More blood libel, more going to court, more “identity politics,” &c.

October 19, 2001 10:15 a.m.

y now, readers are familiar with a refrain of mine: “No one knows what’s in the Arab press, no one knows what the Arabs are saying, no one realizes how bad it is, the Western media have long sanitized the news from that part of the world, it matters critically — now more than ever,” wail, wail, wail.

Well, I’m going to wail some more. The invaluable Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI) has provided a translation of an extraordinary, and yet all too typical, interview with an Egyptian sheik named Muhammad Al-Gamei’a. He is “the Al-Azhar University representative in the U.S. and imam of the Islamic Cultural Center and Mosque in New York City” — in other words, a mainstream guy, in this context. Al-Gamei’a returned to Egypt after the 11th, citing harassment. And he gave this abhorrent, and dangerous, interview.

You can read his libels for yourself, but they include that: after 9/11, Americans refused to engage in commercial activity with Arabs. Arabs couldn’t go to hospitals, because Jewish doctors were making them sick. Americans were firing on mosques, and murdering Arabs in the street, with impunity. (Of course, in reality, cops are ringing everything having to do with Arabs and Islam — certainly in my city, New York.) Americans know that the Jews are responsible for the 9/11 attacks, but they’re afraid to speak up about it, for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic.

I will now do a little quoting:

“You see these people [i.e., the Jews] all the time, everywhere, disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs. [Because of them] there are strip clubs, homosexuals, and lesbians everywhere. They do this to impose their hegemony and colonialism on the world.

“Now they are riding on the back of the world powers. These people always seek out the superpower of the generation and develop coexistence with it. Before this, they rode on the back of England and on the back of the French empire. After that, they rode on the back of Germany. But Hitler annihilated them because they betrayed him and violated their contract with him.

“On the news in the U.S. it was said that four thousand Jews did not come to work at the World Trade Center on the day of the incident, and that the police arrested a group of Jews rejoicing in the streets at the time of the incident . . . This news item was hushed up immediately after it was broadcast . . . The Jews who control the media acted to hush it up so that the American people would not know. If it became known to the American people, they would have done to the Jews what Hitler did!”

I will stop now, and, as I’ve said, MEMRI has published the complete interview on its site. Bear in mind that this is not only libel — not merely harmless and absurd lies — but blood libel: the libel that says, falsely, that the Jews have committed murder, and are murdering. This stuff is as common as water in the Middle East. And — here is my refrain again — no one knows it: although they are learning a bit more now.

This is why it’s impossible for Israel or the United States to make progress in the Middle East: The people are fed on a constant, ceaseless, unending diet of lies. It raises the question: Can you blame them, for feeling and acting as they do? If you were made to believe what they are made to believe about Jews, Israel, and the U.S., wouldn’t you be the same way? Are they really at fault?

Well, a good many are at fault, including this damnable imam.

The worst part of that interview (almost), from my point of view? The sympathy the guy pretends for the United States and the American people: They’re not so bad, you see, it’s just that they’ve been horribly deceived by the Jews.

To hell with him.

Well, here was a depressing news bulletin: “U.S. prosecutors will likely try to indict suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his senior deputies on charges directly related to the Sept. 11 terror attacks . . . The indictments most probably would be sought from a grand jury sitting in New York, though other grand juries in the Washington area are available.”

The American love of the courts — bordering on religious worship — is pretty much comical in this instance, which is an instance of obvious and necessary war. Clarence Darrow, Atticus Finch, and Perry Mason simply have nothing to do with it, fellas. The attacks on our embassies, the attacks on the U.S.S. Cole, the attacks of 9/11? War, war, war, and to be treated as such, properly. That’s why the phrase “bring them to justice” is an alarming one. No, bring them to defeat.

You have perhaps noticed the following gambit, particularly from liberal arguers: Oh, in this terrible, awful, serious time, don’t the Lewinsky scandal and Gary Condit seem small?

No, actually, they don’t, and they shouldn’t be trivialized in this way. A president of the United States used a 21-year-old intern for sex in the Oval Office. He committed perjury, subornation of perjury, witness tampering, and abuse of power (and that’s just off the top of my head). He organized a good portion of the executive branch to cover up his misdeeds. And he was quite rightly impeached, though not, sadly, convicted.

