Some people believe that it's a long way from the bad old days when sitting United States senators, such as Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, would refer to Jews as "kikes" on the floor of the Senate. But it is still quite shocking to hear a former U.S. Senator refer to a supporter of Israel as a "snake." Well, I am that "snake" -- a "real snake" to boot! And the former senator is James Abourezk who used to represent the great state of South Dakota. He used this ad hominem in an interview on, you guessed it, Hizbullah television. He gave the interview while visiting his favorite democracy, Syria, on August 30, 2007. The "snake" part of it was probably his most moderate statement.
Former Senator Abourezk then went on to blame what he calls this "immense wave of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiment" on the Jews. He says it began not on 9/11 but "after the Soviet Union collapsed." Listen to his "logic":
The Zionists were looking around for another enemy to have, because to them the Soviet Union was an enemy because they wouldn't allow Jewish emigration. So they used that as an organizing tool, basically, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, there was no more organizing about the Soviet Union. So they looked around, and they said: Well, the Muslims. Let's find the Arabs and the Muslims, and make them the boogeyman. And that's what they did.
Get it? The Jews always need a "boogeyman." They picked on the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union didn't pick on the Jews who they were discriminating against and preventing from emigrating. I guess the Jews picked on the Nazis before that. To be sure, he doesn't exactly use the word "Jews." Instead he uses the politically correct euphemism "Zionists." But in the context in which Abourezk uses it -- soviet jewery -- he plainly means Jews.
Then Abourezk gets to 9/11, which he also blames on the Zionists. Listen again:
"Well, because the Arabs who were involved in 9/11 cooperated with the Zionists, actually. It was a cooperation. They gave them the perfect excuse to denounce all Arabs. It's a racist sort of thing, really racist -- you know, picking out these 19 to 20 terrorists -- they were terrorists -- and saying all the Arabs are like them. So, you know, people in America don't really look at it that deeply, and they accept what the government and the press are saying."
Stupid Americans! We don't look at it "that deeply." We just fall for whatever the Jewish-controlled government and press feed them. What an insult to his former constituents. No wonder he is a former senator.
Finally, Abourezk defends his favorite democracy, Syria, which he believes has been demonized again by the Zionists.
"Well, the injustice is that because Israel...I'm telling you, Israel is behind this move, because they wanted Syria weakened somehow, and to be made an enemy of the United States, so they got their people in Congress to pass the act. You see, the members of Congress are afraid to vote against anything the lobby wants. So, this is something the lobby wants..."
And of course the Israel lobby in Abourezk's view "is controlling the Congress."
Well maybe former Senator Abourezk isn't so different from the late Senator Bilbo after all. He uses the word "Zionist" in precisely the same bigoted way Bilbo used "kike."