Ann Coulter Says Jews Imperfect

Ann Coulter called Jews "Imperfect" on a Cable TV program. Interviewing her was Donny Deutsch, who happened to be Jewish. He gave her a chance to alter her statement, but she stuck with her comments. When reported on Fox News by James Carvill, one of the men he was talking to thought she wasn't being anti-semitic. However, I and other Jews feel insulted by this comment. The commentator doesn't understand that this is an inuendo and clearly gives the implication that Jews need to become Christians in order to be "perfect." Does he have to be hit over the head to understand this?

ANTISEMITISM ABOUNDS by Nadene Goldfoot

Where is antisemitism today? Right in the Irvington district in Portland, Oregon. Painted in large, clear red letters was the word JEWS on the side of a neighbor's home. The Portland Police Bureau refused to designate this action as a hate crime. However, they will be keeping a watch on further developments. Writing this on a home is an antisemitic act. Those who have experienced antisemitism know. What's happened in Portland was the convention of hate-mongers called The Hammerskin Nation that are out to get Jews and Blacks. I'm sure we'll see more activities of this type.

On NE Alberta Street "Jews"was written on storefronts. This happened before the Hammerskins had their convention. People there understood that this act was antisemitic.

Last week a children's show "Between the Lions," from Iowa Public TV aired on OPB. The segment of "Here come The Aliens" had an outer space alien lurking around described as "sickly green" It had a long nose and a Jewish star on its body. Allen Chalfen was in horror as he viewed this program, called OPB and cancelled his membership. This type of antisemitism happened in the 40's. Now it's happening again.

Let's start with more frequent and sharper attacks on Israel where the attacks are singling out Israel out of all proportion to any other country in the Middle East. Natan Sharasky said that legitimate criticism becomes antisemitism when in turns into demonization, double standards and deligitimization, which is happening right now. British National Union of Journalists voted to boycott Israeli goods. They did not criticize any Palestinian group or action. The same thing occured with academics in England. A few American academics countered and they finally dropped their boycott plans.

Words can sway people into false knowledge. Jimmy Carter's new book accused Israel of apartheid. The reason was the wall. He forgets the fact that the wall was constructed when the West Bank towns sent suicide bombers to kills Jews and called their terrorists "martyrs". Yet, the wall between Mexico and the US is bigger and is keeping out people who only want jobs. Israel has many Arab citizens, but no Jew can become a Jordanian, let alone enter their country. No Jew can ever enter the future state of Palestine, and no Jew can ever visit Saudi Arabia as a tourist. Carter gave Israel a black eye with his name calling, and the idea sticks with people and shapes their attitude towards us.

Professors Walt and Mearsheimer's new book about the "Israel Lobby" has brought about an anti Israel movement on many campuses. Jews make up between 1-2% of the population in the USA and have AIPAC as the spokesperson for Israel. AIPAC does not fund their campaigns, but though they do not have voting power or money, these professors say they control the US foreign policy. It couldn't be that congress has listened to the speakers and found they were in agreement with them.

In the Muslim world "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and "Mein Kampf" are best sellers. These books are as antisemitic as possible, the latter being written by Hitler himself. Hamas has a charter against Israel that cites the Hadith:"The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say "O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." Hezbollah's leader Nasrallah in 2002 said: "If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide."

Antisemitism didn't come about because of "occupation" of land legally acquired in 1967 after being attacked first and then winning after that attack. It's because we are Jews. During Rosh Hashanah, the shofar (ram's horn) plays a melody that is like a code. The message is: Wake up! We just hope that Olmert is awake when he agrees with the US to give away the West Bank; some of us think he's asleep. Many Christians in the USA agree with us.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN moderator's recent 3 part program segment, "God's Jewish Warriors" contained sprinklings of Palestinian propaganda against Israel. She is Iranian, and I'm afraid her personal prejustice was showing.

This is why when many of us hear criticism about Israel, our shackles rise. We are waiting for the other shoe to fall. It's almost like a conditioned reflex. Antisemitism declined when Israel was born again and victorious, but after 1967, the situation changed. Palestinians became nationalistic and terroristic against Israel, I'm sure being urged on by the very Muslim nations that told them to flee from the territory in 1948. With the continuence of terrorism comes antisemitism.

