I have a question about the term "blood libel" that I hope someone can help with....

[mike_c]

I've been reading all over DU and elsewhere in recent days that the term "blood libel" is anti-semitic. I just read in another thread (about Sarah Palin) that the term is commonly used by neo-nazis.

I don't get it. As I understand it, the term "blood libel" refers to the lie that Jews murder Christian babies to obtain their blood, hence it means "the libel about blood." Labeling it libel does not sound anti-semitic at all-- just the opposite. Anyone who believes that lie-- or simply spreads it in hopes that others will believe it-- would certainly not call it libel. Only the people who object to the lie would call it that. Ditto for neo-nazis.

It sounds to me like the term is "pro-semitic" rather than anti-semitic. It's the libel itself that's anti-semitic. What am I missing here?

on edit-- just a brief note that I have a meeting coming up and then have to get ready for a trip to LA, so I might not revisit this thread for several hours. Apologies in advance if I appear to have abandoned it for a while. I'm sure someone will post a simple answer-- perhaps I'm just thinking about this too much?

[Unvanguard]

1. The term itself is not anti-Semitic.

Using it as Sarah Palin did, however, was at the least highly insensitive.

[mike_c]

3. thanks....

That's kind of what I was thinking, but so many folks SEEM to be equating the term itself with anti-semitism. That comment that it's a common term among neo-nazis is what really struck me as not sounding right.

[kestrel91316]

8. Neonazis no doubt use the tactic of blood libeling Jews, but I doubt they

say the words "blood libel" with any regularity.

[leftynyc]

2. I can only speak for myself here

(I am Jewish). The term blood libel is not anti-semitic. Blood libels have been used against the Jews for 1000 years. There is the claim we kill Gentile children for their blood to make matzoh for Passover, the claim that we manipulate economies, in more recent times it's been suggested that Israeli's poison the water in Palestinian wells - blood libels reflect all of those things. My objection to sarah's use was in comparing our history having blood libels used against Jews was in any way the same as the heat she was getting for using gun sights on congressional districts and all of her other violent imagery. She's playing the martyr and I find it repulsive.

[mike_c]

7. thank you....

I'm an atheist through and through, so I don't have any dog in this hunt at all-- just confusion about what I've been seeing in the press these last couple of days. Your comments were pretty much what seemed correct to me, too.

Now I really do have to run to my meeting! :hi:

[kestrel91316]

10. Exactly. By saying she is the victim of a "blood libel", she is in her megalomania

and malignant narcissism equating herself to all the Jews who died and suffered over the past 2000 years because people believed the blood libel against them and acted on it.

[librechik]

23. +100

[The Magistrate]

4. The Phrase, Sir, Does Come From People Who Denounce The Charge As A Lie

To give credit where it is due, the Pope current at the time this first began wide circulation, Innocent IV, denounced it roundly in official Bulls. The people who made the charge did not, and for that matter do (for you can still find the charge made today in all seriousness), believe it false but consider it God's truth.

Palin, of course, is simply trying to claim people who point out her violent rhetoric has an influence that amounts to trolling for assassins to kill her political opponents are the moral equivalent of the worst sort of Anti-Semites, and that she is goodness, and persecuted goodness to boot, personified in consequence.

[Lucinda]

5. I think - and I could be wrong - that she is using in the sense of Pilate

in defense of all the people saying that she has blood on her hands because of the shooting. She's saying that she is being blamed for actions of another.

There was an article on the 10th that I think they took the idea from:
The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel
Those who purport to care about the tenor of political discourse don't help civil debate when they seize on any pretext to call their political opponents accomplices to murder.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703667904576071913818696964.html

[smaug]

13. Palin, Beck, OReilly, Malkin, et. al are Stochastic Terrorists

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/1/10/934890/-Stochastic-Terrorism:-Triggering-the-shooters

This is another example of projection; grievance-based politics and false victimhood that has been constantly perpetrated over the past several decades by reich-wingnuts. Compare the methods and techniques of NewsCorp, Faux Noise to this:

http://brainz.org/10-most-evil-propaganda-techniques-used-nazis/?utm_source=scribol&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=scribol

For a purported Christian to use the term blood libel in this context is breathtaking in its hubris.

[Lucinda]

17. I don't know that I would call it projection in this case

I have seen countless posts here and elsewhere saying that she has blood on her hands. I think they just took advantage to spin what had been coming from our side of the fence. Not martyrdom, though I would bet she was shocked by the comments...I think it was just an expected political response.

