Rather than dwell on how he traces the history and philosopy behind Anti-Semism, some of the actual examples he gives are worth taking a look at. One example of the manifestation of anti-Semitism is the issue of "The Jewish Lobby" that is brought up, which is especially relevant now with the investigation of AIPAC--and the claim that "The Jewish Lobby" owes its allegiance to a foreign power and is disloyal to the US. Lewis writes:
The Jewish lobby is, of course, not the only lobby of its kind. Consider three others: the Irish, Greek, and Armenian lobbies. The Irish lobby, which campaigned against the United Kingdom, America's closest ally, and the Greek and Armenian lobbies, which campaigned against Turkey when Turkey was a crucial NATO ally, were seen as pursuing their legitimate concerns. I don't recall accusations against any of them of disloyalty or even of divided loyalty.While on the topic, it might be interesting to compare AIPAC with CAIR, especially in the context of CAIR being named as a defendant in a 9/11 terror class action lawsuit. It would be interesting to compare the media coverage of AIPAC and the FBI investigation on the one hand as opposed to the media coverage of the suit against CAIR.
Daniel Pipes has a long article--with lots of updates--on 5 employees and board members of CAIR:
July 7, 2004: To sum up the state of CAIR's legal play: two of its associates (Ghassan Elashi, Randall Royer) have been convicted on terrorism-related charges, one (Bassem Khafegi) convicted on fraud charges, two (Rabih Haddad, Bassem Khafegi) have been deported, and one (Siraj Wahhaj) remains at large.He has an August 15, 2005 update that a 6th member of CAIR, Mohammad Nimer, has been named in the class action suit which claims that besides being director of CAIR's Research Center, he "also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the United Association for Studies and Research ('UASR'). The UASR is the strategic arm of Hamas in the United States."
See also:
o Bernard Lewis: The New Anti-Semitism II--Arab Humor
o Bernard Lewis: The New Anti-Semitism III--The UN
Technorati Tag: Israel and Jews and Anti-Semitism and CAIR and AIPAC.
2 comments:
This is a great post. Years ago I read Lewis' "The Middle East" and found him to be very strong at articulating all the arguments, and giving mutliple views that he does not necessarily believe in. Thus, I'll be sure to read the full article when its not 4am.
But in your posts, I found the UN section to be particularly pertinent. Over the years the myth has been that the UN is completely pro-Israel, but many times I've felt that their views have been very challenging to the state, and imposes rules upon Israel that other nations are not held to.
These are some noteworth examples, but the examples still continue to this day. I'm not sure the UN was ever really conceived to be an unbiased body, but to say it's ever been pro-Israel would be incorrect.
BTW, this is my first time on your site, and I think it's an excellent site. I have added you to my blogroll, and look forward to reading Haveil Havalim.
America is crazy. AIPAC? Now those are some evil Zionist lobbiers. But the UASR? No one has even heard of them. Go figure.
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