Moral or Factious?

The notion of black and white seems to be the pinnacle of moral thinking for some people. If they can just ascertain whose "side" you are on, then they feel they know whether you are right or wrong, or good or evil.

I write this because of an "@" mention I received on Twitter yesterday. I'm sure that, for some users, this is a common enough event, but the novelty has not worn off for me, being still a fairly new user.

Of course, the mention came from a spammer; no surprise there. What was surprising was the nature of the website that he wanted me to visit. His site was for Holocaust denialist.

I'm not going to dignify the site with a link, nor even mention this guy's user name. My point in bringing this up is that I had to ask myself, what the hell did I ever tweet to make this guy think, even for a moment, that I would even want to read, much less agree with, anything he had to say.

Granted, it is spam. So, I should expect it to be unwanted and unwarranted. But I have made several tweets in the past regarding the illegal acts of piracy that Israel made on the aid flotilla to Gaza. Could it be he thought that, since I oppose Zionism, and am critical of the IDF, that I must also hate Jews? And, if I hate Jews, must I also necessarily believe the Holocaust did not happen?

It wouldn't be the first time that anti-Zionism has been equated with anti-semitism. This is just the first time I've seen someone equate them so approvingly.

A former Facebook friend of mine, an utterly rabid fundamentalist Christian, sometimes spent all her waking hours posting to her wall propaganda that extolled every decision the state of Israel made, while questioning the veracity of any article that defended Palestine. If you dared challenge her opinion on the matter, she'd respond with ad hominem invective that you are an anti-semite.

The ironic thing about Christian Zionism like hers is that their support of Israel stems from their belief that the Bible predicts the coming of the Antichrist after an earthly Zion has been restored. So, they root for Israel with the belief that the Antichrist will come along and kill all the Jews there.* But you're the anti-semite if you disagree with Israeli foreign policy. Go figure.

So, let me state for the record that being anti-Zionist no more makes you anti-semitic than being pro-Palestine makes you Muslim. Furthermore, acknowledging the Nakba (the displacement of as many as 750,000 Palestinians from their homes by Israeli forces in 1948) is not tantamount to denying the Holocaust.

*According to expositions by John Walvoord and Roy Zuck "The Bible Knowledge Commentary", the dragon of Revelelations 12:13-14 represents the Antichrist persecuting the Jewish people in the holy land. Also, see:

Larkin, Clarence "Dispensational Truth" Glenside, PA: Larkin Est., 1918

"Waiting for Armageddon" 2008 (documentary) Kate Davis, David Heilbroner, Franco Sacchi

Thanks to Peter S. for help with the references