By Dr. Charles Asher Small
Historically,
antisemitism has provided the perfect diversionary ploy for dictators
and demagogues. Today is no different. From Tehran to Timbuktu,
radical political Islamism (not to be confused with Islam the
religion), and the governments and institutions they control are
employing antisemitism as a highly effective means of distracting the
masses. Demonize Jews and Israel as you transform your society into an
intolerant theocracy.
Yet
little is heard from the Obama Administration in protest – or from the
mainstream media, or the self-proclaimed human rights progressives from
Western academia. The inconvenient truth is that global antisemitism is
alive and well – openly throughout the Muslim world, and, under the
cloak of so-called political correctness, in the West.
Case
in point: Egypt has just adopted a Sharia-based constitution that dooms
millions to second-class status, including women, religious minorities,
gays and lesbians and, of course, Jews. Its Muslim
Brotherhood-dominated government and president, Mohamed Morsi,
cynically promote antisemitic venom such as denial of the Holocaust and
the vicious canard of a Jewish conspiracy behind 9/11. And they remain
ideologically adamant in their overarching goals: the implementation of
Sharia to redefine society at all levels, and Israel’s elimination.
In
the face of this, the Obama Administration and the mainstream media
have been largely silent. In fact, eager to appease their supposed new
friends in Cairo and elsewhere, they are now busily promoting for U.S.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a former senator who has a problematic
history with Jews and Israel.
The
situation has reached a point where the political and academic elites
actually believe that speaking out against present-day antisemitism
somehow equates to opposing the valid aspirations of millions of
Muslims. They resist applying any honest analysis to political reality
on the ground, continuing instead to cling to failed notions like the
Arab Spring. They refuse to acknowledge the ascendance of a
hate-filled, anti-democratic revolutionary wave that is inflicting
incalculable harm on people throughout the Muslim world.
Interesting
how those same elites rarely miss an opportunity to denounce Israel’s
political leaders and the policies they must uphold to ensure their
nation’s survival in a violent unstable region that refuses to
recognize the Jewish state’s basic right to exist.
The
time has come for President Obama to act. The world must not witness a
repeat of 2009 when pro-democracy Iranians were slaughtered in the
streets of Teheran by agents of the regime – while the President did
nothing.
Sadly,
history seems to be repeating itself in Egypt, as Washington continues
to soft peddle the base nature of the Brotherhood and its ascent to
power in the region’s most important country. It’s a disturbing trend
that began with the President’s 2009 Cairo speech, when he invested the
Muslim Brotherhood with undeserved prestige by insisting on their
attendance, as he embarked on his policy of engagement with the Islamic
world. If Obama does not act to change course soon, that speech will
become his Neville Chamberlin moment.
Incitement
to genocide against the Jewish people is a basic tenet of radical
political Islamism. President Obama and his Administration must
confront it head on. Surely he knows the core lesson of the civil
rights movement: that blaming the victim only emboldens those who hate.
To be blunt, the President can take a principled stand in support of
human rights and against antisemitism. Or he can allow the forces of
intolerance to aggregate even more power.
How
can the U.S. turn a blind eye to a doctrine of antisemitism that
literally incites to mass slaughter? When the elites make excuses for
extremists in the name of mutual understanding and engagement then, one
fears, we have lost our way. To borrow the words of Martin Luther King
Jr., we must not sleep through this revolution.
Dr.
Charles Asher Small is Director of the Institute for the Study of
Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), and Distinguished Scholar at
the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
