. They said you were anti-Semitic. For saying Jews own all the important stuff? As Arabs, we don’t get the anger. If someone said we owned those things, we’d take the credit. Or at least we’d say, “Well we don’t own it yet, but we’re working on it.”

There's yet another irony at play here, as these Arab Americans are fighting for the right of Helen Thomas to spout Jew-hatred in the name of free speech. Beyond the obvious irony that they didn't feel the same way about the Mohammed cartoons, of course.

The fundraiser last night by the Michigan ADC chapter was announced this way on their website:

Join the ADCMichigan Annual Benefit Gala this Friday, December 10, 2010 at 6:00PM at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Dearborn as it recalls the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948.

The irony is that the Organization of the Islamic Conference - meaning, most Arab states - does not accept the UDHR, instead supporting the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam which does not guarantee freedom of religion nor gender equality, and ultimately says that Islamic law defines human rights, not humans.

Has the ADC, so concerned with Helen Thomas' rights to freedom of expression, ever publicly called for Arab nations to adopt the UDHR that they dedicated their fundraiser to?

The hypocrisy shown by this organization is staggering, and the Helen Thomas episode just proves that they care far more about defending bigotry than with standing up for the truth.