Opinion

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Editorial

Bank On Fact, Not Rumor

T

he story was as infuriating as
it was predictable. It was first
published last April by the Daily
Mail in London and then carried by news-
papers as prestigious as the Guardian and
Times of London.
The report said that Holocaust studies
had been removed from British school
curricula in areas with large Muslim pop-
ulations. It indicated that officials were
concerned about "offending" students
who were being taught a different version
of events in their mosques and religious
schools; namely, that it was all a myth.
The story stirred a wave of outrage
because it was consistent with reports of
rising anti-Semitism in Britain and the
boycott of Israel announced by unions
representing British academics and jour-
nalists. E-mails were sent out denouncing
the action and they were still circulating
this month.
The problem is that the story is an
exaggeration of a single incident in one
school district. Even that may be spurious
because the news accounts never men-
tioned it by name —which should have
been a clear red flag.
According to Karen Pollock, a spokes-
person for the United Kingdom Holocaust
Educational Trust, the story came from

a line in a report on teaching potentially
controversial issues in history, such as
slavery, the Crusades and the Holocaust.
Pollock says that a course in the
Holocaust is mandated by law in the
National Curriculum in what is our equiv-
alent of the ninth grade. Other students
will study it further in classes on religion
and citizenship.
The incident referred to was in an
optional history course, and as far as
Pollock's organization knows, it has not
been repeated. Nor did the government
report on teaching history even come

close to suggesting that such courses be
dropped to avoid inflaming Muslim sen-
sitivities.
But the story has legs and thanks to the
indiscriminate powers of the Internet, it
is still circulating. What is more disturb-
ing, though, is how readily the story was
accepted as fact.
It fit.
Magazine articles refer to the British
capital as "Londonistan." They talk of the
bombing of the Underground last year,
the attack on the Glasgow airport and the
aforementioned boycotts directed at Israel.

All these fed into a perception that
Great Britain is increasingly hostile to
Jews and furnished the soil for such a
story to take root.
There is much to be critical of in
Britain these days. The crude attempts to
smear Israel and cater to Arab policy in
the Middle East should be opposed and
condemned.
But that makes it imperative that critics
are sure of their facts. Charging into battle
on the basis of rumor is not a policy that
bolsters our credibility. II

Forever Cheim by Michael Gilbert

GERSHON, FOR A GIFT
OF 500 KRUSLES W:tU
CAN TAKE PART RI
OUR ANNUAL, FuND-
RAIS(NG DINNER

WELL-, THAT'S
A LoToF MONeg,
RABBI, BUT Z DON'T
WANT TO MISS THE

DINNER, SO HERE

you GO

Reality Check

Putrid Presidents

D

onald Trump and some other
wealthy dolt were on TV recently
delivering themselves of the
opinion that George W. Bush is the worst
president in American history.
Well, I'm sure not here to defend Bush.
He finally lost me when he vetoed federal
funding for stem cell research and caved
in to the holy rollers.
But "the worst president?" Now that
covers a lot of ground and a lot of likely
candidates.
There are, for example, Franklin Pierce
and James Buchanan, possibly the weak-
est of all presidential successions. They
twiddled their thumbs and did nothing
throughout the 1850s while the nation
moved inexorably towards civil war.
There is Warren Harding, the greatest
argument, along with Benito Mussolini,
against ever placing a journalist in charge
of anything. An amiable chump, Harding's
pals were scoundrels, intent on looting the
treasury. Reports persist that his wife poi-

soned him, not only for his mar-
ital infidelities but because the
whole sordid scandal was about
to break open. Same scenario,
minus the sex, for U.S. Grant.
Then there is Richard Nixon,
whose undeniable accomplish-
ments cannot stand up to the
fact that he had to leave in a big
hurry. I'd throw Herbert Hoover
in there, too, for not being able
to grasp the enormity of the
Great Depression and puttering along,
business as usual.
And, of course, Jimmy Carter, who was
way out of his depth. As recent events have
made clear he would have been out of his
depth in a bathtub.
Bush certainly will be ranked with these
gems, barring a highly unlikely turn-
around in Iraq. But stranger things have
happened.
While we're discussing presidential
matters, isn't it odd that Mitt Romney's

religion should be emerging
as an issue?
It genuinely surprised me
that so many people regard
Mormonism as a danger to
the nation. Sure it asks its
adherents to believe some
implausible things — but
no less than a bush burning
without being consumed or
people coming back from the
dead. That is in the nature of

religions.
It is Romney's bad luck that a cable TV
series, Big Love, emphasizes the polyga-
mous aspect of his religion. I checked with
the authorities in Utah and they assured
me that big love is not a big issue anymore.
Even if it were, I'd say it's better than unho-
ly trysts with interns in the Oval Office.
To compound Romney's trouble, there
is also the recent release of the movie
September Dawn, a recounting of the
Mountain Meadows massacre of 1857.

Mormons are depicted as wild-eyed zeal-
ots who wantonly murdered a band of
pioneers and then grabbed their kids for
adoption.
I researched that crime for one of my
books, Bad Guys in American History.
Mormons feared that an invasion of
Utah by the U.S. Army was imminent.
Instructions went out to regard all intrud-
ers with suspicion, and a few members
of the pioneer wagon train had raided
Mormon farms for livestock. One renegade
church leader, John D. Lee, decided to take
things one step further and retaliated
murderously.
Lee fled Utah and was later executed for
the crime. But 150 years later its shadow
has fallen across a presidential campaign.
Proving once again, as William Faulkner
pointed out, the past is not dead. It isn't
even passed. 1-1

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor614@aol.com.

September 20 • 2007

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