Talk:Blood libel
In the first paragraph I changed:
- Similar allegations of Jewish atrocities to children, however, widely circulate
To:
- Similar allegations of Jewish atrocities to children still widely circulate
I think the shift from 'however' to 'still' makes the situation clearer - it is not that those who are, 'however', circulating them are on to something, but that they are denying clear proof. --MichaelTinkler
To balance the Saudia HRC delegate's charge, it would be useful to have a response from a Talmudic scholar and/or an Islamic religious leader (who has read the Talmud). I daresay either would readily deny that the Talmud contains such a saying.
By the way, what is the composition of the HRC? Are its leaders men with long pro-human rights records, or just political appointees by whatever country wants to be on the commission? I've heard disturbing rumors that an African country with over one million slaves is (a) denying that it tolerates slavery and (b) 'throwing the first stone' at other countries.
Ed Poor, Thursday, May 30, 2002
I have removed the following passages from the article, as they are racist, they are not presented from a neutral point of view, and in my opinion thay are certainly false:
Similar allegations of Jewish atrocities to children still widely circulate today in the Muslim and Arab world.
Syrian Minister of Defense, Mustafa Tlass, authored a book entitled "The Matza of Zion", which stated that in the 1800s at least some Syrian Jews ate babies, and did so as part of their religion.
In 1984 the Saudi Arabian delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission conference on religious tolerance, Marouf al-Dawalibi, publicly told the UN that "The Talmud says that if a Jew does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jewish man, he will be damned for eternity.
Egyptian Government newspapers regularly run newspaper articles presenting blood libel cases as facts, inciting hatred against Jews. Anti-Defamation League condemns Egyptian blood libel
If anybody has solid proof from a reliable source (no Zionist propaganda sites) that any of these bizarre allegations are true, please present it here. Otherwise, if you really want this kind of nonsense to be represented in the encyclopaedia, please rephrase it to NPoV, stating who made the allegations against Arabs, where and when.
GrahamN 15:22 Sep 2, 2002 (PDT)
I have removed these sentences fronm the article because they have nothing to do with "blood libel", and they are not written in a neutral way:
A modern form of the blood libel is widely spread on college campuses in the United States by Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam and the Khalid Muhammed's spin-off group, known as "The New Black Panthers". Members of these group publicly teach that Jewish doctors are part of an international conspiracy to infect African-Americans with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Many Palestinians have adopted this form of the blood libel; it is now widely taught amnong Palestinians that Jews are in a conspiracy to inject Arab children with the HIV virus. One example is the statement by by Ambassador Nabil Ramlawi, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the UN Commission on Human Rights, who testified in 1997 to the UN in Geneva that "the Israelis authorities have infected by injection 300 Palestinian children with the HIV virus during the years of the Intifadah."
GrahamN 15:24 Sep 2, 2002 (PDT)
Graham, I reverted your changes after checking the ADL source Anti-Defamation League condemns Egyptian blood libel. If you know of a source that discredits the ADL, please add it to the article, so readers can decide for themselves.
You may not delete text merely because you disagree with it or think it's "racist". Please review the NPOV guidelines before making similar deletions. In case of doubt, you can COPY an offending passage to talk and discuss it first; I often do this myself. --Ed Poor, sysop
I tried to verify the following sentence:
- These allegations first surfaced in the mediaeval period, although claims of ritual murder of Christians by Jews had been made as early as the 4th century CE (see Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, Bk VI: Chap. 16).
I found the referenced work online at http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-02/Npnf2-02-11.htm#P1770_766973. However, Book VI makes no mention of Jews at all, except to mention that John Chrysostom wrote a piece called Against the Jews while in Antioch. (And which is better translated Against the Judaizers.) Would it be possible to correct the reference, or to establish that the online version is somehow incomplete or misnumbered? Thanks, Wesley 13:21 Sep 4, 2002 (PDT)
Thankfully, SLR removed the italicised portion of the following paragraph in the main entry: "Syrian Minister of Defense, Mustafa Tlass, authored a book entitled "The Matza of Zion", which, according to some Zionist advocates, states that in the 1800s at least some Syrian Jews ate babies, and did so as part of their religion. Zionist advocates have also alleged that in 1984 the Saudi..."
A comment - these points are not allegations; these are actual events; they are historical facts. It is sad to see anti-Semitic historical revisionists attempt to use Wikipedia to subtly attempt to rewrite history by calling it into question. Secondly, these historical facts were not made by "Zionists" (which obviously is being used an insulting synonym for Jews); these statements have been made by both Christians, Muslims and Jews who came across these instances of blood libel. Frankly, Wikipedia can not work if anti-Semitic historical revisionists are allowed free reign. For now a small number of people have been able to keep such abuses in check, but in recent days the attacks against Jewish people (directly, or indirectly) have been growing. Those of us who are concerned about history as an attempt to learn and study historical facts must gather more people like ourselves to work here, to counter the efforts of the historical revisionists. Otherwise these attacks against the Jewish people will most certainly only be the tip of the iceberg. Next will come Irish attacks the the English (and vice-versa); Basque attacks against the Spanish (and vice-versa); extremist black-nationalist attacks against "white people" (and vice-versa); fundamentalist Protestant Christian attacks against liberal Protestants and Catholics (and vice-versa), and so on. We need to be ever vigliant against hatred and pseudo-historical revisionism masked as NPOV rewrittes. RK