Condensed mostly from Gary D. Acheatel of Ashland, Oregon's article in the Jewish Review October 1, 2007, "Today's headlines motivate concerned Jew's call to activism." Letter to the Editor from Allen Chalfen of Portland, Sunday's Oregonian Opinion "When hate and fear come to the neighborhood" by Whitney Otto, and my input.

Ahmadinejad's Hatred for Israel Believed by Portlander

I was appalled today when I read the letter to the editor from a Portlander who asked the questions of what did the Palestinians do to deserve 60 years of occupation and death at the hands of Israel, and why is it that anyone who suggests that Israel be made to live in peace within its own borders are labeled madmen or anti-Semitic?

Of course I wrote a letter to the editor immediately back after reading this trying to explain a few facts in 153 words. Whether it will be published or not is another question.

This shows that some Americans will swallow what a person like Ahmadinejad is saying. If the person wasn't already prejudice against Israel to start with, he has wound up believing the garbage Ahmadinejad is spewing. Hopefully, the students at Columbia University are better informed about current events.

Nursery With Toddlers Almost Hit by Rockets

Six rockets and a mortar shell fell in Israel Monday that were shot from Gaza and the aim was to hit a nursery school. I have found that these terrorists are always aiming for women and children. Mensch, they are not. Sderot, the town that is only one mile away from these attacks, has a population of 22,000. The parents have endured rocket attacks constantly, but now that school has begun, are taking their children out of school until the attacks cannot hit the schools. Olmert has now vowed that every rocket launcher and those people involved will be destroyed. Hamas is riling up the Gaza population telling them to beware of Israel, now.

This is how it goes. Terrorists constantly flail at Israel without retaliation until something that cannot be endured happens; and then we retaliate. Then we are the bad guys. If the rest of the world were asked to put up with such behaviors, I doubt very much that they would. Even in Portland, when the case happens that we try to defend ourselves, the terrorists are urged by some to keep up the fight against us.

Helping Sderot Schoolchildren

Portland's Hadassah group held a picnic this summer in Portland on August 19th in order to donate money for the children of Sderot, Israel for school supplies. One of the members will travel there this fall and see how the city is faring.

The first day of school was Sunday, September 1st, and 1.5 million children went back to school in Israel. In Sderot, a rocket landed near the school Saturday night, which is in the city. That was followed by two more Qassam rockets. Parents know that the schools are better fortified than their own homes and hope for the best. This past month 300 rockets landed in the area. The people of Sderot have had rockets attacking them for the past four years.

Our newscasters are always remarking that these Qassam rockets are homemade, as if they can cause no damage. They may be homemade, but cause a great deal of problems. I'm sure none of our American citizens would be blase about such attacks near their children's schools, homes or stores. Hamas continues these attacks while peace talks are being negotiated.

I lived in Safed, in the northern Galilee from 1981 to 1985 where I taught in the junior high school. We had practice bomb drills there in a bomb shelter in the school where we had to spend hours. I had hoped that by this year, such a need of bomb shelters would be a thing of the past. The bombing continues.

Letters to Editor in Oregonian Again

Robert Hamilton wrote an article in the Oregonian stating that arming Israel with $30 billion dollars because we are giving $20 billion to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates is obscene.

It was commented on by Linda Cohn who wrote that she agreed and said that what Israel needs is for the international community to tell the Palestinians that they must honor their signed agreements with Israel, to end all terrorist activities, accept Israel's right to exist and destroy all terror groups and confiscate illegal weapons. They should also preserve and protect all Jewish holy sites and educate their people for peace.

Roberta Palmer answered that with a list of reasons why Palestinians should resist the Israelis. She concluded that Israeli crimes are very long and stated that Israel stole Palestinian lands, cited the destruction of houses and orchards, and even the restriction of movement at checkpoints, road blocks and "Israeli" only highways. She went on about how Gaza children suffer from malnutrition and post traumatic stress from Israeli violence and intimidation. Even imprisonment whose only crimes were to be between 15 and 45 were listed. She stated that when the PLO accepted the legitimacy of Israel within the 1949 armistice borders, the Arab population ceded more than half the land granted them by the UN partition. She thinks the Palestinians accepted Israel's government and Israel persists in violating UN resolutions 242, 181 and so on. She thinks we are confiscating the remaining 22% of their land is forcing them to accept defeat as a people. She hopes they continue to resist.

