Monday, December 17, 2007

Benjamin Franklin on the Jews: Classic [and highly mythical] antisemitism from a Syrian cleric:

[Links corrected 12/18/07]
According to MEMRI, Syrian Cleric Muhammad Sa'id Ramadhan Al-Bouti said on Al Jazeera that Benjamin Franklin had called upon Americans to Deport Jews from the U.S.

Simply put: this is completely false. No proof of this statement has been found in anything Franklin said. In addition, it contains language that was not used in Franklin's times, e.g. homeland. Moreover, the statement never surfaced before the 1930s. And it comes from a book which no one has ever seen.

If you need more evidence that this a hoax and an antisemitic canard, the ADL has done a good analysis of the history of this fraudulent claim. Significantly, this ADL piece quotes a number of leading Franklin scholars who debunk this nasty effort

Now we have to ask how this cleric got this information? It only surfaces on antisemitic and White Supremacist websites. I guess we know where he and his cohort are rummaging.

His use of this really gives one hope.....

5 comments:

Marilyn said...

Great blog! Merry Christmas.

John Nicholas said...

Please check your link under analysis. It takes us to the quote page linked earlier.

I would like to read the analysis.

Deborah Lipstadt said...

Done. Let me know if you still are having problems linking to the source.

hockey hound said...

Muslim clerics are notoriously mendacious and calumnious in regards to the Jews and Israel. This is run-of-the-mill hate propaganda for Muslim news media, and al-Jazeera is no exception. Such slander is unremarkable for newspapers in the Muslim Middle East or, for that matter, in any country where Islam is the dominant religion. Joseph Goebbles is alive and well.

Robert86 said...

I know this is an old blog post but it caught my attention because I constantly see on Neo-Nazi and White Seperatist websites, not to mention Youtube, numerous articles or videos chronicling what "Famous Historical People Had To Say About the Jews". They list commentaries from Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, etc.

Hatred is in many forms: I still see vehment Christian anti-semitism from both individuals and congregations even though most churches have abandoned the old "Jews killed Christ" canard. Hatred will never die. Least of all for the Jewish people it seems. I am not a philo-Semite but I cannot see why since ancient times, even before Christ, the Jews are singled out more than any other ethnic group. A simpler mind would say "Then the Jews must have a natural evil to them" but I can never accept that, not in my worst nightmares.