The War on Main Street

 

Uptown in King’s Square today, the traditional centre of Saint John, there was a demonstration of perhaps thirty people, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free.” Ironically, only a half-block away from a sign advertising Saint John’s historic Jewish Museum.

We need to be clear about this.

This is not a call for democratic government. Israel is a democracy. Arabs under the Israeli regime are freer than in any Arab state.

This not a call for peaceful coexistence. “From the river to the sea” rules out any two-state solution.

This has to be read as an intention that seven million Jews be either deported or killed. Rather more than Hitler put to death in the Holocaust.

And to what purpose? Why should this be to anyone’s advantage, since Israel is a democracy? Surely only out of anti-Semitism.

One upside: back when I was an undergrad and a grad student, it was common to argue that antisemitism was caused by Christianity. I think Rosemary Reuther was the author who became famous for this thesis. A fellow grad student, Jewish, insisted to me that all Christian children were taught that the Jews murdered Christ. Having attended Catholic schools and never having heard such a thing, I demurred. But she assured me I must be wrong.

Now this claim is never heard--Muslims have shown themselves to be more anti-Jewish than Christians. In fact, now Christians are scapegoated for being too pro-Jewish; as recently by friend Xerxes.

It should not be illegal to say such things as the pro-Palestinians uptown were chanting. But I am shocked and disturbed there is not more social disapproval. 

Our times look more like 1930s Germany every day.