Sunday, April 08, 2007

Right wing conservatives heart Israel? (not so much)

Denish D'souza, author of the pro-Islam tract "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11," is the new darling of the ultra-conservative right, beloved both for his stout defense of "traditional values" and for his stout attacks on the so-called immorality of the left. Uh huh.

Here is what D'souza says about Israel: "No one can deny the horror of Palestinian and Chechen attacks upon civilians, but these have to be measured against the state-sponsored terror on the other side: the bulldozing of Palestinian homes, the shooting of stone-throwing teenagers, the obliteration of the Chechen capital of Grozny ... by Russian troops."

Andrew Sullivan unpacks:
There is no mention in [The Enemy at Home] of the pathological anti-Semitism that currently accompanies these traditional Islamic societies. But D'Souza goes out of his way to draw a distinction between Islamist terrorism undertaken purely in the name of jihad--September 11, the Bali bombing, the London and Madrid massacres--and terrorism that he regards as legitimate self-defense. He puts "the conflicts in Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir" in the latter category. [emphasis added]
What ultra-conservative Christians like D'souza want is a return to pre-modern times when Christianity was dominant, and abortion, pornography, blasphemy and homosexuality were punishable offenses. They have no special love for the Jews, no special love for Israel; in fact, conservatives like D'Souza openly prefer Islam to Judaism. Muslims, you see, can be relied upon to fight and die for their values. They demonstrate obedience to the old moral code --unlike those pesky and disposable Jews.

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