ALAN DERSHOWITZ: “The term ‘blood libel’ has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse.” You don’t say. He continues: “Although its historical origins were in theologically based false accusations against the Jews and the Jewish People,its current usage is far broader. I myself have used it to describe false accusations against the State of Israel by the Goldstone Report. There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim.”
UPDATE: From the comments: “Alan Dershowitz defending Sarah Palin tells me the lunatic left is just about out of ammunition.”
Heck, it’s gotten so bad that even Jonathan Chait is defending Palin.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Neo-Neocon writes that if you look at what people were saying on Twitter, “blood libel” sounds about right.
MORE: From Jeff Dunetz at Yid With Lid:
Every time Israel acts to defend herself, the mainstream media is rich with blood libel invented by Israel’s enemies and accepted as truth by reporters.
When it comes to Governor Palin’s use of the term blood libel, it was totally justified. The progressive media created a lie about Palin causing the death of a child, Christina Taylor Greene. Their charge was blood libel just the same way as the media spreading the al Durah myth, or the way the media spread bogus charges of Israeli massacres during the recent war with Hamas in Gaza (or in the case of Reuters falsified pictures).
Allow me to suggest that the media should not try to push their progressive bias by assuming the role of policing the worldwide use of the term blood libel. They would be much better served trying to ensure that they do not become the conduits for the spread of blood libels, either be it directed toward Israeli soldiers, or conservatives in the United States.
Good luck with that.
Also, reader Eric Fettmann sends this:
Plus, remember when the left was saying that Sarah Palin was a dual-loyaltied philosemite? That was the old spin. This is the new spin.