The purpose of the medieval blood-libel was to justify political violence against Jews through the claim that Jews kill children. Typically it was said that Jews use the blood of Christian babies for use in the making of matzoh... however anti-intuitive that may sound. The blood-libel is an exceedingly primal defamation in that it pits the targeted group, in this case the Jews, against the natural desire of the majority population to defend innocent children, particularly their own. This is why the blood-libel is so heinous. It morally obligates the majority population to take harsh measures, even deadly measures, against the accused minority population.
Therefore those who spread the blood-libel - by suggesting or insinuating that Jews or Zionists or Israel target children for violence - are actually targeting Jews for violence.
Just as anti-Semitism evolves and adapts itself according to contemporary political circumstances, so aspects of anti-Semitism, such as the blood-libel, likewise adapt themselves to current circumstances as they are articulated by those infected with this particular disease.
Those who follow Israel Thrives know that I come out of the progressive-left and was, until recently, a "lifelong" Democrat. The progressive-left, in the United States and Europe, represents the foremost political movement today in the west and is exemplified in the United States by the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party.
It is also the foremost racist political movement in the west today with the sole exception of political Islam.
If one wishes to understand the nature of the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party and, therefore, the potential future of the Democratic Party as it relates to Israel, it is a good idea to look at venues that the grassroots and netroots engage in. One of those venues, needless to say, is Daily Kos and whatever anyone might think of that blog, it offers a glimpse into the thinking of the base of the party, as does examining the Huffington Post, for example, or any number of other similar venues.
Ever since Ariel Sharon pulled Israel out of the Gaza Strip the area has become a launching pad for Arab attacks against the Jewish minority in the Middle East. Southern Israel has experienced something close to continuous rocket fire on its kibbutzim and townships, such as S'derot and Ashkelon, for well over a decade. While it is true that very few people have died from this rocket fire, it nonetheless remains the case that southern Israel can simply not function under this constant harassment.
Those "liberals" who compare the rockets shot at southern Israel to children's bottle rockets display a callousness toward the Jewish people, and the Jewish predicament in the Middle East, that is nothing short of hateful. Those rockets ruin lives. They ruin the economy of the southern part of the country. They spawn children who are practically born with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And just how are old people supposed to get into a shelter, when the sirens go off, in just fifteen seconds?
With this in mind, let us take a gander at one "diary" recently written by a "Kossack" entitled, Today Israel Shells Another UN School Housing Refugees, 19+ Killed.
The writer quotes UNRWA Commissioner-General, Pierre Krähenbühl as saying:
Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced.There is no reference in the diary to the fact that Hamas places its weaponry and rocketry in schools and hospitals precisely so that useful idiots, of the type that publish in progressive-left venues like Daily Kos, can defame the Jews when we dare to eliminate that weaponry and rocketry.
In this way Daily Kos serves Hamas because it does precisely what Hamas wants it to do in terms of its media strategy. Hamas is responsible for the death of over 1,000 Gazans because it kept bombing Israel until Israel was forced to respond in defense of its own citizenry and now they whine and bitch and moan and complain that the Jews are vicious barbarians who love to kill children and they encourage western-liberals to do likewise.
That is the whole point of this insidious exercise in blood and stupidity. The whole point from the beginning was to get soft-hearted and soft-minded "progressives" to raise their fists and shout hatred toward the Jewish State of Israel. It is a propaganda war and as far as Hamas is concerned Gazans, and particularly Gazan children, are expendable props in their media-driven, Koranically-based, racist aggression against the Jewish people.
But, let's see what the Kossacks have to say in this popular "diary" with 275 comments.
At this point, it is clear the IDF views (11+ / 0-)This is an example of the contemporary blood-libel. The commenter "knows" that the Jews of the Middle East, via the Israeli Defense Forces, views "Palestinian children as weapons." This is, of course, entirely false, but it helps create hatred towards Jews, which is the point of the comment to begin with.
Palestinian children as weapons. We already know this is the opinion of some MKs and essentially all of the Orthodox community in Israel.
Everything good a man can be, a dog already is.
by pajoly on Wed Jul 30, 2014 at 07:30:54 AM PDT
so yesterday. today they are celebrating (11+ / 0-)
the deaths of civilians and children! its party time!
pinpoint accuracy and all!
by live1 on Wed Jul 30, 2014 at 06:32:03 AM PDTNotice the enthusiasm within which this commenter hates on Jews who he considers to not only be child-murderers, but exceedingly joyous child-murderers.
Notice, also, that these people almost never castigate "Jews" specifically. Instead they rely on words like "Zionists" or "Israelis," but the fact of the matter is that we know we very well that they are talking about the small Jewish minority fighting back from Fortress Israel.
jfromga writes:
f Israel wants the Palestinian population to turn on Hamas, killing Hamas won't effect a change. Stopping the carnage of their children just might.This commenter thinks that Arabs voted for Hamas because Jews kill Arab children. That is essentially his message, no? Thus the initial assumption from this particular "liberal" is that the Jews are guilty. Apparently all Israel needs to do to eliminate Hamas is not respond to their rocket fire.
