A blood libel too far
A blood libel too far

Please refute this, my readers ask.

Okay, but how do you refute an article – speaking of Michelle Alexander’s op-ed running in The New York Times – in which every thought is malicious and every word is a lie?

The piece weighs in at 2,281 words, which adds up to 2,281 lies. Where to begin?

To find anything to match this for blood libel hysteria, you have to go back to Germany in the 1930s and look up Julius Streicher’s Der Sturmer. Malice and lies, lies and malice, all of it to condition the public, to prepare the public, to alert the public that a Holocaust is coming. Is this what they are after, here in our day?

Sure seems like it to anyone who’s noticed the quickened tempo of slander against Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.

Apparently, that’s one state too many for the Times and Tamika Mallory…excuse me, Michelle Alexander.

The Times runs her op-ed with the following headline – “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine,” which is the biggest lie of all…a real whopper.

Silence? All I hear is noise.

Farrakhan, Mallory, The Women’s March, Marc Lamont Hill, LeBron James, Alice Walker – they have all spewed anti-Israel blather, loudly…and only over the past few weeks.

Silence?

Still over the past few weeks we’ve been hearing from the Congress’ new darlings, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilahn Omar – what? -- nothing but defamation against Israel, as if the oaths they’ve taken were not for their districts in America, but for “Palestine.” They’ve shouted their feelings loudly and clearly enough so that even sleepy American Jews should get the message.

Their mud-slinging splatters us all…and why this week the Jews again for target practice? Was it because last week’s Trump smear failed, so let’s succeed by smearing the Jews?

Now in particular to Michelle Alexander in the Times.

(She lists herself as a civil rights advocate. That’s what the Times hires these days – advocates. No reporters.)

Is this where I am supposed to disprove her point by point? Is this where I give the facts? Yes, it is a fact that the 1.9 million Arabs residing in Israel enjoy the exact same liberties as the 6.7 million Jews. Yes, it is a fact that these Arabs live longer and live better in the Jewish State than do Arabs in the Arab states that surround Israel.

That’s enough.

I choose not defend because I refuse to be placed on the defensive when it is they, types like Michelle Alexander, who need to answer for their bullying, their prejudices and their bigotries. Not you. Not me. Talk about silence, it is the Jewish silence, the Jewish forbearance, the Jewish tolerance for anti-Jewish mendacity that needs awakening.

Sticking our heads in the sand won’t make it go away.

People like Michelle Alexander keep on coming, and The New York Times will be glad to publish them and delighted to give them Front Page.

If facts made a difference, I would go ahead and cite chapter and verse (which in fact I do in this and this book), but for people blinded by bigotry, it’s no use. It is no use.

They’ve already got their minds made up.

I admire the writers at CAMERA for giving it a good college try; trying to refute Ms. Alexander fact for fact. Good job. But it won’t make a difference.

No, only calling them out for what they are, blood libeling bigots, might make a dent. That, too, is doubtful.

I defer to King Solomon, who wrote: “A crooked thing cannot be made straight.”

That’s what this is – a thing so crooked it cannot be made straight.

Let them stew in their bitterness.

God bless America. Am Yisrael chai.

New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.

He is the author of the international book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal.” His sequel to that sensation is, “Slot Attendant: A novel about a Novelist.” His classic Inside Journalism thriller, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” is being prepared for the movies. Contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Engelhard is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com