Gary Fouse
fousesquawk

In the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the great propaganda tool that Israel’s enemies use-especially in the West- is that their opposition to Israel is based not on anti-Semitism (Jew hatred), but simply anti-Zionism. Let’s look at Israel’s most immediate enemies, Hamas in Gaza, Fatah in the West Bank, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hamas, which wrestled control of Gaza from Fatah, is clear about its goals-the total eradication of Israel. The Hamas charter states that negotiation is useless. It quotes fromn the Koran. It quotes from the hadith that “the last hour will not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims will kill them.”
(article 7-Hamas Charter). Hamas’ goal is an Islamic republic in Palestine under shariah law. Hamas’ Al Aqsa TV describes Jews as “apes” and “pigs”, (How often have we heard that one?)as well as “enemies of God”.(Wistrich, Robert, A Lethal Obsession, Random House, 2010) p 762.

“My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but Allah….”We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of the Jews.”

-Videotaped words of Hamas suicide bomber (February 2006)
-Robert Wistrich, A Lethal Obsession, p 757

The list of statements by Hamas leaders that refer specifically to Jews goes on and on.

On the West Bank, Fatah, the successors to Yassir Arafat, now led by so-called moderate Mahmoud Abbas, enjoy the favor of the US Government as an entity willing to “negotiate” with Israel. This organization, which lost favor in Gaza due to its rampant corruption still floods PA TV with all kinds of anti-Jewish fare. Abbas produced a doctoral dissertation in Moscow in 1983 that claimed that the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust was greatly inflated. (The other side: The secret relationship between Nazism and the Zionist movement-Wistrich, p 652).

In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has called the Holocaust a myth. He was quoted in September 2001, he was quoted as calling Jews in general,
“Allah’s most cowardly and greedy caricatures.” (Wistrich, p 769)

Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Husayn Fadallah, said in 1988: “The Jews want to be a world superpower. This racist circle of Jews wants to take vengeance on the whole world for their history of persecution and humiliation. In this light, the Jews will work on the basis that Jewish interests are above all world interests.” (Wistrich, p 766)

It goes on and on.

Why is it that in Middle Eastern countries like Egypt, mainstream publications portray Jews in old stereotypical images reminiscent of Julius Streicher’s Der Stuermer, the infamous Nazi periodical? Why is it that two of the most popular best-sellers year after year in the Middle East are “Mein Kampf” and the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, the latter a proven forgery produced in Czarist Russia to portray a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world.

Why is it that after 1948, virtually all Jewish communities (some 600-700,000 people) in Arab nations were forced to leave, mostly leaving their homes and possessions behind?

Why is it that Holocaust denial is so rampant in the Arab world?

“But we have nothing against Jews. It’s only the Zionists.”

That’s the line that is necessary to push in the West, especially the United States.

Unfortunately, there are so many in the West-including a surprising number of Jews- who believe that if only there were no Israel- anti-Semitism would go away.

In my view, they are tragically naive. It’s not about the land so much as it is about the religion. It doesn’t take a ton of research to see through the lies.

So for those of you who don’t know, I mostly work in the arts. So you’ll have to excuse the short post but I’m sitting at the food court at the South Eastern Theatre Conference having been only recently at CPAC!

This is conference season, which means that I’m working my rear end off attending trade shows, interviewing and trying to sell both me and my company to prospective clients.  It also means that I’m not making a whole lot.  The joys of self-employment.

Each year I plan that I’ll spend most of January through March working extremely long days in a variety of cities and making no money.  April is when my contracts that I spent the first two months securing start coming in and I actually start making money.  So when I budget my expenses throughout the year I make plans so that I’m not thrown into crisis the first quarter.

I could not help but wonder what would happen if the government practiced the same policy.  What would happen if the government actually planned ahead for the shortfalls of cash that it will one day experience?

So as I sit in a Lexington Kentucky food court typing away at this article in the few minutes I have stolen away from attending workshops and “working the crowd” I lift up the hope and prayer that one day our government will actually practice a little long term planning.

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk

Recently, I have written about disruptions and arrests occurring on University of California campuses at Berkeley and Irvine, incidents that have brought embarrassment to the respective schools. Unfortunately, two other campuses have been hit by embarrassing incidents in the past few days.

A few days ago, a Jewish student discovered a swastika carved into her dormitory door at UC Davis. The girl says she gets along well with all her dorm mates and is at a loss as to who did it.

At UC San Diego, a group of fraternities organized a so-called “Compton Cookout”, meant as a spoof of Black History Month. Attendees were invited via Facebook to dress up and act like stereotypes of inner-city blacks. Black students at UCSD were not amused.

Below is a link to the invitation, the reaction of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox and a letter from a campus fraternity regarding the incident (San Diego Channel 10 News):

http://www.10news.com/news/22588063/detail.html

Then, a few days ago, a noose was found hanging on a book shelf in the campus library. Just in the past day, a female student came forward and admitted to the act. She has been suspended. At this point, her name (and race) has not been reported. These incidents have led to rallies in support of black students and a protest at the chancellor’s office. Given the already-simmering controversy of the cookout, the noose must be assumed to have been hung as a racial statement. Given the past history of lynchings in the South, the noose has a definite racial connotation. It is highly troubling that this would occur on a university campus-or anywhere else, for that matter.

UCSD does not have a high black enrollment, and now the university is facing demands that they increase their number of black students and faculty, as well as set up a resource center for black students.

Yesterday, Governor Schwarzenegger spoke of the racially-tinged incidents and said that they will not be tolerated. It is not clear what action will be taken by the university against the organizers of the “Compton Cookout” since it occurred off-campus. However, if their rules of conduct are the same as UCI’s, there should be a provision for off-campus incidents. It would also seem that action could be taken against the fraternities if they were indeed acting as sponsors.

I think it is high time for UC President Yudoff to step in and exercise some firm leadership if you get my drift. Forget the “sensitivity” sessions and the holding-hands rallies. That’s always the response, and they do no good. They also tend to deteriorate into demagoguery of all the other issues in the world. If you make an example of the haters and troublemakers on campus by getting rid of them, everybody else will get the message. Then the nooses and the swastikas will stop.