The vicious medieval legend behind Sarah Palin's 'blood libel' blunder

[steve2470]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/juliankossoff/100071654/the-vicious-medieval-legend-behind-sarah-palins-blood-libel-blunder/

Just for the record, the blood libel is a medieval legend blaming Jews for the ritual murder of Christian children, to drain their blood for use in secret religious rites.

It was frequently exploited after a child went missing, to bamboozle the peasants into slaughtering their Jewish neighbours, and was especially useful if the local spendaholic nobleman was in debt to the district moneylenders. These were inevitably Jews because the Church prohibited usury and it was one of the only job Jews were permitted to do – hence the the myth of the money-grabbing Jew. Indeed, in Plantagenet England there were several notorious episodes. The case of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln is mentioned by Chaucer, and has become well known.

Today, the allegation of political “blood libel” is periodically tossed into the inflamed debate that swirls around the Middle East conflict by paranoid nationalists and religious fundamentalists in a melodramatic attempt to silence the critics of Israel by accusing them of being anti-Semitic.

It’s a stupid thing to say, but at least the people saying it can claim it’s their own history. What’s Sarah Palin’s excuse?

Palin’s astounding moan that she is the victim of a “blood libel” whipped up by journalists and pundits only proves what the critics have been saying in recent days: political discourse in the USA is increasingly driven by a dangerous rage and, as the figurehead of the radical Right, she’s doing her best to inflame it. (A further ironic twist to Palin’s blunder is that Gabrielle Giffords, the Democrat congresswoman gunned down in Tuscon, is Jewish.)

[LemmingWarrior]

1. I doubt many of her audience actually know this

I wonder if this was intentional on Palin's part.....

[Raster]

2. T-u-c-s-o-n

[Andy823]

3. Well that's par for Palin

She had to come out and say something since everyone was wanting to know why she was being silent. She also had to make a big deal of it to keep here morons base happy, and she once again blew it big time! She couldn't apologize, it's not in her make up, and she couldn't keep silent, so she came out and put her foot in her mouth!

[AlinPA]

4. IMO, she used the term to get a lot of attention, immediately. The media is sitting there, waiting

and she uses an explosive, totally inappropriate reference to make her look like some sort of victim. Her dumb ass base will love it but they don't know anything about what it means. The media will have guests on TV for a week talking about it. This is part of her domination of the media time. She did it on the day of the memorial to get attention on herself, and away from the real victims and their families. They (her campaign people) know what they are doing.