Poor Jimmy Akin!

A few years back, I made the observation that whatever they may think about the Blessed Virgin Mary, conservative Christians in the United States (of whatever stripe) generally agree on the Immaculate Conception of the State of Israel and her preservation from all sin both original and actual. My view of the matter is based on the weird tendency of defenders of Israel to take the slightest criticism of Israel as a token of a desire to bull doze their nation into the sea–even when it’s Israel running the bulldozers and plowing under the houses of defenseless Palestinians. So, for instance, if you so much as criticize a blasphemous Israeli jiggle ad trying to promote tourism , people have hysterics and (I am not making this up) darkly suggest that you oppose the very survival of the State of Israel.

In an atmosphere like that, God have mercy on the poor schlub who offers anything less than the required fifteen minute hate against designated targets of Israeli wrath. So, for instance, Jimmy Akin commits the grave sin of not having hysterics about the (as he himself notes) extremely nasty, unlikeable, biased, and unprofessional Helen Thomas. The question he chooses to dispassionately address is “Is Helen Thomas an anti-semite?” His misfortune is that, instead of moving along with the herd of screamers who have been ginned up to automatically denounce her vile remarks as such he instead pauses to think. Doing so, he concludes that Thomas’ remarks were a lot of nasty, reprehensible and stupid things. But they were not what the term “anti-semitic” is meant to designate.

Hoo boy! The screamers come out ready to burn him at the stake. The poor man didn’t foresee that if complaining about a blasphemous jiggle ad betokens a thirst for Israeli blood, then anything less than full-throated denunciation of Helen Thomas’ remarks as anti-semitic would be a hanging offense. The point is not what words like “anti-semitic” mean. The point is shouting “anti-semite” whether the term makes sense or not.

Jimmy, God bless him, maintains his normal composure in the face of hysteria and continues to make clear his point with remarkable economy. To the charge that he is defending anti-semitism he replies with his customary clarity:

For what it’s worth, I don’t like Helen Thomas at all, and I think her remarks *were* offensive, and they were angry and malicious.

The question, to my mind, was, “What is the *object* of her hostility,” and the answer that seems reasonable (to me) from the clip is not the Jewish people as a whole but those who she sees as occupiers of “Palestine.”

It’s true that she mentions Poland and Germany, but she also mentions America and other places from which Jewish people have immigrated to Israel.

She doesn’t display anger towards Jewish people unrelated to the issue of Zionism, she doesn’t suggest that Jewish people are somehow inferior or by nature evil.

From what we can tell from the clip, she is an angry woman with a historical—not racial—grievance.

Or so it seems to me.

And as noted, I don’t even like the woman. I’m just arguing that the term “anti-Semite” should not be over used and do lose all it’s force due to the “boy who cried ‘wolf’” effect.

It’s that boy who cried wolf effect that I also object to every time somebody criticizes Israel. When the only response is “anti-semite” it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that pretty soon “anti-semite” gets drained of all meaning and becomes (very dangerously) a trivial charge. If you label everybody a Nazi pretty soon nobody is a Nazi and Godwin’s Law kicks in in international relations. Once the hysterics cool off, I think Jimmy’s analysis carries the day.

And please, don’t write to scream that I’m “justifying” Thomas remarks. I think she should be fired for them. She was waaaaay the hell out of line. I just don’t think her remarks are what the term “anti-semite” is supposed to describe.