Very odd comment by Governor Palin

[Perd Hapley]

Oh, I thought the concepts she articulated in the speech and much of the content was great, and I agree with it.  I still, myself, would not have chosen, or had my speechwriter use, a term that I myself consider anti-Semitic.

   But the phrase "blood libel" isn't anti-Semitic. 

[seeker_two]

Palin has Reagan's gift for playing the media...and the advantage of having the Internet to circumvent the MSM's spin...powerful combo...

[MillCreek]

   But the phrase "blood libel" isn't anti-Semitic. 

Based on my reading of history, my opinion is that it has been used in that context for centuries and there is quite a body of work supporting that interpretation.  I see it as not very much different than if a politician, speaking about crime, was to use the phrase 'blood atonement', which has historically often been used in an anti-Mormon context.  I suspect that most Mormons would see it that way.

[makattak]

Based on my reading of history, my opinion is that it has been used in that context for centuries and there is quite a body of work supporting that interpretation.  I see it as not very much different than if a politician, speaking about crime, was to use the phrase 'blood atonement', which has historically often been used in an anti-Mormon context.  I suspect that most Mormons would see it that way.

As has been noted:

And is used by Israeli politicians on a near-weekly basis.

MicroJewBalrog.

I don't know how many ways people can tell you that you're wrong, but here's another:

Blood libel: A false belief which has endured since the 1st century BCE. It states that members of a religious group  kidnap, abuse, ritually murder and sometimes eat the body of a member of another religion. Groups creating this groundless fable include ancient Greek and Roman Pagans, Christians, Nazis, and Muslims. Innocent religious groups victimized by the fable include Jews, Christians, Wiccans, Druids and other Neopagans, and Roma (Gypsies). The hoax exists today mostly among some Muslims (against Jews) and some Fundamentalist Christians (against Wiccans, Satanists and other religious minorities).

http://www.translationdirectory.com/glossaries/glossary007_b.htm

My first exposure to the word was the history of the early Christians and claims that the Lord's supper used children's blood.

[MillCreek]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel

http://jcrelations.tripod.com/blood.html

http://www.booksandideas.net/spip.php?page=print&id_article=1054&lang=fr

http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_blib2.htm

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/blood-libel-in-the-pages-of-history/

http://www.aish.com/jl/h/48951151.html

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2042176,00.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=Tdn6FFZklkcC&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&dq=blood+libel+dissertation&source=bl&ots=qJ2rqaDIVG&sig=4HXZ9hd9CkIDAdQ-sQSp5LKuCpk&hl=en&ei=SgoxTdChEZH0tgOqxJ3XBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDAQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=blood%20libel%20dissertation&f=false

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/rinn.html

Be sure to read the footnotes for the sources.  Reading is fundamental, after all.   But feel free to continue your struggle against history.

[makattak]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel

http://jcrelations.tripod.com/blood.html

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/blood-libel-in-the-pages-of-history/

http://www.aish.com/jl/h/48951151.html

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2042176,00.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=Tdn6FFZklkcC&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&dq=blood+libel+dissertation&source=bl&ots=qJ2rqaDIVG&sig=4HXZ9hd9CkIDAdQ-sQSp5LKuCpk&hl=en&ei=SgoxTdChEZH0tgOqxJ3XBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDAQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=blood%20libel%20dissertation&f=false

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/rinn.html

Be sure to read the footnotes for the sources.  Reading is fundamental, after all.   But feel free to continue your struggle against history.

First of all, your almighty wiki link agrees with me:

Blood libel refers to a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays

I have emphasized the part you seem to still need to understand. USUALLY means not always.

Here's the second:

Blood Libel is the accusation by "religious group A" that "religious group B" is committing unbelievably despicable acts of ritual murder. Typically, the story contains a number of riveting details:

    * a victim is kidnapped by members of "religious group B."
    * the victim is usually an innocent person. An infant, young child or a blond teenage virgin girl are typical.
    * the victim may be abused or tortured. They are ritually killed in order to meet the requirements of the perpetrator's religion.
    * in an act of cannibalism, the victim's body is eaten and/or the blood is consumed.
    * obscene sexual orgies (sometimes involving incest) are held during or after the ritual.

Note, again, it doesn't say "Jews", it says "religious group A" and "religious group B"

Third, the New York times is hardly an unbiased source in this debate.

The rest seem to be discussing blood libel in the context of antisemitism. None of those claim it to be an exclusive term for blood libel against Jews.

