Jonathan Freedland, Guardian idiot
In a desperate bid to show he is ‘considerably more progressive than thou’, the Guardian newspaper’s ‘House Jew*’ the writer Jonathan Freedland, in an article for the site Open Zion and republished in the Daily Beast, deliberately chooses not to see the growing problem of Islamic Jew hatred. Instead he lays the blame for increased anti-Semitism on the plethora of three-men-and-a-dog neo-Nazi parties that have been around for years and are shunned by all decent people. These are emphatically NOT the main problem; there is no possibility of the idiotic jackboot lickers of the BNP forming a government in the UK anytime soon. Only an idiot, or a Left wing ideologue, would say that many of the current problems with Jew hatred in Europe do not have an Islamic flavour.
Although I will concur with the Guardian’s ‘House Jew’ that there are issues with anti-Semitism from some of the more freaky nationalist parties in Eastern Europe, Freedland’s position isn’t the whole story. In fact, I would go so far to say he is counter-factual when it comes to his conclusions that the main driver for anti-Semitism comes from the nationalist far right. However, the reality of the situation is that it cannot be denied, although Freedland tries, that there is one religio-political force operating in Europe that consistently advocates violence against Jews and also Christians, and that is Islam. Hatred of the followers of other faiths, especially Judaism, is hard-wired into the core texts and beliefs of Islam.
Freedland bases his piece on email correspondence that he says he has with American Jews, who he alleges are continually bombarding him with emails warning him that a new dark age is dawning for Jews in Europe. He denies that there is any problem at all with Islamic anti-Semitism, despite the evidence for such a phenomenon being easily found. He makes his denial even though in Europe we have seen Jewish schools attacked in France and people murdered purely for being Jewish, and members of the Jewish community in what was once the traditional Jewish ‘city of refuge’, Amsterdam, being warned not to wear Kippot (skullcaps) in the streets for fear of attack by Muslims.
Also he sympathises even with the left-wing Mayor of Malmo, in Sweden, who said that Jews will only be safe there provided that they denounce Israel. Why should they be expected to denounce Israel or anything else for that matter, purely to try to protect themselves from Muslim thugs, who would probably attack them anyway? To make an analogy: Should, for example, a British supporter of the USA, who sees the American desire for freedom, and admires it; should they be expected to denounce the USA in order to be safe? I don’t think that they should and neither should Jews have to give up the millenia old dream of ruling themselves, as a free people, in the land of Zion and Jerusalem.
Jonathan Freedland, although an entertaining writer, may well have spent too long at the Guardian and mixed far too closely with the sort of lefty anti-zionist/anti-semite that infests that once great newspaper, because now he appears to be suffering from some form of ‘Stockholm Syndrome’. Like the hostage who ends up loving their captor, he is now mouthing the words that the environment he works in has encouraged him to absorb by osmosis.
Because of the environment that Jonathan Freedland works in, I’m going to cut him some slack; standing up against the rabid pro-Islam lefties at the Guardian must be difficult and he may have taken the route of least resistance and gone along with them. The experience of a Jew working at the Guardian and being surrounded by a festering, poisonous soup of academic Jew-haters and knee-jerk anti-Israel journalists, must be similar to an Orthodox Jew working in a bacon factory; there is always the temptation that he might crack and want to try the product. Freedland, by turning a blind eye to Islamic anti-Semitism, does appear to have developed a taste for Guardian style Islam-fellating and is engaging in this activity with the gusto of a starving man suddenly being given a meal.
I’m sorry Mr Freedland, your views may go down well with some of the meshuganim (Yiddish for crazy people) that inhabit the wilder Left wing shores of progressive Judaism, but out here in the real world, your denial that there is a problem of Islamic Jew-hatred, leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.
Not speaking up about a problem, or not speaking up about the rise of Islamic hatred, whether that hatred is aimed at Jews or Christians or anybody else, is not helping. In fact, it may well be making things worse by emboldening the Islamic crazies who are a danger to us all. You also do those American Jews a disservice by dismissing their opinions. Sometimes it takes someone to be at a distance to see the whole picture, after all you wouldn’t judge the merit of Rembrant by only concentrating on one brushstroke, so why just junk the opinions of Americans? You may not agree with your American correspondents but they do have a point. There is something stinking in the corner, but it is not what you may like to think it is.
Mr Freedland, you sir, on the subject of anti-Semitism, especially its Islamic variant, appear to be nothing more than an opportunist deluded dissembler. Maybe in the future, when the Guardian folds due to lack of readership, you will find an outlet for your talents that will not taint your written output as working at the Guardian seems to have done.
Links
Original Daily Beast/Open Zion article
Note: I use the term ‘House Jew’ for Jonathan Freedland even though it is incredibly insulting and has its roots in antebellum slavery in the American South, and the derogatory phrase ‘House Negro’. This describes a slave who panders to his master in order to keep the privilege of working in the master’s house, instead of the fields, even if it means denigrating his own people or putting them in harms way. Such a description is no more than Jonathan Freedland deserves. Here is a link to the Wiki on the term House Negro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Negro
