Giving credit where credit is due

In the long ago past, Jews were accused of heinous acts such as kidnapping Christian children and using their blood to make matzoh, or of poisoning wells, accusations that existed entirely separate from actual fact. That is, there was never any evidence that Jews actually engaged in these heinous acts. These accusation were the original blood libels: false charges intended to demonize an otherwise innocent group. In the Nazi era, the blood libels shifted. The Christian angle vanished with Jews instead accused of defiling innocent German maidenhood, and a Marxist element entered with Jews accused of controlling world finances (which, of course, explains why the Nazis felt impelled to slaughter millions of the world’s poorest citizens — Polish ghetto dwellers). Jews are still routinely accused of controlling things to the world’s detriment, and the blood libels and financial libels are alive and horribly well in the Muslim Middle East.

Jews, understandably, have always resented these libels, and modern Jews are not shy about speaking out vociferously against them. Modern Muslims, led by CAIR, like to speak out against calumnies against them as well. The latest Muslim anger is against a Canadian town that took steps to remind its Muslim immigrants that some behaviors will not be accepted in that town (h/t Captain’s Quarters):

Don’t stone women to death, burn them or circumcise them, immigrants wishing to live in the town of Herouxville in Quebec, Canada, have been told.

The rules come in a new town council declaration on culture that Muslims have branded shocking and insulting.

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Herouxville, which has one immigrant family in its population of about 1,300, is 160km (100 miles) north-east of Montreal.

Its council published the new rules on the town’s website.

“We wish to inform these new arrivals that the way of life which they abandoned when they left their countries of origin cannot be recreated here,” the declaration reads.

“We consider it completely outside norms to… kill women by stoning them in public, burning them alive, burning them with acid, circumcising them etc.”

It points out that women are allowed to drive, vote, dance and own their own homes.

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However, the president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, Salam Elmenyawi, condemned the council, saying it had set back race relations decades.

He told Reuters news agency: “I was shocked and insulted to see these kinds of false stereotypes and ignorance about Islam and our religion.” (Emphasis mine.)

It’s almost certain that Mr. Elmenyawi himself has never stoned a woman, burned her alive, or otherwise engaged in behavior that Westerners consider anti-social and even, maybe, misogynistic. Indeed, he may not even approve of those acts. However, unlike the Jews who could credibly deny using blood for Passover matzoh (it’s not even kosher), Mr. Elmenyawi is on thinner ice when he professes to be shocked, just shocked that a town would dare to use against Muslims “false stereotypes” about female circumcision, stoning, etc. Maybe he needs a little reminder of some recent events:

It’s appropriate to be shocked and offended when you’re accused of something you manifestly haven’t done. It’s a bit more disingenuous to strike that pose when there’s credible evidence that you (or your culture, I guess I should say) routinely engages in the alleged conduct. Perhaps rather than hollering at the top of his lungs that he’s deeply offended about the suggestion that his people engage in acts in which they, in fact, manifestly engage, Mr. Elmenyawi, if he does indeed find these acts offensive, should set his own house in order.

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