Mark Steyn
let loose a mighty rant against Abe Foxman of ADL for accusing Rush Limbaugh of anti-semitism.
Abe Foxman is a lot like what my friend Ezra Levant up in Canada calls "the official Jews." He calls them "official Jews." They're people who belong to liberal Jew— official liberal Jewish organizations who are never there on any of the key issues and want to obsess with peripheral, irrelevant issues of no consequence for the Jewish people. And that is exactly what Abe Foxman did. And it would be funny if we hadn't seen, across the Western world, the biggest resurgence in anti-Semitism since the second World War. What does Abe Foxman have to say about that? What does Abe Foxman have to say about the demonstration in Fort Lauderdale last year where people are doing — where demonstrators are doing oven jokes? What does Abe Foxman have to say about the American who was visiting the East End of London on Holocaust Day last year and touring parts of the old Jewish East End and had concrete thrown at them and were told, "If you go any further, you're gonna die," and had to be taken to hospital. What does Abe Foxman have to say when a soccer match between Sweden and Israel is scheduled for the stadium in Malmo, and they have to play it behind closed doors to an empty — a tennis match, I beg your pardon, tennis. They have to play it in an empty stadium, because if they open the doors to people in Malmo, Sweden, they'd want to kill the Israeli tennis players. What do they — what does Abe Foxman have to say when people are marching through the streets of Calgary, Alberta, shouting, "Death to the Jews"? A timeless slogan, a timeless slogan, admittedly, but not one hitherto associated with the Rocky Mountains.
We are witnessing across the planet the biggest resurgence in anti-Semitism since the second World War, and this boob, this pathetic, contemptible, cowardly man thinks it's his job as spokesperson for a major Jewish organization to attack Rush. This is beyond pathetic. It is actually self-destructive. It is going to the soft target because he doesn't have the guts, he doesn't have the guts to actually confront the real sources of anti-Semitism in the world today, which is an alliance between psychotic Islamists and the college left, the polytechnic left, the educated left in the United States and in the broader Western world. And it goes along with other pathetic spectacles of his, such as when he attacked — what was that? Mel — not, uh — Mel Gibson movie from a couple of years ago, when he attacked Mel's movie, which is no threat to the Jewish people. When he attacks evangelical Christians, who are the best friends of Israel on the planet today. Unlike the secular, post-Christian European university-educated types, evangelical Christians are the best friends of Israel on the planet today. And this idiot Foxman attacks them, and then he goes and attacks Rush, too.
A little more:
I was on a long car journey, driving along listening to Rush reminiscing about when he'd visited Israel, and he'd been up — I think he'd — correct me if I'm wrong, H.R. — but I think he'd been up at Ariel Sharon's house. And Sharon had been actually showing him around, showing him the Golan Heights and showing him overlooking the West Bank and Gaza and all the rest of it. Yeah. And Rush made the point that at some places, the state of Israel is narrower than a New Hampshire township. Rush understands Israel very well, and he understands this — the preposterousness of a — the entire Muslim world stretching from Morocco — at the very northwestern corner of Africa to Lahore in Pakistan. This entire Muslim world stretching like a bloc blames all its problems on a tiny little strip of land narrower than a New Hampshire township. And Rush was never more persuasive and never more moving than when he was talking about what he understood about Israel and the situation that Israelis find themselves in than when he was talking about his visit with Ariel Sharon. And there — I have never heard — I mean, Rush is a big guy. He doesn't need me coming to his aid. I didn't really say anything when he had his little problem in Hawaii and all these idiot websites were saying, "Go on, die. Burn in hell, Rush." He's a big guy. He can take that. But what is at issue here is the stupidity of Abe Foxman and the failure of the official Jews to identify the real threats to Jews in the world today, and instead pick on soft targets like evangelical Christians, Mel Gibson's movie, and Rush Limbaugh. And in the case of Rush, you're talking about one of the best friends the Jewish people ever had. . . .
This is exactly what I think of the "official Jews" who participate in the slander against Pius XII
against all evidence, and are perpetually on red alert for manufactured sleights on Pope Benedict's part (he came to Israel and honored us all, but he didn't say what he said exactly the way we would have said it! Shame!), but have nothing to say about actual anti-semitism anywhere else in the world. There is no political and intellectual figure in the world today posing as bold a challenge to extremist Islam as the Pope (in concert with his bishops in Muslim lands), and wherever Jews are persecuted in this world, Christians suffer right beside them --yet certain people are never happy unless they're accusing their friends of treacheries. It's particularly gross in Abe Foxman, who survived the holocaust because his parents left him with their Polish Catholic nanny when they were forced into a Jewish ghetto.
