Rejecting Hate Speech Deserves Praise

Many in the American Jewish and pro-Israel communities are quick to point to elements of anti-Semitism in the Arab media as a major stumbling block to peacemaking efforts in the region.  But by the same measure, we should be applauding - with the same, if not more enthusiasm - those Arab voices that condemn such hate speech when it appears.  

Hussein Ibish, the American Task Force on Palestine's Senior Fellow should be praised for doing just that in his recent letter to the editor of the Khaleej Times, a Dubai-based English language newspaper.

Ibish's letter rejects an anti-Semitic op-ed titled "Chop Shop Economics and the Stealth Zionism," by Karin Freidemann, who is identified as a Boston-based writer. To save you the time of treading through the op-ed's nonsense, here are some tastes of its ugliness, so you get the point:  

"During this turbulent period in his career, (Larry) Summers worked hard to improve his Jewish credentials. He badmouthed anti-Israel divestment activists on campus but supported Darfur-related divestment. He dumped his Christian wife Victoria Perry for Holocaust Literature professor Elisa New, a close friend of Jewish Studies professor Ruth Wisse, whose husband is chairman of board of directors of CAMERA, a professional Israel advocacy organisation."

"Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel trod a similar career path perhaps more quickly because of superior Jewish Zionist credentials resulting from an Irgunist father and civilian IDF service during Iraq War I."

"Now this corrupt network is pushing through Congress another huge gift for their friends: the Summers-Geithner Plan, which enables banks to make their own valuation of toxic assets and then buy them with taxpayer money without restoring the lost liquidity."

Here is Ibish's masterful response in full:

The Opinion article 'Chop Shop Economics and Stealth Zionism,' (KT, April 14), casts the economic recovery programme in the United States being led by the Obama administration as a 'premeditated attempt to loot and destroy the US financial system,' and lays the blame for this conspiracy squarely at the feet of what the author calls a 'corrupt network' of Jewish Americans.

This seeks to exploit the current financial crisis facing the American and global economies, and links it to traditional themes of anti-Semitism in a transparent effort to promote fear and hatred of Jews.

Arab readers deserve serious and thoughtful analysis about American society, politics and economics, and not hate speeches that can only inflame prejudices and promote the most distorted perceptions.

Responsible media in all societies have an obligation not only to avoid promoting hatred, especially that which exacerbates the most dangerous divisions, but also to maintain basic and universally applicable standards of accuracy and decency. Commentaries such as these not only encourage bigoted viewpoints among the readership, but they also play into the parallel and extremely damaging stereotype of the Arab press as anti-Semitic.

Hussein Ibish, Senior Fellow, American Task Force on Palestine