[zxcvbob]

Based on my reading of history, my opinion is that it has been used in that context for centuries and there is quite a body of work supporting that interpretation.

But it's not Antisemitic.  It is (or may be) a reference to Antisemitism. 

[MillCreek]

So your argument boils down to unless this issue relates to Jewish people 100% of the time, it doesn't count as being anti-Semitic.  And if a source disagrees with your thesis, it must be biased.

OK.  I am convinced.  You are absolutely right and I am absolutely wrong.  Governor Palin was no doubt expressing her support for the heroic struggles of the Jewish people and we must not question her.  Clearly, I was led astray by the mainstream media.  

[makattak]

So your argument boils down to unless this issue relates to Jewish people 100% of the time, it doesn't count as being anti-Semitic.  And if a source disagrees with your thesis, it must be biased.

OK.  I am convinced.  You are absolutely right and I am absolutely wrong.  Governor Palin was no doubt expressing her support for the heroic struggles of the Jewish people and we must not question her.  Clearly, I was led astray by the mainstream media. 

No, my argument is that it is a term that has a broader meaning than SIMPLY anti-semitism and that your association solely with anti-semitism is wrong.

AGAIN, as many people have noted for you, it is and has for some time been used to characterize more than hatred for Jews, sometimes legitimately and sometimes as hyperbole.

You are being purposely obstructive, obtuse, and obstinate.

[zxcvbob]

You're missing the point (I think intentionally.)   If "blood libel" is Antisemitism, that's not the same thing as just using the phrase blood libel.  If anything, she is accusing her critics of something equivalent to Antisemitism.

I don't know if it was a smart thing to do or not, but it was apt.

[Tuco]

The term "Blood Libel" is anti-Semitic, as much as "Niggardly" is racist.

[zxcvbob]

[MicroBalrog]

So your argument boils down to unless this issue relates to Jewish people 100% of the time, it doesn't count as being anti-Semitic.  And if a source disagrees with your thesis, it must be biased.

OK.  I am convinced.  You are absolutely right and I am absolutely wrong.  Governor Palin was no doubt expressing her support for the heroic struggles of the Jewish people and we must not question her.  Clearly, I was led astray by the mainstream media.  

Okay. Let us ASSUME for a moment that blood libel has, hitherto, only been used in a Jewish context.

The term 'blood libel' isn't a description of something JEWS do. It's a description of something people do TO Jews.

[De Selby]

Either way, this is more proof of my theory that Palin supporters will find any way to argue that what she's doing is clever. 

Using the term "blood libel" was clearly a bad move. 

[MicroBalrog]

Why was the use of the term by Palin worse than the uses of the term by everybody else in dozens of contexts?

[De Selby]

Why was the use of the term by Palin worse than the uses of the term by everybody else in dozens of contexts?

Because it was sure to attract negative attention in this climate.  Also, where it has been used by non-Jews in the past, it's generally been related to groups that get killed as a result.  I can't think of any conservative figures in America who've been beaten to death or lynched as a result of their rhetoric. 

[Monkeyleg]

DeSelby, please see the thread I started with citations from everyone from Andrew Sullivan to Michael Barrone using the term. If it didn't attract attention in the 2004 presidential election when the subject was a presidential campaign, why should it now when it's about a nothing like Sarah Palin?

[roo_ster]

Hmm, maybe Millcreek has a point, since Alan Dershowitz came out on the "it's antisemitism all the time" side of the debate.

OK, well maybe not:
http://biggovernment.com/publius/2011/01/12/exclusive-alan-dershowitz-defends-sarah-palins-use-of-term-blood-libel/

The term “blood libel” has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse. Although its historical origins were in theologically based false accusations against the Jews and the Jewish People,its current usage is far broader. I myself have used it to describe false accusations against the State of Israel by the Goldstone Report. There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim. The fact that two of the victims are Jewish is utterly irrelevant to the propriety of using this widely used term.

So your argument boils down to unless this issue relates to Jewish people 100% of the time, it doesn't count as being anti-Semitic.  And if a source disagrees with your thesis, it must be biased.

OK.  I am convinced.  You are absolutely right and I am absolutely wrong.  Governor Palin was no doubt expressing her support for the heroic struggles of the Jewish people and we must not question her.  Clearly, I was led astray by the mainstream media. 

I know the the simpering crapweasels in the media spin like crazy and keeping their story straight as they change it to suit current necessity can be a challenge, but your statement is pretty high-larious given one of the anti-Palin narratives picked up and discarded in late 2008.

