Is there some place we can send Helen Thomas? Maybe Vermont will take her.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister was met by a protester screaming “slaughter the Jews” as he spoke at the Oxford Union. Antisemitic and anti-Israel abuse was shouted throughout Danny Ayalon’s speech on Monday evening, with students causing numerous disruptions to the event.

During the hour-long session one student ran towards Mr Ayalon shouting the Arabic phrase “Itbah Al-Yahud” [Slaughter the Jews].

This is at Oxford and it’s an Oxford student. This isn’t some disadvantaged youth who blames all his problems on Jews. Not to let Cambridge off the hook. The Cambridge Islamic Society has a guest speaker who says he’d be happy to be a suicide bomber. Free speech is alive an well in Europe as long as you’re not a climate change skeptic.

Palestinian academic Azzam Tamimi, who has said he would be happy to be a suicide bomber, will address Cambridge University students tonight, despite calls from the Union of Jewish Students to revoke the invitation.

Who do those Jewish students think they are? What harm can come from Tamimi’s speech? Well, I guess Jews have a whole host of reasons to be concerned.

Never mind that von Brunn isn’t a member of the far right. Nor is he a member of the far left, as some on the right are claiming. He’s not a member of anything other than the crazy caucus. Von Brunn’s True North is conspiratorial anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. He’s not a member of the Christian Right. In fact, he denounces Christianity — just as Hitler did — as a Jewish plot against paganism and Western vigor. Nor is he a capitalist. Again, just as Hitler did, he hails socialism as the solution to the West’s problems.
Still, if we are going to play this game where we take the words of politicians and pundits, compare them to the words of murderers and psychopaths, and then assign blame accordingly, then let’s blame the New York Times, Chris Matthews, left-wing blogs everywhere, and the academics who penned The Israel Lobby (which blames a fifth column of Israel loyalists for our troubles).

I don’t really care if leftist blogs like the Daily Kos can’t see the forest for the trees. Those are outlets that kneel at the altar of Left. The problem is that mainstream news outlets are stuck using outdated templates.
The first story I read about this shooting on CNN had already labeled the psycho as a member of the extreme-right. Liberals have been successful at painting the “far right” as offshoots of Hitler for far too long when the truth is a lot more complicated. The political spectrum is certainly a lot more diverse that far right and far left. I won’t hold my breath waiting for educated news because the press is invested in this narrative.

Putting aside other objections to that nomenclature, if von Brunn is a member of the far right, then it would be helpful and journalistically responsible if the press would start calling Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, et al., moderates and centrists. That won’t happen, because the whole point of these exercises is to paint the Right as an undifferentiated blob of evil.

“Them Jews ain’t going to let him talk to me,” Wright said. “I told my baby daughter that he’ll talk to me in five years when he’s a lame duck, or in eight years when he’s out of office. …
They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. … I said from the beginning: He’s a politician; I’m a pastor. He’s got to do what politicians do.”

Unbelievable! Obama surely wasn’t vigilant against anti-Semitism during his 20 years as a member of Wright’s church. To get an idea of how the press has swept this lunatic under the rug, think back to Mel Gibson, who had the nerve to produce a movie about Jesus Christ. Making movies about Jesus requires the full investigative power of the New York Times, while running for president requires the full investigative powers of US magazine into the wardrobe choices of Michelle Obama. My guess is more Americans know that Gibson’s dad is a raving anti-Semite than know that Obama’s mentor is a racist and an anti-Semite. It’s like we’re living in an alternate reality.