Protected by Guilt and Fear

If one accepts the vocalizing of Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Americans, like Germans, should feel constant guilt for anti-Semitism.

(MANAMA, Bahrain) - How do most Americans react to criticism of Israel? Those who know little about the history avoid discussion.

Israeli attack on USS Liberty

Zionists and their followers, believing that Israel can do no wrong, support anything that Israel does.

Why do Americans avoid arguments or discussions of Israel? Both guilt and fear play key roles.

Germany has "an everlasting responsibility" for the crimes committed by the Nazis, Chancellor Angela Merkel said recently.

President Bill Clinton expressed the sense of guilt felt by many Americans about U.S. inaction during the Holocaust when he said that "far too little was done" to save the six million Jews from annihilation.

If one accepts the vocalizing of Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Americans, like Germans, should feel constant guilt for anti-Semitism.

Writer Ian P. McKinney notes that countries like Canada, Germany, and France have actually prosecuted individuals just for questioning the conventional version of the “Holocaust.”

McKinney adds, "Even here in America, where it is not yet illegal to publicly ask the wrong questions, any public figure that does so is subjected to smears, intimidation, and the attempted destruction of his career and reputation...."

JDL's Abe Foxman

At times the guilt felt by Americans is not so much associated with what they have done or failed to do, but with guilt for anti-Semitism.

I suspect there's more Jew-hating in America than even the Jewish population credits the less-than-open Aryans. Why would US government officials cover-up an Israeli terrorist attack on America?

In 1967 Israel treacherously attacked the USS Liberty. Israel knew it was a U.S. naval vessel in international waters.

Comments McKinney, "The greatest outrage that day was not the perfidy of Israel, however, but the treasonous compliance of the politicians in Washington, who refused to take any action against Israel and hushed-up the whole affair."

Israel attacks America and gets away with it. Could Israel do that without American guilt?

Adds McKinney, "Another example of Israel’s callous disregard for its supposed 'ally' America was the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, which killed over 200 U.S. servicemen.

"According to former Israeli Mossad agent, Victor Ostrovsky, Israeli intelligence knew of the plan by Arab terrorists to bomb the building in plenty of time to warn the innocent men, but cynically refused to say anything."

In addition to guilt as a root cause for avoiding any honest discussion of Israel, even when it attacks America, Abe Foxman refers to fear.

Foxman says, "America is now questioning where the balance is between security and freedom of expression: Should we follow the ethnic communities? Should we be monitoring mosques? This isn’t Muslim-baiting — it’s driven by fear, by a desire for safety and security."

Of course Foxman and the ADL have been constant reminders of how fear plays a major role in Jewish thought.

From the Israeli propaganda arm that supports every imaginable use of defence as a rationale for murdering Americans to creating defence shields.

Two American scholars, Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, had the courage to expose truths that many believed but everyone was afraid to expose: the effective control of the country by AIPAC.

In their book, The Israel Lobby, Mearsheimer and Walt argue that "No lobby has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest."

The aftermath of the book’s publication has been hundreds of papers and essays both attacking and defending it.

The anomaly has been the attraction of commentators who clearly express anti-Semitism. This elicits both fear in Jewish lobbyists and guilt in their targets.

Throughout his life as an educator, Dr. Paul J. Balles, a retired American university professor and freelance writer, has lived and worked in the Middle East for 40 years - first as an English professor (Universities of Kuwait and Bahrain), and for the past ten years as a writer, editor and editorial consultant.

He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month. He writes a weekly op-ed column for Akbar Al Khaleej (Arabic). He has also edited seven websites, including bahrainthismonth.com, womenthismonth.com