Daily View: Blood libel
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Commentators analyse Sarah Palin's accusation of of 'blood libel' against her.
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Sarah Palin's use of the term "blood libel" raises two possibilities:
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"1. She's so ignorant that she doesn't know that 'blood libel' refers to the myth that Jews drink the blood of sacrificed children.
2. She does know what it means, and blurted it out anyway."
that Sarah Palin's misappropriation of a phrase from the history of anti-Semitism should make her unelectable:
"More awful still, perhaps, is the context in which Palin has adopted the language: to recast herself as the victim in defending herself from claims that her language and behaviour may have helped create the context for the attempted murder of a congresswoman who, in fact, is Jewish.
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"Now, it is almost irrelevant whether Palin's language contributed to the shootings, or whether even her campaign's drawing of a crosshairs on Giffords' district was even known to the gunman. Because in defending herself Palin has more than compounded the sense that she is unsuitable for high office. It is almost impossible to find an explanation for this use of "blood libel" that casts Palin in anything but the most damning light."
Harvard Law Professor Sarah Palin, saying the term has far wider uses currently:
"There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim. The fact that two of the victims are Jewish is utterly irrelevant to the propriety of using this widely used term."
for perspective:
"In the grand scheme of things, the idea that Palin used a phrase associated with one particular, egregious and historically recurring false accusation to rebut a modern false accusation seems like little reason for outrage. For perspective on what really is worth outrage, the services for 9-year-old victim Christina Taylor Green are tomorrow."
that the intended meaning was not related to Judaism but inappropriate all the same:
"By 'blood libel,' Palin was referring, of course, to the charge that her own rhetoric had somehow increased the likelihood that a mentally disturbed young man would shoot people. And on the substance, she was right: There's no evidence that her words - or anyone else's - contributed to Saturday's tragedy.
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"But her statement also confirmed something that should disqualify the former Alaska governor from ever seeking higher office: She has no sense of proportion."
that Sarah Palin's use of the term is a good thing for Jews:
"Sarah Palin is such an important political and cultural figure that her use of the term 'blood libel' should introduce this very important historical phenomenon to a wide audience, and the ensuing discussion - about how Fox News is not actually Mendel Beilis - will serve to enlighten and inform."
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