The argument seems to be that if Israel allows its southern population to be terrorized by rocket fire for a long enough period of time without responding then, perhaps, Hamas will get bored and take up some other hobby.
dallasdunlap says this:
This is "mowing the grass." IOW, deliberately slaughtering civilians. In an overcrowded region in which the average age is seventeen, they know that anytime they target civilian housing, they'll be killing and hurting children.This kind of comment, in its implication of Jewish malice, could practically come out Der Stürmer. There is zero recognition of the fact that southern Israel endured thousands of rocket attacks over the course of about fifteen years and that, in fact, its response has been exceedingly restrained. If anything Israel's response has been too restrained given the fact that the Gazan rocketeers keep doing their thing.
That's the point. They want to kill Palestinians and reduce them to abject desperation.
It is as if they do not consider violence against Jews to be violence at all and therefore the Jews of the Middle East must simply put up with continual kicks to the head unless they wish to be considered immoral barbarians by the self-righteous and hypocritical western left.
No more slaughter of the innocents. We are respnsibile for the safety of the children and innocents no matter what country or ethnic or religious background one maintains. This about ethnic cleansing, ad crime that was halted by the world perpetrated upon the others in WWII.One of the favorite tactics of western anti-Semitic anti-Zionists is to accuse Jews of committing a genocide. They absolutely love this kind of mind-rending and malicious historical reversal for the purpose of cudgeling Jews with the worst catastrophe that has befallen us in our long history.
WE ARE OUR BROTHERS KEEPER. It is incumbent that we as a world live up to our responsibilities of doing so.
"Never Forget" now more than ever applies here to this genocide of a people and culture.
Within living memory of the Holocaust they use it as a club against us.
it's the children who are always targeted (27+ / 0-)
it's the fear of Palestinian demographics..."it's the children who are always targeted" and this comment has 27 "uprates."
Bibi the Baby Killer has gone berserk in the killing fields of Gaza
We're shocked by a naked nipple, but not by naked aggression.
by Lepanto on Wed Jul 30, 2014 at 06:32:25 AM PDT
In other words, this person, and all those people who "uprated" it, honestly believe that the Israeli government specifically targets Arab children. There is no other description of this other than the blood-libel. And if that is what they think of the Israelis, just what can we expect that they think of diaspora Jewish supporters of Israel?
Not much, I am afraid.
The hatred toward Jews is so intense within "Lepanto" that he believes that the Jewish people are monsters and he is willing to help create an atmosphere of hatred, and thus potential violence, in order to stop our nefarious ways.
live1 writes:
israel is committing war crimes.Precisely. That is the entire point of this focus on "the children." The truth is that if these people honestly cared about children they might have something to say about the fact that Hamas, and much of the local Arab population, train their children to despise Jews which is why they have this kind of grief to begin with. If the local Arabs do not want the Jews to hit them back, perhaps they should consider not hitting the Jewish population to begin with.
any one who tries to justify killing children is beneath contempt
The Day of the Dhimmi Done, after all, and the Jewish people simply no longer need to put up with it.
Tchrldy says this:
Or perhaps you are saying that the children killed by the IDF are complicit with Hamas and deserve what they get? Placing blame on Hamas would be understandable if the civilians had someplace to go. They do not. They are bound by the Mediterranean on one side and Israeli territory on the other. The IDF, Bibi, and their apologists have no one to blame but themselves for the deaths of the Innocent children.In other words, you, my dear reader, you IDF apologists, are to blame for the slaughter of the innocents in Gaza.
That about sums up my point, I would say.
Bombing shelters and schools... (18+ / 0-)In this example not only is the blood-libel evoked, but it is a twofer. We not only have the blood-libel, but the inversion of Israeli Jews into "terrorists."
Killing children playing soccer on a beach is what terrorists do.
by fl1972 on Wed Jul 30, 2014 at 07:19:39 AM PDT
"Hamas this, Hamas that" (0+ / 0-)Now it is not just a matter of the idea that Jews like to kill children for no reason whatsoever, but it is the "mass-murder" of children that we are said to be engaged in for no reason whatsoever. Notice, obviously, the complete indifference to the nature of Hamas as a genocidal organization that not only calls specifically for the genocide of the Jews directly in its charter, but has sought on a daily basis to make good on that claim.
Pathetic.
Nothing Hamas does excuses the IDF's mass-murder of children.
by nosleep4u on Wed Jul 30, 2014 at 08:29:33 AM PDT
I suppose that nosleep4u considers it unjust that the Jews of the Middle East have successfully defended themselves from their Arab-Muslim aggressors.
At the end of the day, many will claim that none of this has anything to do with Jews, but merely with the allegedly atrocious behavior of the Israeli government. They will allow the Jewish people a moral excuse - a sort-of moral "get out of jail free" card - so long as we join them in their condemnation of the Jewish State.
So long as we separate ourselves from Israel, and point the trembling finger of blame at our own brothers and sisters in the Middle East, then maybe leftists will consider us to be acceptable righteous Jews.Unless we do that - unless we betray our own within an entirely unjust and dangerous propaganda campaign against the Jewish people - the left will never accept us as anything other than apologists for Israeli terror, if not downright ZioNazis.
Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.