Thursday, September 20, 2012

Though already disproven, Nouri uses a lie to attack Jews


Yesterday's snapshot covered the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the nomination of Robert S. Beecroft to be the new US Ambassador to Iraq.  We'll cover another aspect of the hearing today.

Right now, we're going to note that one issue that should have been asked about wasn't.  There were actually many topics -- topics that we cover in the snapshots and that are important.  But in light of what happened in Libya, there was another topic that should have been raised but wasn't.

In fairness to the senators present, they probably weren't aware of it.  It's not covered in the US press.  Here, I've been trying to put as much focus on Kimberly Rivera as possible and hoped that religious minorities could wait.  Which is why the church bombing this week, for example, only got a single sentence in the snapshot.

But the issue that should have been raised is Israel.  Israel's a country. It has a government.  You can object to the government, the same way you would any other government.  But you can also critique the government in a way in which you are engaging in smears against Jews.  And it's those smears that have been so popular in the region in the last two weeks.  That includes Iraq.  Today Alsumaria reports on Nouri's latest verbal attack on Jews -- and every day this week has had at least one verbal attack on Jewish people by Nouri.

Alsumaria notes Nouri has announced that the video trailer of a film that may or may not have been made, the one that a small number of people used as their excuse for breaking the law, engaging in violence and in murder, is backed by the Jews.  Nouri has waged a week-long attack on Jewish people.  It's involved that video, it's involved the Jewish archives in the US possession, it's involved a call for an investigation in Iraq.  It has been one attack after another.  You want to talk about someone spreading hate, it's been Nouri al-Maliki doing it non-stop this week.  And where has the US been?  They haven't called it out, they haven't even tried to correct it.

Related, a supporter of Barack thinks he's helping with a letter to the Marietta Times' editorial board.  Want to make Barack really struggle for the Jewish vote in this country?  Keep writing idiotic letters like that one.

Oh, how the impotent love to rage.  It's so much easier than facing reality.  So, for example, they pretend that the idiot George W. Bush managed to pull one over on Tony Blair and trick Tony into an illegal war.  It's so much easier to hold onto that fairy tale than to recognize the truth: Tony Blair went willingly along and didn't need any persuading.  (The Blair Doctrine predates Bush in the White House, but when have facts ever mattered to fans who need to reassure themselves with lies?)

By the same token, if the US goes to war with Iraq -- as it did, it does so because the ones in charge in the US want war.  It's not tricked by Israel, it's not fooled by Israel, it's not manipulated by Israel.

This irrational tagging of Israel goes to (worst-case) a dislike of the Jewish people or (best-case) an inability to accept the fact that your own government wanted an illegal war and declared one for that reason.  The Israeli government neither strong-armed nor tricked the US into war with Iraq.

A lot of people on the left have criticism of Israel.  Sadly, a lot of that criticism is justified.  The Israeli government does need to make genuine overtures to the Palestinian people.  That's true of any occupier.  The treatment of the Palestinians does deserve objection and generates deserved outcry.  Or, it does if it's Israel.  When it's Iraq that's still keeping Palestinians in a 'refugee camp' on the border after all these years, the world community doesn't seem as interested.

But there is also criticism of Israel from the left that's not about Israel's actions but about a hatred/dislike/fear for/of Jewish people.  That's the main reason we've had to stop linking to Information Clearing House.  Stan blackballed it because he got tired of all the crazy crap there.  I don't blame him.  All the hate in those comments.

When a letter writer wants to win support for Barack, he or she needs to think about what they're saying.  And offering an attack on Israel really isn't going to help Barack win votes, especially when the attack is demented and recalls the irrational fear and hatred that was behind the writing and publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.



I think the State Dept should be addressing this. If Israel still is a US ally -- maybe it's not, Barack crossed Egypt off the list last week -- then this needs to be addressed.  Nouri's claiming Jews are behind the video.  He's attacking Jews.  The rage he's trying to feed (maybe restart?) has already led to violence and possibly to the deaths of 4 Americans.  (Maybe not to 4 deaths.  There's strong suggestions that the Libya attack was planned in advance.)   Why is the State Dept not decrying the efforts to pin a video made by a Coptic Christian on Jewish people?  It's not as if the State Dept hasn't been discussing the video for two weeks now. 

Watching America may get pulled from the links.  Monday, when it should have been obvious to all following the news who had actually made the video, Watching America was running a story blaming the Jews. I told myself then that I'd wait until the weekend to decide whether or not to pull the link.

I know people like Ashleigh Banfield disgraced themselves last week pinning the video on a Jewish person and I know Ashleigh issued no apology, though she needs to.  I know she wasn't the only one running with 'information' that they didn't in fact possess.  But I also know that before last week ended, the idea that a Jewish person made the video had been disproven.

As these attacks continue, and as they come from Nouri who was installed by Bush and kept prime minister by Barack (the US made Nouri's second term happen after his State of Law failed to come in first in the 2010 elections), the administration needs to be addressing this.  The lies are fueling anger and someone could get hurt. 

If the point is to ensure more violence doesn't take place, and I thought that was the point of remarks from the State Dept and President Barack Obama last week, then the administration's duties  include not only explaining what freedom of speech is in the US but also saying, "This blaming of the video on Jewish people is offensive and untrue."  The Washington Post's Paul Farhi called this lie a "blood libel" when he appeared on Howard Kurtz' Reliable Sources (CNN) this week.  I think he's correct.


That blood libel hasn't disappeared in the Middle East press.  It's being reported as factual and true all this time later.  The State Dept should have issued a statement some time ago. 

Rage is being fed by a number of officials in the Middle East.  In Iraq, it also includes Ammar al-Hakim who has been ripping apart Jewish people all week publicly.   I name al-Hakim because he's made comments on more than one occassion over the last few days.  If we were to note all the officials in Iraq who've gone public at least once ripping apart Jewish people over this video, it would be a long, long list. 

Again, the senators probably are unaware of that.  But if there's an issue that Beecroft, if he's confirmed (most assume he will be) and the administration are going to have to figure out, it's whether or not they're silent in the face of lies used to fuel rage?

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.


 


Posted by at