Caroline Glick, popular columnist at The Jerusalem Post, defended Sarah Palin and conservatives from the blood libel of the left following the Tuscon shooting by by an anti-Christian, anti-Constitution, left-wing, pro-Marx, antiflag, “quite liberal” lunatic who hated Bush. that left 6 people dead.
Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick sits with Richard Landes, the creator of Pallywood the movie, during a discussion with American bloggers in Tel Aviv in August 2007.
This was excellent.
The Jewish Press reported:
…Palin’s characterization of the Left’s appalling assault on her and her fellow conservatives as a “blood libel” was entirely accurate. Moreover, as her previous use of the term “death panels” in the healthcare debate brought clarity to an issue the Left sought to obscure, so her use of the term “blood libel” exposed the nature of the Left’s behavior and highlighted its intentions.
By warning about “death panels,” Palin highlighted the fly in the ointment of government healthcare. Government control will induce scarcity of healthcare and government rationing will necessarily follow. That rationing, in turn, will be undertaken by panels of government officials empowered to decide who gets what care. Her remark focused the debate on the flaws in the program in a way no other had.
In the case of her use of the term “blood libel,” Palin exposed the Left’s attempt to criminalize conservatives and make it impossible for conservatives to either defend themselves or pursue their alternative policy agenda. A blood libel involves two things: First, an imaginary crime; second, the accusation that an entire group of people is guilty of committing that crime that never occurred.
Classically, of course, blood libels have been used against Jews. Anti-Semites accused Jews of killing non-Jews for ritual use of their blood. Jews had murdered no one and Judaism has no ritual involving the use of human blood. Yet, repeatedly entire communities were criminalized and persecuted based on these blood libels.
By criminalizing the entire community based on false allegations regarding a never-committed crime, anti-Semites made it impossible for Jews to go on about our lives. If we sought to deny the charges, we gave them credibility. If we ignored the charges, our silence was interpreted as an admission of guilt. And so no matter what we did, the blood libel firmly attached the stench of murder to a completely innocent Jewish community.
Just as its Israeli counterpart did in the wake of Rabin’s assassination, so the American Left seeks to attach a sense of criminality and violence to the American Right in order to make it socially and otherwise unpalatable to support or otherwise identify with it.
By calling the Left out for its behavior, Palin exposed its agenda. But the logic of the blood libel remained. Trusting the public’s ignorance, and the liberal Jewish community’s solidarity, the leftist media in the U.S. immediately condemned Palin for daring to use the term, hinted she was an anti-Semite for doing so, and argued that by defending herself, she was again inciting violence.
Many conservative thinkers and politicians have long viewed Palin as a liability. By remaining in the spotlight, they allege, Palin is helping the Left. They argue that the media have already destroyed her ability to communicate with non-conservatives. Since she is viewed as a conservative leader, by failing to shut up she is making it impossible for other potential leaders whom the media don’t despise to connect with the swing voters they will need to unseat Obama in 2012.
While alluring, this position does more than harm Palin. It renders the 2012 election irrelevant.
It matter not whether these conservative thinkers support Palin. What matters is that by telling her not to defend herself from libelous attacks, they are accepting the Left’s right to criminalize all conservatives. If she is not defended against a patently obscene effort to connect her to a madman’s rampage in Tucson, then conservatives in the U.S. are signaling they really don’t want to control U.S. policy. They are saying that if a Republican is elected in 2012, he or she will continue to implement Obama’s radical policies…
Read the rest here.