As for Rep. Condit, he is a plausible suspect in the murder of a young woman.

Now, what seems truly trivial to me is, oh . . . how much of a milk subsidy James Jeffords received from the government, and whether Karl Rove was as nice to him as he might have been. That’s what’s asininely small.

Rep. William Lacy Clay, a St. Louis Democrat, is upset. The congressman is black — boy, is this relevant — and he claims he was “profiled” recently at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. You see, he was scanned by a metal detector after already walking through the primary security device. And, according to the St. Louis Dispatch, he is “concerned that if he can be profiled, Arabs and people who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent might receive even worse treatment.” The head of the St. Louis Urban League chimed in, “We know how it feels to be profiled. It’s another form of racism.”

Oh, grow up, people. Everyone is being treated this way at airports across the country in the wake of 9/11. Don’t flatter yourself that you are being singled out. I have seen it with my own eyes; I have heard the testimony of fellow travelers (pardon the expression). This sort of thing — the double metal-detecting and so on — is happening to everyone, including to little old Norwegian-American grandmothers trying to get out of Minneapolis.

There are so many things to say about the sheer selfishness and narrowness and audacity of William Lacy Clay that I can hardly type. I think of the expression, “The bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral” — the need to be always at the center of attention. I think of the line, “You’re so vain — you probably think this song is about you.”

Our national “song” at the moment is definitely not about William Lacy Clay and the color of his skin. It is about trying to think about how to keep Americans safe in the aftermath of a huge massacre and act of war. And perhaps William Lacy Clay can save his self-centered carping for a little bit later.

It’s tough all over.

Of course, everything about “identity politics” is reeking more than ever. Consider a little case involving the “director of research” at a group billing itself as the National Italian American Foundation. In a previous column, I quoted and commented on an interview with the Italian defense minister, Antonio Martino. It had been reported that Martino had said that his country would not join with the United States in its war, and that at the same time Washington must not act without a broad coalition. Later, Martino said that he had been misquoted — a claim that I duly reported in a subsequent column.

In the meantime, the Washington Times, a treasure of a newspaper, had quoted my original clip, blasting Martino. And then here comes Dona de Sanctis, director of research at the National Italian American Foundation, writing an indignant letter to the editor. She said, “It is a mystery to us why at this time of great national and international tragedy Mr. Nordlinger and The Washington Times should use their immense power [!] to alienate 25 million Americans of Italian heritage . . .”

Did you read that? Are you rubbing your eyes? “Alienate 25 million Americans of Italian heritage.” When I saw that, I was struck speechless (a rare occurrence). Who can think of ancestry at a time like this? Well, many can, obviously, and this is part of the American sickness. The idea that Americans whose forebears came from Palermo should be especially offended at a column criticizing an Italian government official in 2001 is mind-boggling, and also a little frightening, given the special need for American unity and a single national identity. Women like Dona de Sanctis, and groups like the National Italian American Foundation, are an albatross in this country, weighing us down, leaving us tense, bitter, and divided. What’s wrong with being an American? Isn’t that good enough? Who asked these people — who asked Dona de Sanctis — to represent Americans whose ancestors happened to come from Italy? What are they doing carrying water for a foreign power? Can’t the Italian Defense Ministry speak for itself (as, in fact, it did)? Can’t Dona de Sanctis and her gang of blood-obsessed friends leave the Balkanizing to the Balkans?

As I’m in a rather belligerent, McCarthyite mood, I would like to say to Signora de Sanctis, “Love it or leave it, cara (O amarlo o lasciarlo [in case she can’t speak English]). Be an American, or find your way to the nearest port. Take your hyphen and shove it [to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt]. There is no time now — and there should be little tolerance now — for your silly little ethno-national games. The economy is tough, yes, but you might try to find yourself a real job.”

Thanks.

We have been talking quite a bit, in the last few weeks, about American identity and about Arab-Americans in particular. (Who knew the “Italian-Americans” would figure in this? As Jimmy Durante used to say, “Everyone wants to get into the act.” Everyone wants to be a victim, wants his “ethnicity” to count. Apparently, being an American is just plain boring.) Anyway, much of our problem was encapsulated in a single New York Times headline, on October 13: “American Muslims: Caught in the Middle, with Disdain for bin Laden and Criticism for the U.S.”

