Sarah Palin's remarks Wednesday in which she accused critics who would tie her political tone to the Arizona shootings of committing a "blood libel" against her have prompted an instant and pronounced backlash from some in America's Jewish community.There is no peg that Palin's critics on the left will not use to hand some disparaging comment.
The term dates to the Middle Ages and refers to a prejudice that Jewish people used Christian blood in religious rituals.
In this case, Alan Dershowitz explains, the term "blood libel" has a wider usage:
The term “blood libel” has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse. Although its historical origins were in theologically based false accusations against the Jews and the Jewish People,its current usage is far broader. I myself have used it to describe false accusations against the State of Israel by the Goldstone Report. There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim. The fact that two of the victims are Jewish is utterly irrelevant to the propriety of using this widely used term.Well, at least the left is becoming more subtle in their attacks on Sarah Palin...
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