See, one of the earlier interviews Sarah Palin gave in the Alaska Governor's office showed an Israeli flag in the background.  In addition to speculation as to her uterus, some of the Palin-haters started to speculate if she had "dual loyalties" some Jews in America get accused of.

Here's one of the posts:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2008/09/dual_loyalties.html


So, which is it?  Is she an antisemite, or a crypto-Jew her own self, a sorta wanna-be "Frozen Chosen?"

Or, is the truth of the question something we need to determine by its utility --right now--as a club to beat her with?


I think Gelnn Reynolds is onto something with his "credentialed-but-not-educated" meme.

[roo_ster]

And The Award For Most Hypocritical "Blood Libel" Critic Goes To ...

http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/01/and-award-for-most-hypocritical-blood.html

Culling through the hyperbole and hypocrisy, the Official Award for most hypocritical criticism of Palin's use of the term "blood libel" goes to Andrew Cohen...

Writing recently in The Atlantic, Cohen took Palin to task for using the term...

Cohen, though, recognizes that many people, including Cohen himself, have used the term other than in the historical context...

In May 2008, Cohen accused then presidential nominee John McCain of engaging in a "blood libel" not because McCain accused someone of complicity in murder, but because McCain criticized "activist judges"...

Cohen wrote: "So-called “judicial activism” occurs, in other words, when it’s your side that lost the case and it is nothing short of a blood libel against judges to accuse them of operating by fiat."

If Cohen so casually threw around the term "blood libel" in the heat of a presidential election, who is Cohen now to attack Sarah Palin for using the term as to false accusations that she caused the murder of several people in Tucson?

For such rank hypocrisy, Andrew Cohen is the Official Award winner. 

[roo_ster]

Use of "Blood Libel" beyond the Pale

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/113200/:

...As I’ve said before, her great gift — or is it a curse? — is her ability to bring out the ignorance, the dishonesty, and the sheer meanness of the credentialed-but-not-educated gentry class in full Technicolor glory.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

   

I was amused to hear on one of the NPR talking head shows this morning the indignant comment that the right’s political rhetoric was “beyond the pale”, when terms like “blood libel” were used. Not amused enough to pay any attention to who was beclowning himself, but amused enough to mention to a few folks that NPR was obviously anti Semitic, because it was not sensitive to the Jewish ghetto meaning of ”the Pale”.

They're so damned ignorant.


Links to used of the term in question by folks on left and right going back to 1998:
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/256955/term-blood-libel-more-common-you-might-think
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/257057/team-sarah-points-even-more-recent-uses-blood-libel

Yet, Palin is the only one the media and lefties went completely apey over when she used it.  Perhaps it hit too close to the mark?


Oh, well, Millcreek would likely have a hard time convincing me out of the basic tenets of my faith.  It ought to come as no surprise that his faith is impervious to evidence to the contrary.


Finally, an image this thread topic may, someday, be worthy of:

[MicroBalrog]

This is why these people arre imploding.

Their arrogance. They gennuinely think we are so stupid as not to notice their attempts at sleight of hand.

We should really be offended by that.

[Ben]

The term "Blood Libel" is anti-Semitic, as much as "Niggardly" is racist.

Possibly more apropos would be comparing it to "gay". I guess the question is, does the modern use of a word or phrase negate its original meaning?

[MillCreek]

Oh, well, Millcreek would likely have a hard time convincing me out of the basic tenets of my faith.  It ought to come as no surprise that his faith is impervious to evidence to the contrary.

If by that you mean my opinion that the historical use of this term for many centuries has primarily been in an anti-Semite context, you are correct.  I do not deny or rewrite history.

If by that you mean my faith, most of us in the Methodist church don't feel a pressing need to convert people or convince them out of their faith.  We are pretty mellow in that regard.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Either way, this is more proof of my theory that Palin supporters will find any way to argue that what she's doing is clever. 

Using the term "blood libel" was clearly a bad move. 

Based on what I've seen here and elsewhere, it's much more of the opposite.  Palin critics will find any way to argue that she's being foolish/racist/ignorant/hateful/whatever. 

Question for the audience:  Does anyone honestly believe that Palin is antisemitic, and if so, are those beliefs based on substance?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

If by that you mean my opinion that the historical use of this term for many centuries has primarily been in an anti-Semite context, you are correct.  I do not deny or rewrite history.

You can say that with a straight face?