Michael Devolin
Jimmy Carter and Democratic Anti-Jewish Hatred
By Michael Devolin
May 5, 2008 - 2:31:54 PM

It's no surprise to me that former president Jimmy Carter has met with the Muslim terrorists of Hamas. I could list the obscurantisms that come to light immediately one looks into to the views this man has recently disseminated to the world, but may it suffice here for me to say that these same views are merely indicative of a widespread phenomenon that has existed for years within Western culture. I recognize this phenomenon as anti-Jewish hatred, although some yet insist this egregious passion is merely anti-Israel political debate - without explaining why such political debate has always obdurately excluded the glaring transgressions of those Islamic regimes and Muslim terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbullah who, because of their religious assent to violence against Israel and her Jewish citizens, somehow subsist beyond the pale of culpability.

Jimmy Carter's disdain for the Jews and their Israel is altogether an old and ancient anti-Semitism now streamlined and sophisticated into what I define as "democratic anti-Jewish hatred"- a sort of populistic, politically correct anti-Jewish hatred. This politically correct version is become fashionable and subsequently adopted by Western clergy and academia. The Jimmy Carter version condemns Judaism as being responsible for Zionism, as though Zionism for religious reasons is contemptible; as though such condemnation is perfectly judicious. And subsequently, by force of the propellant inspiration that comes with publicly condemning Judaism and Zionism, these politically correct, democratic anti-Semites feel empowered enough to condemn Israel's Jews for also wanting to return to a land that was once theirs but was long ago ravaged from them by Islam's Arab Muslims. But of course, Islam's pilfering of Jewish property is not an issue with these avant-garde idealists.

Sam Harris writes that "while consensus among like minds may be the final arbiter of truth, it cannot constitute it. It is quite conceivable that everyone might agree and yet be wrong about the way the world is." The present democratic anti-Semites are not the minority, rather they are the majority. The populistic standard contending that Israel-bashing is not anti-Jewish hatred but simply nothing more than political critique is considered the norm by Western academia. This odious method of "politicking" is used today by "moderate" Muslims and their noetic friends as a medium for harassing Jewish students in the halls of our universities, both in Canada and the United States. Anyone harbouring ill feelings toward the Jews need only publicly excoriate the state of Israel and, presto, one is forever immune from being labelled a Jew-baiter. It's become as simple as that for today's pro-Islamist arbiters of truth.

Way back in 1975 Henry Kissinger, then the US Secretary of State, privately promised Iraq's foreign minister, "We can't negotiate about the existence of Israel, but we can reduce its size to historical proportions." Today a minority Jewish Diaspora are being constricted by an anti-Jewish majority world where calumniating Jews for their historical connection to Israel is acceptable but "profiling" Arab Muslims for murdering Jewish children in Israel is deserving of reproach from our Western elites.

Kissinger's remarks today would not require the secrecy they were given in 1975. Today it's considered avant-garde diplomacy to demand of Israel's leadership that they withdraw their borders to those of pre-1976, boundaries Abba Eban once aptly described as "the Auschwitz lines." Today it's perfectly normal for Condoleezza Rice to insouciantly demand that a Palestinian state be created contiguous to Israel as a homeland for a Muslim people whose majority vote in Gaza endued the terrorist group Hamas with the elective right to rule over them- providing the Western world with its first glimpse of Islam's peculiar version of democracy.

Jimmy Carter's asinine perceptions of the conflicts in the Middle East are symptomatic of the world's majority anti-Jewish sentiments. These are not only the feelings of Jimmy Carter; these are the cognizances of countless non-Jews in the Western world. As Sam Harris points out, such majority sentiments do not necessarily qualify them as being true reflections of "the way the world is." But all the same, as conveyed by Myles Kantor, "… a people's true character emerges as a majority."