Mondoweiss hits new low in its defense of Salah with neo-Nazi term

The blog Mondoweiss has published a column defending Palestinian Islamist leader Raed Salah and blaming his arrest on excessive Jewish influence in the U.K. (Read here: The real preachers of hate: Britain arrests respected Palestinian leader.)  Written by free-lance journalist Jonathan Cook, the column not only fails to mention Salah's extensive history of anti-Jewish hate speech, it turns the facts on their head in a manner reminiscent of U.S. neo-Nazi leader David Duke.  Cook writes that the Israeli public "loathes" Salah not because of his bigotry and incitements of violence, but because his Islamic faith is "incompatible with the state ideology of Jewish supremacism".  The phrase "Jewish supremacism" was coined by David Duke to counter his being labeled a white supremacist.  Duke came up with the term in writing (with editorial assistance from David Irving) a book called "My Awakening", which described Duke's "Aryan vision for America".  (Read here.)

Now Mondoweiss has deployed that term to defend an advocate for precisely the sort of religious "supremacism" they purport to oppose.  In that, they are following the model of the originator of the term.  From David Duke they have learned that, when an anti-Jewish bigot is called out for having an extensive and indefensible record of hate speech, the best defense is to call the charge a manifestation of the intrinsic bigotry of any expression of Jewish political opinion.

Here's a longer quote from the piece which puts Cook's argument in broader context:

Most in Israel’s Jewish majority would not have been aware of Sheikh Salah’s supposed reputation as a Jew hater either, despite their hyper-vigilance for anything resembling anti-Semitism. True, he is generally loathed by Israeli Jews, but chiefly because they regard his brand of Islamic dogma as incompatible with the state ideology of Jewish supremacism. (Israelis) fear (Salah) as the leader of a local Islam that refuses to be tamed. Those Israelis who conclude that this qualifies him as an anti-Semite do so only because they class all pious Muslims in the same category.

Israeli officials detest Sheikh Salah as well, but again not for any alleged racism. His long-running campaign to prevent what he regards as an attempted Israeli takeover of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound – part of a wider “Judaisation” programme in the occupied areas of the city – has made him a thorn in their side.

Cook falsely claims that, in spite of Israeli "hyper-vigilance" concerning anti-Semitism, they have failed to detect any traces of that belief in Salah's utterances.  Cook may regret basing his argument on such an easily refutable misstatement of the facts.  It is one thing to reach an incorrect conclusion based on shoddy reasoning; it is another matter to ignore an extensive historic record of which at least some of his readers will be aware.  That's what brings such arguments into the realm of unintentional self-parody.  Such columns have a tendency to conveniently disappear after their distortions become evident even to those who want to believe them.

Let's take a look at Salah's views concerning Jews, the human rights of women and gays, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and on biblical history.  As you read Salah's words, remember that, according to Mondoweiss, if you oppose Salah's views, you too are a "Jewish supremacist" or one of their dupes.

“You Jews are criminal bombers of mosques,
Slaughterers of pregnant women and babies.
Robbers and germs in all times,
The Creator sentenced you to be loser monkeys,
Victory belongs to Muslims, from the Nile to the Euphrates"

[Source]

"We have never allowed ourselves to knead [the dough for] the bread that breaks the fast in the holy month of Ramadan with children's blood. Whoever wants a more thorough explanation, let him ask what used to happen to some children in Europe, whose blood was mixed in with the dough of the [Jewish] holy bread . . . Great God, is this a religion?  Is this what God would want? God will deal with you yet for what you are doing."

[Speech at the February 16, 2007 protest in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi Joz. Source.]

On 9/11:

“(T)he manifests of the two airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines, whose planes crashed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, included not a single Arab…. Yet three days later the FBI released the names of 19 Arab passengers, claiming that they were the hijackers of the four planes.”

“A suitable way was found to warn the 4,000 Jews who work every day at the Twin Towers to be absent from their work on September 11, 2001, and this is really what happened! Were 4,000 Jewish clerks absent [from their jobs] by chance, or was there another reason? At the same time, no such warning reached the 2,000 Muslims who worked every day in the Twin Towers, and therefore there were hundreds of Muslim victims.”

“Is it true that the American administration arrested five Israelis with European citizenship on suspicion of involvement in the incident[?] They worked for a Jew in a moving company, with forged visas, and were severely tortured during their interrogation so that they would give details about the incident…”

[Source]

Interviewer: What is your opinion of homosexuality?
Salah: It is a crime. A great crime. Such phenomena signal the start of the collapse of every society. Those who believe in Allah know that behavior of that kind brings his wrath and is liable to cause the worst things to happen. There is no solution for this, unless the individual’s faith is strengthened.

Interviewer: What is your opinion of the legislation now being discussed in the Knesset, which would grant Muslim women rights similar to those of Jewish women in matters of personal status?
Salah: That bill is tantamount to a war on Islam. It is an attempt to dictate different, foreign values that are neither Muslim nor Palestinian values.

Interviewer: What do you think of murder to save the family honor?

Salah: "There is no such concept and we do not recognize this concept. There is no such thing as `losing the family honor' or of committing murder `for the sake of family honor.' These are contradictions. We have the family and the family has its honor, which has to be preserved. We have to ask those who talk about murder for the sake of the family honor - mainly feminist organizations - what they did to prevent the murder of family honor itself. Unfortunately, nothing at all has been done in this regard. On the contrary: Some of the people who invented this concept are encouraging anarchy in the society, because they don't know how to handle the matter.

"All those who claim that women have the right to do with their bodies as they please are implanting anarchy in the society. If we say that a woman's body is hers and that no one may harm it, that is correct. But the danger is that some people interpret this to mean that a woman can do whatever she likes with her body, without taking into consideration the Islamic and Arab values. As such, they are helping put the woman to death while she is still alive."

The Al-Buraq Wall [the Islamic name for the Western Wall] is not the western wall of the Temple. Unfortunately, Jewish extremists, in the name of religion, are exploiting feelings of Jews on this subject and trying to sell them lies.

[Haaretz; Interview conducted by Jalal Bana; 10/24/2001 Primary Source;  Secondary Source ]

According to Mondoweiss, opposition to Salah's hateful views reflects Jewish disdain for the rest of humanity.  They've learned their lesson well.  That's exactly what David Duke says about opposition to his "Aryan vision for America".