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Jewish World Review May 26, 1999/ 11 Sivan, 5759
Robert Leiter
One of the most unusual ads in recent months appeared in The New York Times
of Thursday, May 13, in the first section of the paper, surprisingly
enough, right under a story about the Philadelphia mayoral race. The ad,
placed by an organization called the Balkan Action Council and couched as
an open letter to President Clinton, argued that only the use of ground
troops in Kosovo will end the ethnic cleansing.
America's new
anti-Semites
DANIEL PIPES, director of the Middle East Forum, argues
in an important article in the May issue of Commentary magazine, titled
"America's Muslims Against America's Jews," that what was once historically
a Christian phenomenon - virulent anti-Semitism - is now primarily a
product of Muslim groups, many of them based in the United States.
"If
Christian anti-Semitism is increasingly yesterday's problem," Pipes writes,
"Muslim anti-Semitism is today's problem, and tomorrow's."
It is Pipes's contention that this rabid anti-Jewish feeling has fueled a
number of physical attacks against Jews and other American citizens and
that very little of it makes it into the general press. In the United
States, he writes, "one would hardly know anything about the depth and
reach of Muslim anti-Semitism from following the press, from reading the
work of most researchers, or even from tracking the statements of the
organized Jewish community."
The threat to the well-being of Jews and all Americans, Pipes argues, is
considerable and should not be taken lightly. He shows how Islamic groups
throughout the country are reprinting articles and books originally
published in the Middle East and "recycling" the rhetoric of
fundamentalism.
In addition, Pipes notes that "Islamic groups here also fly
in fundamentalist spokesmen from abroad to address their mammoth
conventions at downtown hotels in cities like Chicago and Oklahoma City.
(The annual conference of the Islamic Society of North America, for
example, attracts about 15,000 participants.) At one such gathering in
Kansas City in 1989, Yusuf al-Qardawi, who is based in Qatar and is one of
the most eminent Islamic theologians alive today, told his audience (in
Arabic): 'On the hour of judgment, Muslims will fight the Jews and kill
them.' "
If you are not convinced, Pipes offers lots of other evidence.
The argument was not so unusual; it was the signatories, quite prominent
names from both sides of the political barricades in the culture wars, that
were a shocker. This must be the only place where you will see the likes of
Saul Bellow, Robert Kagan, William Kristol and Norman Podhoretz on the same
page with Geraldine Ferraro, Bianca Jagger, Rabbi Michael Lerner, David
Rieff and his mother Susan Sontag. Will wonders ever cease?
Even more interesting is the fact that The Nation of May 24, the magazine
that seems to be the natural stomping grounds of such left-wingers as
Sontag and Lerner, has a massive headline calling for the United States to
"Stop the Bombing: Why Nato's War Must End." Articles in the issue include
Tom Hayden on "The Liberal's Folly" and Stephen F. Cohen on " 'Degrading'
America." That's quite a disparity.
Keep your ears pealed. Something is clearly going on on the
Robert Leiter is Literary Editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
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