That headline said more than its writer probably knew. To trot out a cliché — or rather, another cliché, this seeming the time for them — there is no middle ground. The president was right, bless ’im: Either you’re with us, or you’re with them. There is no middle when evil has declared war on good. And that starkness is just as clear now as it was from 1939 to 1945. Lovers of gray, and of nuance, will just have to wait for another day.

Speaking of headlines, here is a typical one, also from the Times: “Right-Wing Israeli Minister Shot in Jerusalem.” The reference was to Rehavam Ze’evi, who had resigned from Sharon’s cabinet the day before he was killed. Now, you could argue that the headline was rather unfair — mean — to the murdered man and his family (and country): What does it mean in the Israeli context to be “right-wing”? Ze’evi was a hard-liner, and he had no illusions about Arafat and the intentions of the PLO for the Jewish state. In this sense, more and more Israelis are becoming “right-wing” — the dovish, I would say capitulationist, group Peace Now is practically defunct at the moment. Also, the headline might have suggested to some that Ze’evi had it coming. Put it this way: If another cabinet minister — say, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, a Laborite — had been killed, would the headline have read, “Left-Wing Minister Shot in Jerusalem”?

Of course, there’s a war on (I’m speaking of the Arab-Israeli conflict now), and you could argue that everyone — certainly every government official — is fair game. But then you would have to call it a war when Israel acts, too — which the U.S. administration, to take one example, doesn’t like to do. Besides which, Palestinian terrorists are not too discriminating when it comes to killing Israelis: They didn’t ask for the voting records of the diners at that pizzeria; they didn’t inquire into the political views of the dancers at that disco. They just murdered, their specialty.

The Times’s headline was a little ill-considered.

Back to my refrain, about discovering what Arabs and Arab-Americans think. There is a good opportunity for an Arab-American or Arab journalist to talk to Arab-Americans and Arabs in this country, and report honestly to the rest of us what is being said. Of course, that person would be pounced on as a snitch or traitor. But he would be rendering a real service, and if I could pull off a sophisticated Black Like Me experiment, complete with accentless Arabic and all, I would do it.

I have an anecdote for you (and bear in mind the mot of the late, great political scientist, Aaron Wildavsky: One story is an anecdote; two stories are data): A South Asian friend of mine hops in a cab (New York). The driver — a Pakistani — feels he can speak freely to her: “Well, you reap what you sow, and the Americans had this coming” (essentially). My friend discovers that the driver and his family have been in this country for nine years, living off the fat of the land, so to speak. My friend — incensed, but having to arrive at her destination — refrains from telling him that, if he finds this country so wicked, he can see his way out.

So, you don’t like second-hand anecdotes about New York cabbies? I can accept that. But then you must dig out your own information, and not ignore a subject that is of ever greater consequence.

A peek at the mail. I have heard from many Americans working in the Middle East who report, with disgust and heartache, that the people around them responded either with outright joy or quieter satisfaction to the mass murder of our people on September 11. One man teaching English in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, wrote, “The thrill shown on the beaming faces of my oh-so-polite college-age students was a great gob smack.” Other letters reported worse.

Also, I remarked in the previous column that one correspondent had identified himself both as a reader of NRO and a listener to the NPR program “Fresh Air.” Many others wrote in to say, “Me too! Me too!” Must be a worthwhile show, “Fresh Air.”

Then there was this: “I was highly amused by your wondering how many conversations about Rumsfeld were taking place around the country, because my wife and I had virtually the same conversation as the one you recounted in your column:

“Wife: ‘Is that Rumsfeld?’
“Me: ‘That’s him.’
“Wife: ‘He looks mean.’
“Me: ‘I’d say he looks serious and stern, which are pretty good qualities in a secretary of defense.’
“(Wife nods in agreement.)”

As for Americans from coast to coast expressing solidarity with New York, and perhaps having a new appreciation for it, one man wrote, “Hey Jay, we might all love NYC, but gah-ron-tee, we still hate the Yankees!” Yeah, I know the feeling.

Finally, to my question, “Don’t you feel a little sorry for Barry Bonds and Rickey Henderson, achieving those great milestones and receiving so little attention?” many, many readers shouted back, No! They’re jerks!

Tough crowd.