Blood Libel

[Anonymous]

This is surreal. I have googled and googled, and I cannot find usage of it outside of Jews and Israel (and one reference to the occult) prior to this year.

But now, suddenly, I am to believe that this term has always been used to mean false accusations because various conservative columnists have started using it?

Either they are making this up, or they have been using this term on conservative blogs and websites and believe it is an acceptable term. Maybe they were never taught that it is horribly offensive.

I can't wait to see tomorrow's wikipedia entry for it. They are going to rewrite the past, mark my words.

[Anonymous]

so the phrase is copyrighted and can only refer to events that happened 1,000 years ago? you sound like muslims who didn't like using the term "crusade".

it appears she is using the term exactly consistent with its historical meaning - being falsely accused of having blood on your hands. and probably as someone very religious, she is more than familiar with the term and thinks her use is acceptable. how the heck is it anti-semitic?

[Anonymous]

Alan Dershowitz defends Palin:

“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.”

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:so the phrase is copyrighted and can only refer to events that happened 1,000 years ago? you sound like muslims who didn't like using the term "crusade".

it appears she is using the term exactly consistent with its historical meaning - being falsely accused of having blood on your hands. and probably as someone very religious, she is more than familiar with the term and thinks her use is acceptable. how the heck is it anti-semitic

Who said it was anti-Semitic?

Do all right-wingers suffer from persecution complexes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so the phrase is copyrighted and can only refer to events that happened 1,000 years ago? you sound like muslims who didn't like using the term "crusade".

it appears she is using the term exactly consistent with its historical meaning - being falsely accused of having blood on your hands. and probably as someone very religious, she is more than familiar with the term and thinks her use is acceptable. how the heck is it anti-semitic?

I can google uses of the term Crusade that did not involve the holy land. I cannot find references to Blood Libel that do not involve Jews or Israel. Dershowitz' statement aside - as he does not speak for all Jews and since his usage also applies to Jews - I think this is a misuse of a racial slur.

I would love to se legitimate use of the term in a non-Jewish context prior to this event. If you know of something please share. Since you say it's "exactly" within its historical meaning, you should have no trouble supplying me with something that I somehow cannot find.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is surreal. I have googled and googled, and I cannot find usage of it outside of Jews and Israel (and one reference to the occult) prior to this year.

But now, suddenly, I am to believe that this term has always been used to mean false accusations because various conservative columnists have started using it?

Either they are making this up, or they have been using this term on conservative blogs and websites and believe it is an acceptable term. Maybe they were never taught that it is horribly offensive.

I can't wait to see tomorrow's wikipedia entry for it. They are going to rewrite the past, mark my words.

Perhaps you are not very good at googling. The columnist at NRO listed numerous recent examples:

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/256955/term-blood-libel-more-common-you-might-think

Eugene Robinson and Peter Deutsche are hardly conservative columnists. And I haven't even bothered looking at all the names of journalists/politicians listed on the page.

Just in case you can't click links either:

His expert pontificator on race was The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, who said the Pittsburgh hoax was “the blood libel against black men concerning the defilement of the flower of Caucasian womanhood. It’s been with us for hundreds of years and, apparently, is still with us.”

He criticized former Alaska Governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin for saying that she was “all for” profiling against Muslims.

“We’re not painting all Jews as thieves for Madoff’s economic crimes,” said Weinstein, comparing Palin’s comments to a “blood libel.”

Let me just talk a little bit about the whole, I guess, spin from the Republicans about — which has been to me the absolute most — the worst statements I have ever heard probably in my life about anything. I mean, almost a blood libel by the Republicans towards Al Gore, saying that he was trying to stop men and women in uniform that are serving this country from voting. That is the most absurd thing and absolutely has no basis in fact at all.

Andrew Cohen of CBS News, May 7, 2008: “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.”

But do, please go on and continue to use this as a pathetic way to criticize Palin.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:so the phrase is copyrighted and can only refer to events that happened 1,000 years ago? you sound like muslims who didn't like using the term "crusade".

it appears she is using the term exactly consistent with its historical meaning - being falsely accused of having blood on your hands. and probably as someone very religious, she is more than familiar with the term and thinks her use is acceptable. how the heck is it anti-semitic

Who said it was anti-Semitic?

Do all right-wingers suffer from persecution complexes?

Lots of people have thrown around the anti-Semitic accusation: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&pwst=1&sa=X&ei=jAIuTZDdCcL48Abc0bj8CA&ved=0CBwQvwUoAQ&q=blood+libel+palin+anti-semitic&spell=1&fp=ca05a7bb65e82229

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of that expression and I'm guessing Palin hasn't either. Hopefully that isn't true that jews do that, or did that in the middle ages. Probably not, and just the result of a lack of communication back then.

