This is what passes for journalism on CNN these days.
ERIN BURNETT, HOST: An Egyptian woman, her name’s Samira Ibrahim, and she’s done a lot of things, courageous things. She’s also been criticized for sending tweets that are anti-Semitic, anti-American. Does the U.S. need to accept that when we want to make change. You have to support people that do those things – financially in term of awards, in terms of all these things – because it pays off in the end? Is that a trade-off we have to make?
There are two acceptable hatreds on the left. One is anti-Americanism. This is shrugged off as the natural response to the crimes America has supposedly committed in the past, or that America keeps committing. We see, every day, how people get a pass on hating the U.S., but if some American citizens speak their mind about not liking certain practices in other nations–well, they’re eviscerated as bigots. Hate America? Normal. Dislike anywhere else? Bigot. Got that? Because the next acceptable hatred is the one that’s been around for thousands of years longer than most nations and civilizations.
Now we get to the world’s oldest hatred, the hatred of Jews. Not Zionism. Jews.
Last August 4, commenting on demonstrations in Saudi Arabia, she described the ruling Al Saud family as “dirtier than the Jews.” Seventeen days later she tweeted in reference to Adolf Hitler: “I have discovered with the passage of days, that no act contrary to morality, no crime against society, takes place, except with the Jews having a hand in it. Hitler.”
These are the sentiments that Erin Burnett is wondering if we should just overlook them. Hates Jews? Happy that 9/11 occurred? Hey, it’s all good, because she’s against virginity tests for Egyptian women.
Can you imagine if Ibrahim had made racist remarks about President Obama? Can you image a journalist asking if it’s okay to accept them because it pays off in the end? Just overlook the bigoted remarks, after all, she’s against virginity tests for Egyptian women.
Of course there would be no question about the racism, and no explanation that perhaps we need to accept a little hatred because overall, the woman is a reformer.
Sure she is. She is now blaming “Zionists” for her not getting the award she was intended to receive. This is after she lied and said her account was hacked and that she hadn’t sent those tweets. Once the evidence was clear, she didn’t even have the stones to take responsibility for her own words–until she realized she’d be more of a hero in the Arab world now that the “Zionists” took her award away from her.
And don’t worry. Right here in America, people like Eleanor Clift will justify her behavior even while calling it appalling in the previous paragraphs. Because she’s against virginity tests for Egyptian women.
Over lunch she described gangs associated with the government that cut the hair off young women who aren’t veiled, and worse, medical gangs that perform circumcision on girls. “The American administration knows what’s going on and chooses to let it be,” she said, speaking through a translator. She added the dire prediction, “Ten years from now, Egypt will be exactly like Iran.” She was pleading for more U.S. intervention, saying that if America did not deter the Muslim Brotherhood now in their first year of ruling, then it would be impossible. There was nothing anti-American in what she was saying; if anything, she was looking to the U.S. to be democracy’s savior in Egypt.
As is always the case, they hate us–except when they want something from us. Yeah. Good luck with that now, you little hater. You don’t get to decry religious hatred by Muslim extremists against women on the one hand, and spout hatred of America, Israel, and Jews on the other. At least not openly. Too bad you didn’t learn how to use your codewords better. You’d have gone home with an award.