PrintJanuary 15, 2009
Who said it? Bill Moyers or David Duke?
"The irony of it all is the Jews who believe they are ‘chosen'...better than anyone else, and entitled by God to kill and steal homes and land...are shooting themselves in the foot. Madoff, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, all Jewish American companies and investors, lied to the American people about their true financial status, and have sunk us all..."
- Comment posted on PBS website in support of Bill Moyers' Gaza commentary
While some viewers of "Bill Moyers Journal" recently went on the show's web page to congratulate Moyers on his January 9 commentary alleging that Israel targets civilians, others, including longtime fans, were surprised and saddened.
If they were surprised, they haven't been paying close attention in recent years.
They might have missed Moyers' friendly softball interview last year with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, one of the black community's most notorious racists and anti-Semites; as well as Moyers' recommendation to viewers of his earlier program "Now" that they go to the PBS website to read a worshipful interview with "esteemed intellectual" Noam Chomsky, who, weeks earlier, had visited and encouraged Hezbollah terrorists shortly before they launched their killing spree in Israel. (Similarly, Chomsky has praised notorious Holocaust denier Robert Faurison-who claims the Jews caused World War II, and mocks Holocaust survivors as liars-for the quality of his "extensive historical research.")
This is US tax money at work-yours, mine, and that of the loved ones of the courageous Navy diver Robert Stethem, who was tortured and murdered by Chomsky's Hezbollah buddies in 1985.
When did Moyers forget that real progressives are supposed to oppose fascists, totalitarians, and terrorists, not promote and empower them and their supporters?
The following remarks are from commentaries on the Israel-Hamas war by Moyers and by the world's best-known Nazi/Klansman, David Duke. Can you tell which is which? (The answers appear at the end.)
1) All you have to do is the look at the resolution recently passed by the House of Representatives (HRES 34 EH) with only 5 dissenting votes.... It condemns Hamas and the people of Gaza as terrorists but has no mention of the decades long Israeli occupation and strangulation of the West Bank and Gaza.
2) America has officially chosen sides. We supply Israel with money, F-16s, winks and tacit signals.
3) [People killed in Gaza] are the casualties and victims of Israel's decision to silence the rockets from Hamas terrorists by waging war on an entire population.
4) For over 40 years Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza, imprisoned and walled off its people.
5) Israel misses no opportunity to humiliate the Palestinians with checkpoints, concrete walls, routine insults, and the onslaught in Gaza.
6) By the blockades of food and medicine, by the checkpoints and by the mass bombing and resulting slaughter, Israel is endeavoring to make life so horrible for the Palestinians, that they simply leave Palestine ...
7) By killing indiscriminately -- the elderly, kids, entire families by destroying schools and hospitals -- Israel did exactly what terrorists do...
8) ...Israel has bombed and terrorized the people of the region for years, and ...will not recognize the government the people of Gaza voted for in free elections.
9) ...one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression.
10) It is time for the United States and all EU nations to completely cease all economic and military aid to Israel.
11) As if boasting of their might, Israel defense forces even put up video of the explosions on YouTube for all the world to see. A Norwegian doctor there tells CBS, "It's like Dante's Inferno. They are bombing one and a half million people in a cage."
12) Our political elites show neither independence nor courage by challenging the consensus that Israel can do no wrong. Although one recent poll found Democratic voters overwhelmingly oppose the Israeli offensive by a 24-point margin, Democratic Party leaders in Congress nonetheless march in lockstep to the hardliners in Israel and the White House. Rarely does our mainstream media depart from the monotonous monologue of the party line.
13) A tremendous array of media personal attacks and political sabotage both in influence and monetary will descend on the hapless [politician who opposes Israel] The same thing is true in media...
14) But those who raise questions are accused by a prominent reform rabbi of being "morally deficient."
15) Go to the Book of Deuteronomy. When the ancient Israelites entered Canaan their leaders urged violence against its inhabitants. The very Moses who had brought down the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" now proclaimed, "You must destroy completely all the places where the nations have served their gods. You must tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, set fire to the carved images of their gods, and wipe out their name from that place"....So God-soaked violence became genetically coded.
(Answers: Bill Moyers: 2,3,5,7,9,11,12,14,15; David Duke: 1,4,6,8,10,13)
How did you do? If it was difficult to tell the difference, we might have found PBS a replacement for Moyers when he retires.
A viewer who began her message to Moyers by saying, "Bill, you are someone who I had admired and respected for a long time..." asked, "Did you really say that violence is inherent in Jews?" It appears that he did, in the final quote cited. He reinforced this storyline by neglecting to mention that Hamas bases its terrorist operations among civilians, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, and that Israel warns civilians to leave battle zones. He further bolsters the stereotype by telling his audience that "Israel misses no opportunity to humiliate the Palestinians with checkpoints, concrete walls, routine insults, and the onslaught in Gaza," as if defensive measures were acts of gratuitous meanness, failing to mention that there were no checkpoints, walls, or military responses until years of Palestinian terrorism necessitated them.
Moyers has every right to imply that a uniquely murderous proclivity is genetically hard-wired into Jewish DNA, and to back up his claim by inaccurately stating that Israel is "killing indiscriminately -- the elderly, kids, entire families by destroying schools and hospitals --...exactly what terrorists do," after remaining silent for the past 7 years through 11,000 rocket and mortars attacks on Israeli civilians. The question is whether our tax dollars should continue sponsoring his inflammatory distortions and falsehoods.
Edward Olshaker is a longtime journalist whose work has appeared in History News Network, The Jewish Press, FrontPage Magazine, and other publications.
