- On April 28, 2004, with little or no fanfare, members
of the House Committee on International Relations introduced a bill, H.R.
4230 to make the United States Department of State responsible to "Monitor
and Combat Anti-Semitism" everywhere in the world. The bill cites
several examples: (a) the speech of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of
Malaysia; (b) car bombings outside synagogues in Instanbul, Turkey; (c)
anti-Semitic slogans (unspecified) burned into the lawn of Parliament House
in Tasmania; (d) desecration by vandals of gravestones in a Jewish cemetery
in Russia; (e) attack on a Jewish school by vandals in Toronto, Canada;
and (f) a fire of unknown origin at a synagogue in Toulon, France. Narrowly
construed, this bill would not only have a special office in the State
Department to monitor such activities and make an annual report to the
Congress of them. State would also be expected in any country where anti-Semitic
acts occurred to "combat" those acts.
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- If enacted this bill will make the United States the
world policeman for any actions that Israelis or Jews anywhere in the world
feel is anti-Jewish. Moreover, as the act is written, it would make the
United States responsible for taking actions to counter such actions with
any government or organization that may be responsible for the alleged
acts. Since the bill is written so that what constitutes anti-Semitism
is a matter of judgment, there would be no end to the problems such a law
would create for US diplomats and no limit on the harassment of other governments
for alleged misdeeds.
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- Any sensible person will deplore acts against Jews or
their institutions and symbols, just as they should deplore such acts against
Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and other religious communities. And if
the Congress is so confused about its mission as to take this on, then
it should be ready to discharge the same responsibility for all the world,s
religious practitioners. There will be no end to it, because such acts
are often obscure in their perpetrators and intentions.
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- That, however, is not the problem with the purposes of
this bill. Its central purpose is to sweep under the rug any criticism
of Zionists, current Israeli leadership, Israeli settlers, and their supporters
for their actions against the Palestinian people. Its goal is to stifle
all criticism of extreme behavior such as building the wall around the
West Bank, assassinating Palestinian activists and their leaders, imprisoning
Palestinians without trial, torturing them in captivity, and taking their
ancestral homes without compensation. If objections to such acts are anti-Semitic,
than a growing number of people will be targeted by this legislation, because
most of the unhappiness in the world with developments in Israel is generated
by those actions, not by Jewishness or Judaism. Moreover, those objections
are wide spread, not confined to any society or any part of the world.
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- The American government and the United States Congress
cannot honorably be associated with a scheme designed to suppress legitimate
criticism of Israeli repression of the Palestinian people. In truth, the
Palestinians are Semites and Israeli actions against them are brutally
anti-Semitic. It is therefore predictable that if the Israelis stop those
patterns of repression and take actions to deal with the Palestinians as
people, yes, even Semites of equal worth, then much of the world objection
to Israeli behavior will subside. No US law can accomplish that purpose.
Nor can it police objections to Israeli misconduct. Only the Israelis can
change their own habits. The larger Jewish community must recognize this
and work to get it done.
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- The writer is a former Senior Foreign Service Officer
of the US Department of State and one of the signers of the letter sent
by US diplomats to President Bush on May 5. He will welcome comments at
wecanstopit@charter.net
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