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 There is mention of a Galloglas by the name of Parolz in a certain historical document yet dispite this obvious warrior type the Parles seemed to be a sturdy breed of solid farmers and laborers."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