ZGram - 5/7/2004 - "H.R. 4230"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

Zgram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

May 7, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Fierce attention needs to be paid to a newly introduced bill, H.R. 
4230, that would essentially obligate the United States to police any 
criticism of Jewish behavior as "anti-semitism" - a definition of 
"anti-semitism" being what Jews decide is not in their interest.  The 
bill itself is either amazing chutzpah or, much more likely, the last 
hurrah of neocon rampage across America.

A brief summary of what this bill would mean below:

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Is Congress Aiding A
Massive Israeli Deception?

Terrell E. Arnold
5-7-4

On April 28, 2004, with little or no fanfare, members of the House 
Committee on International Relations introduced a bill, H.R. 4230 to 
make the United States Department of State responsible to "Monitor 
and Combat Anti-Semitism" everywhere in the world. The bill cites 
several examples: (a) the speech of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad 
of Malaysia;(b) car bombings outside synagogues in Instanbul, Turkey; 
(c) anti-Semitic slogans (unspecified) burned into the lawn of 
Parliament House in Tasmania; (d) desecration by vandals of 
gravestones in a Jewish cemetery in Russia; (e) attack on a Jewish 
school by vandals in Toronto, Canada; and (f) a fire of unknown 
origin at a synagogue in Toulon, France. Narrowly construed, this 
bill would not only have a special office in the State Department to 
monitor such activities and make an annual report to the Congress of 
them. State would also be expected in any country where anti-Semitic 
acts occurred to "combat" those acts.

If enacted this bill will make the United States the world policeman 
for any actions that Israelis or Jews anywhere in the world feel is 
anti-Jewish. Moreover, as the act is written, it would make the 
United States responsible for taking actions to counter such actions 
with any government or organization that may be responsible for the 
alleged acts. Since the bill is written so that what constitutes 
anti-Semitism is a matter of judgment, there would be no end to the 
problems such a law would create for US diplomats and no limit on the 
harassment of other governments for alleged misdeeds.

Any sensible person will deplore acts against Jews or their 
institutions and symbols, just as they should deplore such acts 
against Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and other religious 
communities. And if the Congress is so confused about its mission as 
to take this on, then it should be ready to discharge the same 
responsibility for all the world's religious practitioners. There 
will be no end to it, because such acts are often obscure in their 
perpetrators and intentions.

That, however, is not the problem with the purposes of this bill. Its 
central purpose is to sweep under the rug any criticism of Zionists, 
current Israeli leadership, Israeli settlers, and their supporters 
for their actions against the Palestinian people. Its goal is to 
stifle all criticism of extreme behavior such as building the wall 
around the West Bank, assassinating Palestinian activists and their 
leaders, imprisoning Palestinians without trial, torturing them in 
captivity, and taking their ancestral homes without compensation. If 
objections to such acts are anti-Semitic, than a growing number of 
people will be targeted by this legislation, because most of the 
unhappiness in the world with developments in Israel is generated by 
those actions, not by Jewishness or Judaism. Moreover, those 
objections are wide spread, not confined to any society or any part 
of the world.

The American government and the United States Congress cannot 
honorably be associated with a scheme designed to suppress legitimate 
criticism of Israeli repression of the Palestinian people. In truth, 
the Palestinians are Semites and Israeli actions against them are 
brutally anti-Semitic. It is therefore predictable that if the 
Israelis stop those patterns of repression and take actions to deal 
with the Palestinians as people, yes, even Semites of equal worth, 
then much of the world objection to Israeli behavior will subside. No 
US law can accomplish that purpose. Nor can it police objections to 
Israeli misconduct. Only the Israelis can change their own habits. 
The larger Jewish community must recognize this and work to get it 
done.

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The writer is a former Senior Foreign Service Officer of the US 
Department of State and one of the signers of the letter sent by US 
diplomats to President Bush on May 5. He will welcome comments at 
wecanstopit at charter.net

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