I know the Jewishness or not of the name Pearl is not a big issue in the
scheme of things, but since we are now discussing the possibility or
impossibility of being anti-zionist without being racist, I think it is
worth searching for the roots of such problems to see how they get
started in the first place. If you're no longer interested in this
thread, ignore.
"D. Simmons" wrote:
> Aside from this, we have a suspect in the case, Fahad Naseem, saying "Pearl
> was kidnapped because he was "anti-Islam and a Jew."
I was aware of that. His statement came after the fact, so it's kind of
useless, since we know these guys hate Jews. And I am also aware that
Perl with no A is normally a Jewish name, but I have never associated
the name Pearl with Jewishness. Janis Joplin called herself Pearl. Was
she Jewish? I actually don't know.
When I look up "the name Pearl" on google, I get many pages of hits, but
I don't see any reference in them associating the name with Jewsihness.
I didn't look at all the references; there were far too many. When I
entered "the surname Pearl" instead, I found this site: The Parle/Pearl
Family Association.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~sengercm/pearlmd.html
It says this about the name:
"Welcome to the Parle Family Association. This Association was created
to bring all the Irish Parles and related surnames together so that we
can all explore the roots of our common interests. The information about
the Parle family is scarce but it is most assuredly out there..... I
would like to hear from some of you out there about just we could do to
make this a real organization and repository for family history.
"Names associated with Parle are Pearl, Parolz, Perril, Parl, Parrel.
The surname Parle first makes it's appearance in the county of Wexford
in Leinster. The variation of Pearl is recorded in county Clare as well
as Galway. There is mention of a Galloglas by the name of Parolz in a
certain historical document yet dispite this obvious warrior type the
Parles seemed to be a sturdy breed of solid farmers and laborers."
Apparently, these people are laboring under the mistaken impression that
the name Pearl is Irish.
Here is another page: Notes on the Pearl-Pearle-Perrill Family of
Maryland.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~sengercm/pearlmd.html
No mention of Pearl being Jewish there either. What does this mean?
Are there really this many people who are as naive as I? Maybe you're
right. Is this another example of creeping anti-semitism? Have we
really hijacked the name Pearl and stripped it of its Jewishness? Is
this yet another sinister attempt to squash zionism?
Those are serious questions. I mean, they must certainly be taken as
seriously as levitt's question about whether it is possible to be
anti-zionist without being anti-semitic. In my response to that
question, I didn't raise my voice in indignation, which we are
apparently supposed to do now whenever someone says or does something
outrageous, but questions like leavitt's really do make me feel
indignant. I feel like I'm not allowed to criticize Isreal at all,
period. If I criticize Israel, I am called anti-zionist. When my
political incorrectness is pointed out to me, if I persist with my
criticism, I am called anti-semitic. No other group I know enjoys this
kind of automatic defense mechanism, which always prevails, except, of
course, the US government. If I criticize the US government during war,
I am labeled a misguided American who is exercizing the rights that
thousands of guys died face down in the mud to give me. If I persist
with my criticism after my unpatriotic attitude is pointed out to me, I
am labeled anti-American. This defense mechanism is in the nature of
fascism, but that fact is lost on anyone resorting to it.
Here we have a case where it has been argued that the name Pearl alone
was sufficient for terrorists who hate Jews to decide that Daniel Pearl
was Jewish and therefore the guy they should kidnap. One person said
that everyone he knows named Pearl is Jewish. But a simple search of
the web produced two sites devoted to families named Pearl, one site
identifying it as an Irish name, and neither site referring to it as a
Jewish name at all. Maybe those who equate anti-zionism with racism
would argue that these web sites have deliberately expunged references
to the Jewishness of Pear because they are afraid to reveal their
Jewishness for fear of attack from anti-semites. Well, ok, I guess, but
then who's fault is it if I don't know that Pearl is Jewish?
> I though Martin was being intentionally naive in asking the questions he
> thought I was ducking, but one can also use even a smidgen of logic to arrive
> at the conclusion that the group that snatched Pearl did not wake up one
> morning in Karachi and say,
>
> "Ahmed! What say we grab the first fellow that walks by and demand the
> release of our brothers at Camp Xray and then put him on camera for a good
> killin'?"
That's actually very badly wrong, Simmons. When the kidnappers sent
their first demand message to the press, it was clearly about the
treatment of the prisoners at Camp X-ray. If we change your
hypothetical quote to: "Ahmed! What say we grab the first AMERICAN that
walks by and demand the release of our brothers at Camp Xray?", then I
would say that is probably exactly what they did. I suppose they knew
that Daniel Pearl was a WSJ writer and assumed that meant he was
American. I doubt there was any more to it than that. They needed an
American to make their political point. After they had made their
point, and when it changed nothing, they killed Daniel Pearl.
Ironically, had they made their point and then let him go, they would
have won a real PR victory.
What does Issodhos mean? I keep asking you, but you keep not
answering. When I look it up at google, all I get are a lot of email
references to an [log in to unmask] Is that you? AOL RULZ!
martin
--
Martin Smith email: [log in to unmask]
Vollsveien 9 tel. : +47 6783 1188
P.O. Box 482 mob. : +47 932 48 303
1327 Lysaker, Norway
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