Yesterday I said that Ahmadinejad hasn’t called for the end of Judaism, he has called for the end of the state of Israel–in something of the way that George Bush called for the end of the secular Arab dictatorship in Iraq. Jerry Slater takes exception:
Bush called for the end of the Saddam Hussein regime, (not voted into office by the people of Iraq), certainly not for the end of Iraq as a state. Moreover, given the history of the Jews, when someone calls for the end of Israel as a state, there is no choice but to see that as the end of the Jewish people who are part of that state.
I accept that I was a little glib about that; though I would point out that the U.S. has now decimated an Arab society in the name of regime change. Another reader, Anne Silver, pointed me to Virginia Tilley’s article saying that Ahmadinejad wasn’t threatening Jews, he is against the "Zionist regime" of Israel. Do I have a bottom line? Jews are legitimately fearful of existential rhetoric. Everyone needs to get past this stuff.