Needless to say, I wrote a reply to this letter which is full of so many untruths, that I had a hard time deciding what to say in 150 words or less. I hope my letter gets printed but probably won't. I hate the idea of her having the last say on this, which people will think is all truthful.

CRITICIZING ISRAEL

Criticizing Israel

Recently Christiane Amanpour presented a three-part series on CNN examining the role of religious fundamentalism in the world, starting with "God’s Jewish Warriors." I watched, as did many of my friends and was appalled with what I heard. My antennae shot up quickly as I was contronted with false statements, one after the other in quick succession. I was afraid this would happen. Cristiane is Iranian, and I had a feeling she would be presenting something alien to the actual facts that I knew. The program moved along so swiftly that I could not take notes on anything. In order to counter any viewpoints, I needed to have taped the program and played it back with a lot of stopping and starting.

A non Jewish friend saw nothing wrong with the program. All three segments met with approval. The negative presentation of Jews was accepted. I, on the other hand, saw nothing wrong in the presentations of the Moslem and Christian segments, not being aware of any problem with their sides, whereas he was a little disappointed with the Christian episode.

Jews are so accustomed to negative comments about their religion that we are very sensitive to any criticisms. The same goes for Israel. People are just so ready to believe the worst about us, that they do. We are constantly either ignoring comments and hoping they go away, or get in the defensive mode, which I do. From the Dark Ages, people have been accusing us of poisoning their children, their well, their food. Adolf Hitler told lies about us and tried to exterminate every one of us. Persia’s Hamen told lies about us and tried to kill all the Jews and now Iran’s ruler is saying the same thing. These are but a few of the examples that come to mind.

Recently the British academia have come out against Israel and are boycotting any trade with it. Britain, who had the mandate to keep order in "Palestine" after the Ottoman Empire fell, never did favor the Jews there. Finally, someone has stood up to this hatred. Standing with Israel is the University of California’s Robert Birgeneau at Berkely, New York University’s John Sexton and Columbia University’s Lee Bollinger.

Since 1948 Israel has been constantly attacked by the surrounding Arabs, but have accomplished a great deal. It has no oil or other natural resources but produced universities, research centers and other institutions of like causes. The USA scientists have more patents in the world, but Israel is second. Israel has more start-up companies listed on Nasdaq and export more life-saving medical technology than any other country. Israelis have received more Nobel and other international science prizes than any other country. Israeli academics are at the forefront in working on peace efforts. The British boycott seems to be backfiring.* All this effort is from one of the tiniest states in the world, smaller than one third of the size of Oregon with only about five million Jews at the young age of fifty-nine years. With the creation of another state, Palestine, it will be even smaller.

Jews do a lot of criticizing of ourselves, mostly in regards to Israel. A friend of mine in Israel just wrote and said that he felt that unless you live there, you really don’t have the right to criticize. It’s the Israelis whose lives are on the line. He’s right. I lived there for five and a half years and became a citizen. I felt the same way. However, we have people to the left and people to the right living in Israel, and all have a chance to voice their opinions, just like America. It’s a different feeling when we criticize ourselves; it’s more like it’s family criticism. When others do it, we feel the antagonism, the hated of people with no understanding or empathy. Usually they criticize the wrong things. They swallow propaganda and it shows how little they really know. To be so quick to believe the worst hurts. If only they would criticize something blaringly incorrect.

When confronted with, "Gee, I can’t criticize Israel without you thinking I’m antisemitic", I realize that this is true. I am very defensive about Israel. I am aware of all the problems Israel is facing and know they are trying harder than most people understand to be fair and righeous in their dealings with Palestinians.

Somehow, child psychologists and marriage counselors have come up the idea of starting with something positive and then slipping in a criticism and ending on a positive, helpful note. I just wish people would do the same thing when discussing Israel. Don't just criticize us. Is it so much to ask that people learn something about the situation first?

* Alan M. Dershowitz "Academic Hijacking" in Hadassah magazine Aug. Sept 07