by jc » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:50 pm
<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>2006-03-31 Wandering Jew - <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=15634">Propaganda</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> for the Insipid<br>by Alice Ollstein</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Overall, I felt the conference made every issue black and white. You’re either for Israel or against it. You’re either pro-Democracy or pro-evil regimes, as Israeli candidate for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it, “The world is split between those who oppose terror and those who appease it.”<br><br>The speakers and “informational” videos left no grey area, no place for dialogue or debate, and certainly no place for dissent. I especially squirmed at the parallels AIPAC drew between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hitler. To the tune of more dramatic classical music, the six enormous screens flashed back and forth between Hitler giving anti-Jew speeches and Ahmadinejad giving anti-Israel speeches. The famous post-Holocaust mantra “Never Again” popped up several times. Everything was geared toward persuading the audience that another Holocaust is evident ... unless we get them first. Now, I don’t dispute that Iran’s leader is a Holocaust denier or even that he could attack Israel, but I mind very much being forced to think he’s pure evil through clever sound bites and colorful images.<br><br>The screens faded to black and the speeches began, and I recognized, beneath the rhetoric, a battle cry. As U.N. Ambassador John Bolton promised “painful and tangible consequences for Iran,” and as Vice President Dick Cheney said, “The terrorists have declared war on the civilized world, but we’ll declare victory,” I noted the scariest division of all: You’re either pro-war or pro-Holocaust. <p></p><i></i>