The blood libel that never was

We are all familiar with the moronic catchphrases Zionists have been using for the better part of the last half-century to justify what essentially boils down to the Israeli theft of Palestinian land, water and other natural resources. ”They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” “we’ll have peace when they love their children more than they hate us,” “we can forgive their killing our children, but not their forcing us to kill theirs”... It's amazing to see how many intelligent people, with PhD's and all, resort to these clichés for the mentally retarded when discussing Israel.

It is perhaps with those people in mind that British playwright Caryl Churchill has written a play called Seven Jewish Children, in which Jewish parents are depicted discussing what they'll tell their daughters as they bring them up, in seven different historical periods of the State of Israel. Here's an excerpt:

Don’t tell her they set off bombs in cafés
Tell her, tell her they set off bombs in cafés
Tell her to be careful
Don’t frighten her.
Tell her we need the wall to keep us safe
Tell her they want to drive us into the sea
Tell her they don’t
Tell her they want to drive us into the sea.
Tell her we kill far more of them
Don’t tell her that
Tell her that
Tell her we’re stronger
Tell her we’re entitled
Tell her they don’t understand anything except violence
Tell her we want peace
Tell her we’re going swimming.

Needless to say, the Ziosphere is up in arms against Churchill. She's been called an antisemite with a "pornographic interest in Jewish immorality" (here, endorsed here) and the "anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian Prosecution" (here), and her play has been described as an "insidious little play [that is] around to spread its poison" (here) or as a "hate-fuelled little chamber-piece" (here), among other vituperations. There's clearly a lot of frustration on display over the publicity the play has achieved.

It’s very amusing to see how many of Caryl’s negative reviewers have written critiques imitating the “Tell her that–” model (see here, here or here). The play has hit home, not because of its literary merit, which it absolutely lacks, but because of how effectively it ridicules Zionist brainwashing. The crude, childish indoctrination depicted in the play is in fact what young –and adult– Jews are fed by their political and religious leadership.

In a recent exchange over at the British political blog Harry's Place, I had to confront several commenters plus David T, the main contributor to the blog, who insisted that the play was a blood libel. The "proof" for the assertion was the following passage in the piece:

Tell her about the family of dead girls, tell her the names, why not, tell her the whole world knows why shouldn’t she know? tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies? tell her she’s got nothing to be ashamed of. Tell her they did it to themselves. Tell her (...) I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her.

David T's comment was:

This play claims that Jewish parents encourage Jewish children to revel in the dead of a civil war. That is, quite frankly, untrue. It is also essentially a rehashing of the Blood Libel.

But that is not what the play says. There’s a world of difference between saying “I’m happy she’s covered in blood” and “I’m happy she’s not my daughter.” The play describes, correctly, how Zionists are totally indifferent to the suffering of their perceived enemies. (In this they're no different from other people. They are different, however, in their pretending that they somehow care for their victims.) The play never says that Zionists enjoy it when they see the civilian deaths caused by their regrettable mistakes.

But even if it said so, would it be a blood libel?

By no means: according to all available evidence, the Zionists did revel in the destruction of Gaza. See in the video below how a group of Jewish tourists came to Sderot (which overlooks Gaza) to watch the carnage live. The video is in Danish, but enough English is spoken to raise the viewer's hair:



Pay attention (at 0:48) to how a lovely young Jewish lady called Keren Levy says she went there to see it with her own eyes; she didn’t want to watch it on TV. She then adds, “They chose Hamas to rule them; it’s their fault. They got it to where it is now, not us” (the “they did it to themselves” in Churchill’s prophetic play). Then, at 0:57, she states: “I think they should just clear off all the city, just take it off the ground. Yes; I’m a little bit fascist.”

It’s no blood libel to denounce loud and clear that these very sick people exist within Zionism, and that they don’t face any form of social shunning.