Garbanzo Toons: More Mainstream Anti-Semitism

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

More Mainstream Anti-Semitism

Muslims held a rally yesterday in Dearborn Michigan. I wish I could have been there, but I did get to read about it in today's Detroit Free Press. According to the article, it was the typical Muslim "Israel is the terrorist - stop Israeli aggression" type of tripe. But these days, no Muslim inspired, anti-Israel rally is complete without:

Saying that Israel is killing children and bombing innocent citizens, one of the speakers, Osama Siblani of the Congress of Arab-American Organizations, said, "This is terror." The crowd cheered loudly in response. "They are cowards."

"We know that the president is being bought by the Zionist lobby. We know that the (U.S.) Congress is being bought by the Zionist lobby.

We've come to the point where blatant anti-semitic lies of the past are reformated for today's modern society. I'm sure if questioned Siblani would tell us that he's not anti-semitic, only anti-zionist. And some of his best friends are Jews . . . like Richard Cohen.

In fairness, there was this response to Siblani's comments:

Some of those views concern many in the Jewish communities of metro Detroit.

"No one wanted this war," said Wendy Wagenheim, president of the Jewish Community Council, a coalition of about 200 Jewish groups in Michigan. "And certainly, emotions are running very high at this point. But there is nothing that will be served by importing the tensions apparently in the Middle East to metropolitan Detroit.

"Unfortunately, there are innocent victims on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, and we pray that peace is restored as soon as possible."

Pretty forceful response, isn't it? I wish they would have asked me.

As the article says, there will be a pro-Israel rally tonight. I'm guessing there will not be any corresponding anti-Muslim canards. But then, there is that double standard to consider: Muslims can engage in murder and mayhem against Jews and call it "self-defense". But if Jews fight back, it's called "aggression". It applies to verbal assaults as well.

Labels: Muslim anti-semitism, Osama Siblani, Richard Cohen