Posted by
J-GOP on Friday, October 26, 2007 3:42:50 PM
Lately it seems that many Republican and Conservative Jews are falling into the old liberal trap of being "offended" because of Ann Coulter's recent remarks on The Danny Deutsch show on MS-NBC. (BTW, I recently learned that MS-NBC stands for Make Sure No Bush Compliments),
In her remark, she stated that Jews weren't fully "perfected" as much as Christians were. Rather than seeing her remark as that of a devout Christian who strongly believes in her faith, many mistook her remark as yet another example of Anti-Semitism from the often colorful and boisterous Coulter.
While I expect as much from hyper-sensitive liberal Jews who seem ready to cry foul at the slighest off-handed remark, frankly I expect more from Conservative and Republican Jews.
A good example can be found in the article entitled, "In case you missed it: Ann Coulter is Not Helping, by Richard Baehr of American Thinker, a conservative publication. There are several reasons why Republican and Conservative Jews need to grow thicker skins on this issue:
1. Misunderstanding the Concept of Faith - Every faith believes that their religious practices and doctrine are better than other faiths. While Judiasm doesn't practice prostilization, most practicing Jews believe, for whatever reason, that their traditions are better than non-Jewish faiths. To expect that devout Christians would not believe otherwise is to fundamentally misunderstand Christians, or frankly any other religion, and the degree of their own devotions to their faith. Because that devotion is different than yours doesn't warrant the use of the label "Anti-Semitism".
2. Forgetting Our Past - Let's not forget what true Anti-Semitism really is. After all, we are the people who survived the horrors of Nazism and Stalinism in the past 100 years. To become so thin-skinned and spineless as to equate a remark by Ann Coulter as Anti-Semitic, not only shows how far we have come down from that time, but how much the hyper-sensitive left now has influence over Conservative Judiasm.
3. The Sky is Falling - One of the things that frosts me is when the term "Nazi" is bandied about for anything one disagrees with. As a result, the overuse of the term has lessened the severity of the evils associated with those that purpetrated the pogroms of the Holocaust. When we overuse the term "Anti-Semitic" for anyone we disagree with, we water down the term making it ineffective when true evils are committed against our people. The story of Chicken Little should teach us not to overuse the term, Anti-Semitism.
4. The Enemy of My Enemy is my Friend - Today the Christians are the best friends of the Jews in the United States. They support the right of Israel to exist and feel a historic kinship with our faith. We certainly can't look to the secular Europeans or radical Islamic countries for that kind of support. And while I would hope that moderate Muslims would speak out in greater numbers against the Jihadists in their faith, fear of reprisal prevents them from doing so. We must stop living in the past and recognize that Christians and Jews are linked in this society, and form the strongest faith-based bond that we will need to lean on should things get tough for us in the years ahead.
So the bottom line is this: Don't let liberal Jews dicatate the ground rule for the use of the over use of the term, Anti-Semitism. Save the severity of that term for the real acts of Anti-Semitism being purpetrated today...namely those by Islamo-Fascist Jihadists. Ann Coulter is not someone that we should fear or falls into that category.