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Why do we give Jews a 'Pass'?

I was reading an article in the "Atheist Revolution" blog and I came across this snippet:

When I encounter a parent telling her children about Santa Claus, I may find it unfortunate that someone would lie to one's own child merely for entertainment purposes. The potential for harm here seems trivially small. I cannot say the same for the Muslim parent instructing his son in the virtues of martyrdom or the Christian who tells her daughter that her Jewish friends will go to hell because they have not been "saved."

Could we not add something like the following to the last sentence:

...or the jew who tells his kids that he's "chosen" and has a covenant with god that entitles him and his "people" to the land of Israel, and then uses that as justification for a bloody occupation of Palestine.

The one-year anniversary of Operation Cast Lead is approaching (Dec. 27th) and I think we should take a look at where we've come since then. The Goldstone Report: buried. Settlements: expanding. Palestinian house demolitions: continuing.

As atheists, we should be appalled whenever religion is used to justify actions that result in suffering or death. We do not seem to hesitate to speak out when a child dies because a Christian Scientist eschewed Western medicine in favor of prayer. We do not seem to hesitate to speak out when a Muslim nutjob finds motivation in his religion to grab some firearms and gun down some people. Why are we silent when an ethnic group uses a story about chosen people and covenants in The Big Book of Jewish Fairy Tales (aka, the Old Testament) to justify what is looking more and more like a slow, methodical ethnic cleansing campaign? Why do the Jews need to have Jerusalem all to themselves? Why is it so important to them to have a Jewish majority that they'll turn Gaza into a prison camp and The West Bank into Swiss cheese where the Palestinians are forced to live on smaller and smaller plots of land and endure more and more restrictions on their movement? If this were being done to a Jewish population they'd be screaming about a second holocaust.

The bottom line is that all three major religions are guilty of many modern-day atrocities and have a great deal of blood on their metaphorical hands. Why do we only bewail the actions of two of those three major religions?

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Permalink Reply by Tony Russo on November 18, 2009 at 10:18pm

The closest thing I have to an answer is that Jews don't prosthelytize (except to non-believing Jews). I don't think it ought to give them a pass, but in comparison with the other two religions (which actively hate me and would happily ruin my life if given the chance) the Jews aren't a real threat (in the U.S.). When and if the Jews are in charge, I believe they'd be happy to let us all burn in Hell, as is god's will. The other two aren't satisfied with our eternal damnation and seem to need to keep up out of of Hell.
I would be really happy to hear that the rest of the world religions decided those who didn't believe weren't worth the trouble and spent their time and effort killing one another over relics.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Lin on November 19, 2009 at 1:17pm

In Judaism, there is no dogma about after-life. So, I would guess statistically most Jews don't believe in hell.

And God's will isn't really central in Judaism. There is a concept of free will which has been taught to the Jews for generations. The kind of free will isn't quite the same as the one we learn in philosophy, but at least there is one. Christianity, on the other hand, is all about God (Father, Son and the Holy Spirit) and a person has an Original Sin.

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Permalink Reply by Mel on November 18, 2009 at 10:24pm

In my neck of the woods, the peace process in Israel/Palestine gets a lot of screen time, school discussion time and publicity. The information is out there, and if your nearest mainstream media isn't providing it, look furthur.
MOST Jews in the rest of the world have had nothing to do with Israel's politics and will never have anything to do with Israel's politics. Ok, yes, they are considered citizen by Israel. But Britian practically only just stopped giving New Zealander's citizenship and we're on the other side of the planet.
But don't make out like the conflict there is purely religious. It's not. It has its roots in British Imperialism, a decision made 60 years ago by people who had no real right to do so and now 60 years of dipshittery on all sides.

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Permalink Reply by sacha on November 18, 2009 at 10:37pm

Verne Baxter: I do think there is less animosity directed at the Jewish faith simply because they are not specifically trying to change the U.S. into a theocracy or trying to force the teaching of ID in our schools. Their atrocities are happening across an ocean and are directed against powerless people with nothing to offer us. Why should we be concerned or act? That is the criteria this nation uses, isn't it?

I believe you were referring to the US.
Well said and tragically true.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Spicer on November 23, 2009 at 12:57pm

I'm not fond of using periods in abbreviations. I think it wrecks the flow of the sentence. I always leave them out for Latin shorthand like eg, ie, vs, etc. I don't use a period after my middle initial or in US. Just seems old-fashioned and clumsy to me. But I suppose this is a discussion best had over in the Linguaphiles and Sesquipedalians group.

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Permalink Reply by Louis on November 19, 2009 at 12:01pm

I can't speak for everyone but if I ever find reason outraged, I give no quarter.

To me a Jew who says that Israel is their land by birth right is as outrageous as a Muslim who says the same, it is as outrageous as a Christian who says it will be theirs in the end anyway.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Lin on November 19, 2009 at 1:06pm

Compared to Israel countries, Israel has done a good job protecting individual rights of its citizens and contrary to what most people believe, most Israelis are not very religious.

As far as religion is concerned, I think you need to know which sect of Judaism is bad. Many Jews agree that the Orthodox and the Ultra-Orthodox are ridiculously dogmatic. But we don't know too much about it to make fun of or do anything. I did come across one recently, though. That is Sapolsky's lecture on religion and psychology. It's on Youtube. Sapolsky is an ex-Orthodox Jew, so it should be good. An ex-religious person is usually good because they often provide us a lot of ammunition. :)

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Permalink Reply by Nate on November 19, 2009 at 2:17pm

Thanks, Rob. Please check out the group Atheists for the Gaza , started by John Bock,(http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/atheistsforthegaza) and the discussion Examining the differences between anti-Zionism and antisemitism(http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/conversationsonraceethnicityandcu...) for more information.

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Permalink Reply by Jared Lardo on November 19, 2009 at 4:32pm

Because the Holocaust industry has brainwashed us to ignore all the evils done by the self-proclaimed Jewish group. Well, it's not all conspiracy and gloom: to a great extent it's that there's no popular criticism of it at all. The Neocons jumped right on the Muslim issue and now we all have no problem complaining about the evils of Saudi rape victims getting treated as criminals, but those Neocons are squirrelly lil' bastards, 'cause if we start saying that Israel needs to act its own size (tiny) they get all butthurt and fart up a storm of defamation that'll keep us from ever being employed again. That's an exaggeration, but all the operating parts are there.

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Permalink Reply by Josh on November 25, 2009 at 4:45pm

There's no public criticism of Israel? Are you mad?

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Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on November 19, 2009 at 4:40pm

The fact is that I just heard on NPR that Israel is building more settlements in East Jerusalem, where, in theory, the Palestinians are SUPPOSED to be getting land back as a part of their West Bank settlement. Why do I doubt that the US will apply any significant pressure to the Israeli government to stop this action?