Sticks and Stones
Parents used to tell their children to answer taunts with, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Maybe it’s time to revisit the power of words.
Parents used to tell their children to answer taunts with, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Maybe it’s time to revisit the power of words.
We’re used to others trying to find the fine lines between criticism, incitement and terrorism in the garbage that spews from parts of the Arab and Muslim world. In our own view, ultimately, the instigators and political defenders of suicide bombings share the blame evenly with those who carry out the despicable act. But it isn’t only Muslims and it isn’t only in the Middle East. Europe is in the incitement game big time.
Mikis Theodorakis and George Soros were just following Chirac’s frantic efforts to tone down the EU response to Mahatir’s diatribe against Jews. And the German general who blamed “the Jews” for the Bolshevik revolution, the French Ambassador who called Israel a “sh***y little country,” and a media establishment that has cooperated in turning Israel into the world’s most dangerous country in the eyes of its readers/viewers.
Unrelenting verbal attacks on Jews from Western Europe’s “sophisticated” elites cannot be divorced from physical attacks on Jewish property and on Jews. French, Greek, Dutch (Dutch!) and German Jews report living in physical fear. And now in Turkey. Could it be because Europe is one of the few places Jews and Muslims share physical proximity where verbal attacks against Jews are not only tolerated, but de rigueur for a certain political set? There are no attacks on Jews in Saudi Arabia for a reason. And few attacks on Jews in America, for a vastly different reason, we think.
We can be cynical, we think, about Europe. But what about Britain; our friend, our ally, our parent? Britain appears to be not only the locus of raving Islamicists but also a source of suicide bombers in the Middle East (see The London Times (11/17) “School for suicide bombers may be based in Britain”).
Check the tabloids on the 17th as well: “FORTRESS LONDON AS RING OF STEEL SURROUNDS BUSH” (Daily Mail) “BIGGEST’ TERRORIST ALERT FOR BUSH VISIT” (The Telegraph) sit side by side with “CHICKEN GEORGE” (The Daily Mirror) claiming President Bush declined to speak to parliament because he feared being heckled by anti-war parliamentarians.
Clearly, British authorities fear that their citizens are uncontrollable and dangerous, and they aren’t sure about their MPs. We don’t think the President should address Parliament either. But because we don’t think they merit a visit by the President of the United States if they can’t be presumed civil in the face of a political opinion different from their own.
Americans have long tempered “freedom” with the “end of my nose” concept, i.e., your freedom to swing your fist ends at the end of my nose. It is a healthy concept and in Europe today, most necessary to try to stem the tide of virulent incitement passed off as “free speech” that ends in violence against Jews.