Posted on 08/27/2003 6:32:54 PM PDT by sinkspur
When does anti-Zionism cross the line into anti-Semitism? That is a question roiling college and university campuses across the world.
Harvard's President Lawrence Summers helped to stimulate constructive debate about this issue when he urged students and professors to challenge "vigorously" Israeli policies with which they disagree, but he condemned as "anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent" calls to single out only Israel for such extreme sanctions as divestment and boycott.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman joined this debate by writing that "Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest." I too have joined this debate in my new book The Case for Israel, in which I argue that "It is important to understand that although criticism of Israel is not by itself anti-Semitism, there are certain kinds of criticism of Israel that are clearly anti-Semitic, even if the word Jew is never mentioned.
"An obvious instance is Amiri Baraka claiming in his poem that Israel and Sharon knew about the attack on the World Trade Center before it happened and warned 4,000 Israelis to stay away. Can anyone doubt that this variation on the blood libel is anti-Semitic to the core?"
Now a new blood libel against the Jews has been issued by a cardinal of the Catholic church who, according to James Carrol, who writes about Catholic matters for The Boston Globe, is "one of a small number of likely candidates to succeed Pope John Paul II."
Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Meridiaga, who is the archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, has been telling anyone who is willing to listen that "the Jews" are to blame for the scandal surrounding the sexual misconduct of priests toward young parishioners!
The Jews? How did Cardinal Rodriguez ever come up with this ridiculous idea? Here is his "logic." He begins by asserting that the Vatican is anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. It follows, therefore, that "the Jews" had to get even with the Catholic Church, while at the same time deflecting attention away from Israeli injustices against the Palestinians.
The Jews managed to do this by arranging for the media which they, of course, control to give disproportionate attention to the Vatican sex scandal. Listen to Rodriguez's own words: "It certainly makes me think that in a moment in which all the attention of the mass media was focused on the Middle East, all the many injustices done against the Palestinian people, the print media and the TV in the United States became obsessed with sexual scandals that happened 40 years ago, 30 years ago.
"Why? I think it's also for these motives: What is the church that has received Arafat the most times and has most often confirmed the necessity of the creation of a Palestinian state? What is the church that does not accept that Jerusalem should be the indivisible capital of the State of Israel, but that it should be the capital of the three great monotheistic religions?"
Rodriguez then goes on to compare the Jewish-controlled media with "Hitler," because they are "protagonists of what I do not hesitate to define as a persecution against the Church." When asked whether he wanted to reconsider his attack, Rodriguez replied: "I don't repent sometimes it is necessary to shake things up."
THE PRIME media culprit is The Boston Globe, which has won numerous journalistic awards for its exposure of the sex scandal and coverup. The Globe is owned by The New York Times, which is controlled by the Sulzberger family. Hence the Jewish conspiracy.
The problem with this cockamamie theory is that the Jewish community of Boston was very close to, and admiring of, Cardinal Bernard Law, who presided over the archdiocese during the scandal. Law had built bridges between the Catholic and Jewish communities of Boston, and when the scandal was exposed by the very un-Jewish Boston Globe the Jewish community remained largely supportive of Law.
None of the leading media critics, lawyers or politicians who railed against the church was Jewish. Most were Catholic. But that didn't matter to the bigoted cardinal, who along with other classic anti-Semites believes that if there is a problem "the Jews" must be to blame for it. As James Carrol, himself a Catholic, has characterized Rodriguez's "crackpot" mindset: "When the church has a problem here is the oldest move of all blame the Jews." Nor is Rodriguez the only current cardinal afflicted with such bigotry.
Cardinal Joseph Glemp, the primate of Poland, has blamed the Jews for Polish communism, alcoholism and collaboration with Hitler. He also accused Jews of trying to kill nuns. Other high-ranking priests, especially in Central America and Poland, have leveled similar anti-Semitic accusations against the Jews and Israel.
These blood libels demonstrate that the Vatican still has a problem with anti-Semitism at the top levels of its hierarchy, even after Vatican II declared anti-Semitism to be "a sin." How can serial sinners like Cardinals Rodriguez and Glemp retain their statures as princes of the Church while continuing to preach blood libels against the Jews?
Would a cardinal who advocated gay marriage or abortion not be defrocked? Why not defrock those cardinals who themselves commit the sin of anti-Semitism? This age-old problem will not go away unless the Vatican takes action to enforce its parchment protest against anti-Semitism.
The writer's latest book is The Case for Israel.
This guy is a piece of …work (for lack of better a word) I did a Google search for Cardinal Joseph Glemp and Jews and came up with this. Very sad; very strange.
Just when you're thinking that nothing could be more hare-brained than what you've already heard, some raving lunatic manages to surprise you again.
There is no limit to the human capacity for asininity. How can anyone question the theory of evolution when we have such throwbacks among us?
Are you accusing Dersh of making all this up?
I'm not sure what you mean.
Are you a Bircher?
I suppose I should not be surprised, I am – at this time still – an Episcopalian, so lack of orthodoxy should surprise me. But how can one ignore Galatians 3:28
I meant I knew a couple of priests when I was young who, looking back, were definitely anti-semitic.
I don't know any now who are.
This is a common theme for James Carroll as well. Criticizing the media is not the same as a blood libel.
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