A response to Mr. Epp.
First, I have never said Jim Abourezk is anti-semitic. I have said he carelessly plays around with anti-semitic stereotypes. I suspect Mr. Abourezk is more foolish than he is vicious.
Todd says that Jim Abourezk is just criticizing Israel. Of course, that is not all Mr. Abourezk is doing. If Mr. Abourezk criticized Israel and the Palestinian terrorists, that would be faulty moral equivalence in my view, but defensible. If he criticized Israel and remained silent on Palestinian terrorism, that too would be a dangerous silence, but perhaps forgivable. Mr. Abourezk, though, does neither of these things. Not only does he criticize Israel, he praises those who target and murder innocent Israelis and, in fact, appears on their television programs to do so. Indeed, as I have noted, Hizbullah is considered responsible for murdering 241 American servicemen in Beirut in 1983, but Mr. Abourezk appears on Hizbullah television calling them "resistance fighters."
Let us use the free speech doctrine of "time, place and manner" as a useful rubric. In First Amendment law, the state may not ban certain speech, but they might be able to restrict the time, place, and manner in which we speak. I do not mean to apply the legal criteria to Mr. Abourezk, who certainly has the right to say whatever he wants, I simply want to use this doctrine as a tool to think about why Mr. Abourezk's actions are reprehensible.
Time: There is the right time to speak out against one's country. Mr. Abourezk, in time of war, chooses to praise those who are aligned against us while attacking in the most unreasonable manner an American ally, Israel. This, in my view, is ill conceived, although the timing of Mr. Abourezk's statements is the least of my objections.
Place: Mr. Abourezk chooses to denounce the American government and defend wild conspiracy theories through the media sources of terrorists and known state sponsors of terrorists. In the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran, where Mr. Abourezk has appeared on the radio, this includes a country which in 1979 committed an act of war against the United States by invading our embassy and is a known sponsor of international terrorism, including terrorists currently killing Americans in Iraq. I wonder what Todd thinks of the fact that Mr. Abourezk feels compelled to denounce the Bush Administration on Iranian radio, but can't find any words on said radio program to question a theocratic Iranian regime where, for example, women are second class citizens and political dissent is severely punished? The larger point is this: if I travel to Germany now to denounce the United States government, that's one thing. If hop in my Way Back Machine and denounce the United States government from Germany in 1942, that's another.
Manner: Mr. Abourezk promotes conspiracy theories regarding Jews that one only finds in the fever swamps of the far left and right. This is what I mean by foolishly toying with anti-semitic stereotypes, although Mr. Abourezk is careful to say "the Zionists" or "the Israeli lobby" as opposed to "the Jews." Still, the most vile anti-semitic images regularly appear in Palestinian and Syrian media and commonplace in the schools. Go here for a small sample of the kind of anti-semitic cartoons that regularly appear in newspapers in Middle East. Or follow this link to a transcript and a link to the video of a television program produced by Syria and, yes, Hizbullah, that repeats the infamous "blood libel" against the Jews, the myth that Jews kidnap young Palestinians, murder them, and use their blood for Passover matzo. This film appeared on the same network on which Jim Abourezk appears spreading conspiracy theories that "the Zionists" and "the Israeli lobby" control the United States government and run our foreign policy. Or watch Icon of Hatred (long download alert) to see how anti-Israel imagery is used in the schools to recruit young suicide bombers. The events of this week should be enough to tell you the views of the current regime in Iran, which holds Holocaust denial conferences. Yet Abourezk, in damnable irresponsibility, appears on Iranian and Hizbullah media confirming stereotypes of Jews as sneaks who surreptitiously run the world with secret plans akin to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
But this becomes tedious. Readers do not need me or Mr. Epp to tell them what to think. They can go to the interview Abourezk gave to Hizbullah television and decide for themselves. And perhaps Todd and I can agree on one thing: the Minnesota Vikings suck.
Recent Comments