[kestrel91316]

6. The term "blood libel" is the label attached to the act of libelling someone

Jewish by claiming that they kill Christian babies blah blah blah.

Use of the term itself is not a slander like use of "nigger" is, contrary to what at least one DUer has said.

English is not some folks' strong suit.

[EFerrari]

9. It's anti-Semitic insofar as appropriating the term and using it

as Palin did is an affront, one. Two, she's using it as dog whistle to her gross dominionist base -- look what the Jewish media is doing to me.

Dominionists sound "pro-Semitic", pro-Israel but their underlying logic is that at the end of the world, all Jews will be destroyed and only they will be saved. But they need Israel to exist in order for the End Times to occur. I hope I didn't garble that too badly. It's pretty sick stuff.

[rivertext]

11. other meaning of blood libel ???

You are correct. It isn't anti-semitic to use the term.

I think in a situation like this the media just repeats itself. I haven't done any research on this issue, but it is my understanding that the term "blood libel" has been used to describe an on-going anti-semitic action. In other words, every one today knows that the Jews murdered Christian babies, so this story is not spread around as it was in the Middle Ages.

Rightly or wrongly the term "blood libel" is also used to refer to the notion that a curse was put on the Jewish blood line by their alleged rejection of the true messiah -- Christ. When Mel Gibson made his crucifixion film, the most outrageous anti-semitism in it was his spreading of this lie. Does anyone here remember the term "blood libel" being used to describe this scene in the film where they say the Jews are cursed?

I would like to know if this is a correct use of the term "blood libel'.

[EFerrari]

12. Yesterday someone said on her FB page

"you don't get to use blood libel when you accuse a Jewish congresswoman of putting your Christian child before a death panel"

[cutlassmama]

15. I think this is the most salient point. The Congresswoman is

Jewish and for a Christian, especially this one, to use it was Anti-Semetic at best. At worst it just shows her ignorance once again.

[EFerrari]

16. As usual, Sarah is wrong in so many directions, it's hard to sort them all out. n/t

[The Wielding Truth]

21. Yes. Exceedingly bad choice of usage.

[onenote]

24. I think its the other way around

At worst it is antisemitic (and I don't think it is); at best it is a demonstration of her ignorance (which is what I believe it is -- she saw the term used by someone else and without the slightest idea of its meaning and history used it because it had a nice "i'm a victim" ring to it.

[The Wielding Truth]

14. She is responsible for fostering a climate of violence, so she has no right

to claim that blood (lie) was told about her.

She has taken a horrid lie that was used to turn a good people into a people that were feared and hated so much by that lie, that they were killed and abused so badly for generations that the suffering is unfathomable. She does not have that right to claim that the connection.

Her reckless, at least, rancor and bullseye map had a very likely chance at causing the worst consequence to the person, Gabrielle Giffords, that she targeted and the others on that map. She was held to account for those actions and she cried "Blood Libel". She used the persecution of a people for a horrific lie to compare her being held accountable for her violent rhetoric. She has proved that she has little or no compassion for anyone but herself.

[onenote]

22. an important distinction between what Palin claims is a "blood libel" and what the term means

The "libel" that Palin feels has been made against her is the claim that her rhetorical excesses have a proximate connection to the shooting of Gabby Giffords. While it may well turn out that such a claim is unfounded, and that the shooter was unaware of and/or uninfluenced by anything Palin has said or done, it is a fact that she published a poster that put Gabby "in the crosshairs" and thus speculation about whether that action influenced the shooter was not completely unreasonable, even if it turns out he wasn't. In contrast, the "blood libel" against the Jews was the wholly fanciful claim that Jews were killing Christian children in order to get their blood as an ingredient in Matzah. Equating speculation about something has an underlying factual basis but that turns out to be untrue with something that has no defensible factual foundation is what makes the two quite different.

[The Wielding Truth]

25. I agree. I thought I said that too.

[OHdem10]

18. Palin is comparing herself to Jews who were falsely accused and

persecuted. This is a part of history it is best not
to talk about. There is no basis for comparison.
What makes it worse is Palin is a Christan and Gifford
is Jewish.

Blood Libel is such a ugly part of history, it should
not be used period.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Mike it is the way it is being used

and chiefly it is part of an end of days eschatology.

Here is a cliff's notes

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x194484

[mike_c]

26. thanks, and thanks to everyone else who replied....

I don't feel quite so clueless now!