Of Heretics And Head-in-the-Sand Hebrews

Of Heretics And Head-In-The-Sand Hebrews
by Gerald A. Honigman

Jeremy Seth Davis is a freelance journalist. I came to know of him via a recent article of his, Heretic, which appeared in Tablet Magazine.

I must admit that I have a few personal reasons for nailing this addition to a long list of Hebrews who get nasty with any others who disagree with their own agendas. I most definitely fit into his enemies' list...

Gladly.

Yet, I have no doubt that, over the decades, I have supported far more of his own Left's hijacked "Liberal" causes than Davis has--even if we were the same age.

Davis goes after Nonie Darwish, in particular, in this new article.

Nonie is a Christian convert from Islam and daughter of a prominent Egyptian army officer involved in Arab terrorist activity against Israel in Gaza decades ago--and taken out by the latter as a result. Davis lumps folks like her--Muslims who had problems with their own faith and so chose to leave it--with folks like me..."right-wing Jews" in his own words. In my case, an alleged right-winger who supports a dozen wildlife and conservation organizations; was the first to own a hybrid Prius in his county when they arrived from Japan in 2001; has had a solar collector on his roof for over twenty years and an organic garden; has taught such right-wing values to thousands of students; and so forth.

By the way, have I mentioned yet that Nonie is a friend of mine and wrote part of the Foreword to my own book, The Quest For Justice In The Middle East...the Arab-Israeli Conflict In Greater Perspective ( http://q4j-middle-east.com ).

Among other things, Davis claims that Darwish is disliked on campus because she sounds too much like "right-wing radio hosts."

Truth be told, Darwish is disliked on campus because prominent groups like the Muslim Students Organization, Arab Student Union, and various "Progressive" organizations believe that the only free speech and academic freedom allowed on campus is their own. Israel's Ambassador to the United States, prominent author, Dr. Michael Oren, was recently treated the same way that Nonie Darwish was by them. I guess he must be a right-wing fanatic too, since I know he's not a Muslim apostate.

For this subject, it's the message, not the messenger, that's the problem.

Before I proceed, let's just say that what I have already forgotten in the decades of my own academic and professional work in this field of study, Davis will never know...not to mention what's still available for recall by my neurons.

Sadly, like so many others of the Left, Davis resorts to name-calling...but when it comes to citing specifics, falls flat on his face. He offers little or no challenge to Darwish about her assertions--just protests that she dare mention them.

I have heard Nonie, read some of her work, have lectured on dozens of universities and elsewhere myself, and have run into the same problems that she and others have encountered...ignorance and intolerance--a combination of an outgrowth of the prevailing Muslim view of "freedom" when others disagreeing with them are concerned and the fascism of the Left.

But, don't bother Davis and his ilk with the facts. Indeed, when Nonie explains those simple facts, here's an example of what Davis has to say...

"Repeatedly, she portrays herself as an advocate for human rights in Arab countries; however, even a cursory look at her writing and public comments demonstrates that she is not so much interested in critiquing human-rights abuses as she is in critiquing Arab culture. 'The education of Arab children is to make killing of certain groups of people not only good, it’s holy'..."

Poor, pathetic Jeremy...

The sad fact is that many, if not most, of those human rights abuses Davis mentions above indeed certainly do occur because of a widespread, subjugating Islamic/Arab culture which, under only very controlled conditions, sometimes practices tolerance. His point about the intolerance Jews also faced in the Christian West does not change this fact one iota.

Whether the scores of millions of non-Arab (let alone Arab) and/or non-Muslim victims of such human-rights abuses are in the Sudan and elsewhere in black Africa; Imazighen/Berbers throughout North Africa; Copts in Egypt; Kurds in Syria and Iraq; native kilab yahud (Jew dogs) throughout the region; etc. and so forth, the stories are the same...and they are indeed the result of a subjugating Arab mindset dominant in Arab culture. My book is documented to the moon with valid sources which testify to this. Check out the extensive notes there. And apostates, like Darwish, are often doomed in Muslim societies--depending on which hadiths and Quranic interptretations are accepted.

On one of many occasions I could cite involving similar campus presentations Davis takes Darwish to task for, during the era of the infamous Zionism Equals Racism UN Resolution in the '70s, I was brought in to balance an earlier anti-Israel presentation by a professor at Ohio University in Athens. When I mentioned the fact that, as a card-carrying member of the London-based Anti-Slavery Society, I had much information about where the real racism could be found in the region and passed out that well-documented material to the audience, the proverbial manure hit the fan.

Like Nonie and others have experienced and which Davis seems to support, many tried to silence me as well. Read about that Athens event here--in another publication by one of Davis's alleged right-wing Jewish extremists, David Horowitz's Front Page Magazine...
http://archive.frontpagemag.co.....RTID=2092.

Davis next compares Muslim apostates to Jewish ones in the Middle Ages--making the point of the zeal of the converso for both. Fair enough...

Yet, in doing so, he misses the greater point and makes Darwish's own...

With the exception of the brief period of the conquests of pagan adversaries in Israel over three millennia ago and the dealings with the Edomites just prior to the Roman occupation of Judea, Jewish culture has most often (and to the point of its own detriment) allowed a tolerance of non-Jews and their own cultures far greater than what others typically experience in the so-called Arab/Muslim world (or in the realm of Christendom too for that matter).

Again, just ask a non-Arab Christian Copt; non-Arab but fellow Muslim Amazigh or Kurd; Muslim but non-Arab black African of Darfur in the west or Christian or pagan black African in the south in the Sudan; and other victims if further verification is needed.

No, Jeremy, this is all not simply a concoction of an over-zealous heretic and right-wing bigotry...

Jews did/do not target their apostates for death, did not outlaw their adversaries' own languages and cultures, nor--with a few brief exceptions in history--force their own beliefs upon others.

Despite the whitewashing of dhimmitude and such by some apologists, those "others" in Muslim societies frequently have had--and continue today to have--very serious problems.

And that's Darwish's point. There is a strong propensity for Islam (and the Arabism which sired it) to allow and promote the intolerance and violence that she speaks of.

Is it really just a coincidence or mere prejudice to point out that most conflicts recently occurring throughout the world have involved Muslims (Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo/Kosova, the Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Pakistan, Tunisia, Egypt, Thailand, the Philippines, Kashmir, Israel, Hamas, Hizbullah, Turkey, and so forth)?

Right-wing Jew or apostate Muslim propaganda?

Don't think so...

The more likely conclusion is that the author represents simply just another case of a head-in-the sand Hebrew, shooting from the hip, for the sake of those who would place his head on a pike anyway--as some other Jews have already found out the hard way (including journalists).

Yet pathetically, for Davis, pointing such facts out simply makes one a right-wing fanatic.