Hopefully. Because otherwise last year's Passover meal is really grossing me out right now. But I can totally see how a lack of communication could lead to a centuries-long slur against Jews: "What is that stuff?" "Ketchup." "Holy hell, by ketchup do you mean the blood of Christian children?!"

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:so the phrase is copyrighted and can only refer to events that happened 1,000 years ago? you sound like muslims who didn't like using the term "crusade".

it appears she is using the term exactly consistent with its historical meaning - being falsely accused of having blood on your hands. and probably as someone very religious, she is more than familiar with the term and thinks her use is acceptable. how the heck is it anti-semitic

Who said it was anti-Semitic?

Do all right-wingers suffer from persecution complexes?

Lots of people have thrown around the anti-Semitic accusation: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&pwst=1&sa=X&ei=jAIuTZDdCcL48Abc0bj8CA&ved=0CBwQvwUoAQ&q=blood+libel+palin+anti-semitic&spell=1&fp=ca05a7bb65e82229

I scanned through the first page of your google search. Let me clarify. I didn't ask for examples of the term "anti-semetic" being used in the same article as Palin's name. I asked who said Palin's use of the term was anti-Semetic? None of the articles I saw includes such an accusation. Can you provide an actual example?

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:so the phrase is copyrighted and can only refer to events that happened 1,000 years ago? you sound like muslims who didn't like using the term "crusade".

it appears she is using the term exactly consistent with its historical meaning - being falsely accused of having blood on your hands. and probably as someone very religious, she is more than familiar with the term and thinks her use is acceptable. how the heck is it anti-semitic

Who said it was anti-Semitic?

Do all right-wingers suffer from persecution complexes?

Lots of people have thrown around the anti-Semitic accusation: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&pwst=1&sa=X&ei=jAIuTZDdCcL48Abc0bj8CA&ved=0CBwQvwUoAQ&q=blood+libel+palin+anti-semitic&spell=1&fp=ca05a7bb65e82229

I scanned through the first page of your google search. Let me clarify. I didn't ask for examples of the term "anti-semetic" being used in the same article as Palin's name. I asked who said Palin's use of the term was anti-Semetic? None of the articles I saw includes such an accusation. Can you provide an actual example?

It's splitting hairs. We won't come right out and call her an anti-semite, but we'll write numerous articles about the video, referencing blood libel as an anti-semitic term. The media is certainly insinuating that she is.

It's ridiculous. The woman gave a heartfelt speech and everyone's ignoring the overall content and intent and concentrating on 2 words. Just trying to find ways to criticize her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It's splitting hairs. We won't come right out and call her an anti-semite, but we'll write numerous articles about the video, referencing blood libel as an anti-semitic term. The media is certainly insinuating that she is.

It's ridiculous. The woman gave a heartfelt speech and everyone's ignoring the overall content and intent and concentrating on 2 words. Just trying to find ways to criticize her.

That is ridiculous. I don't think she's anti-Semitic. What I think is that she is narcissistic -- comparing herself to Jews who have dealt with murderous ethnic/religion-based persecution for years? That's what I find offensive -- that she thinks she has suffered as much as the Jews. How self-centered can you get?

Hey Sarah, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen! Don't claim you've got it as bad as the Jews of the Middle Ages.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
It's ridiculous. The woman gave a heartfelt speech and everyone's ignoring the overall content and intent and concentrating on 2 words. Just trying to find ways to criticize her.

I found another way to criticize her. In her statement, she says:

"Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them..."

And she says:

"There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal" and devotes several paragraphs to suggesting that "those" claims are wrong (because there used to be duels -- no, I don't get her point either).

But, she also says:

"[J]ournalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn."

If crimes begin and end with the criminals who commit them and it is wrong to believe that rhetoric incites violence, why is she complaining about journalists and pundits inciting violence? She is contradicting herself.

She is literally saying that rhetoric does not incite violence, but claims that rhetoric incite violence do incite violence.

Her entire statement is available here:

http://www.facebook.com/notes/sarah-palin/americas-enduring-strength/487510653434

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I'm afraid she is just stupid.

[Anonymous]

she said that rhetoric didn't influence this act, and she likely is correct.

she then said that the media is only increasing the heat of the rhetoric that they are complaining about, and she is likely correct there as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of that expression and I'm guessing Palin hasn't either. Hopefully that isn't true that jews do that, or did that in the middle ages. Probably not, and just the result of a lack of communication back then.

You make a good point. Palin is an ignorant fucktard, so she probably had no clue "blood libel" was already taken.