Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.
There are certain predictable symptoms to watch when a widespread amorality begins to infect a postmodern society: cultural relativism, atheism, socialism, utopian pacifism. Another sign, of course, is fashionable anti-Semitism among the educated, or the idea that some imaginary cabal, or some stealthy agenda -- certainly not our own weakness -- is conspiring to threaten our good life.
Well apart from the spooky placards (stars of David juxtaposed with swastikas, posters calling for the West Bank to be expanded to "the sea") that we are accustomed to seeing at the marches of the supposedly ethical antiwar movement, we have also heard some examples of Jew-baiting and hissing in the last two weeks that had nothing to do with the old crazies. Indeed, such is the nature of the new anti-Semitism that everyone can now play at it -- as long as it is cloaked in third-world chauvinism, progressive thinking, and identity politics.
The latest lunatic rantings from Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad are nothing new, and we should not be surprised by his mindless blabbering about Jews and his fourth-grade understanding of World War II and the present Middle East. But what was fascinating was the reaction to his madness: silence from the Arab intelligentsia, praise from Middle Eastern leaders ("A brilliant speech," gushed Iran's "president" Mohammad Khatami), and worry from France and Greece about an EU proclamation against the slander. Most American pundits were far more concerned about the private, over-the-top comments of Gen. Boykin than about the public viciousness of a head of state. Paul Krugman, for example, expressed the general mushiness of the Left when he wrote a column trying to put Mahathir Mohamad's hatred in a sympathetic context, something he would never do for a Christian zealot who slurred Muslims.
Much has been written about the usually circumspect Greg Easterbrook's bizarre ranting about "Jewish executives" who profit from Quentin Tarantino's latest bloody production. But, again, the problem is not so much the initial slips and slurs as it is the more calculated and measured "explanation." Easterbrook's mea culpa cited his prior criticism of Mel Gibson, as if the supposed hypocrisy of a devout and public Christian's having trafficked in filmed violence were commensurate with the dealings of two ordinary businessmen who do not publicly embrace religion. Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein simply happen to be movie executives, with no stake in producing Jewish movies or public-morality films, but -- like most in Hollywood -- with a stake in making money from films. That they are Jewish has absolutely no bearing on their purported lack of morality -- unless, of course, one seeks to invent some wider pathology, evoking historical paranoia about profiteering, cabals, and "the Jews."
Recently, Joseph Lieberman was hissed by an Arab-American audience in Dearborn, Mich. when he briefly explained Israel's defensive wall in terms not unlike those used by Howard Dean and other candidates. What earned him the special public rebuke not accorded to others was apparently nothing other than being Jewish -- the problem was not what he said, but who he was. No real apology followed, and the usually judicious and sober David Broder wrote an interesting column praising the new political acumen of the Arab-American community.
Tony Judt, writing in The New York Review of Books, has published one of the most valuable and revealing articles about the Middle East to appear in the last 20 years. There has always been the suspicion that European intellectuals favored the dismantling of Israel as we know it through the merging of this uniquely democratic and liberal state with West Bank neighbors who have a horrific record of human-rights abuses, autocracy, and mass murder. After all, for all too many Europeans, how else but with the end of present-day Israel will the messy Middle East and its attendant problems -- oil, terrorism, anti-Semitism, worries over unassimilated Muslim populations in Europe, anti-Americanism, and postcolonial guilt -- become less bothersome? Moreover, who now knows or cares much about what happened to Jews residing under Arab governments -- the over half-million or so who, in the last half-century, have been ethnically cleansed from (and sometimes murdered in) Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, and almost every Jewish community in the Arab Middle East?
And what is the value of the only democratic government in a sea of autocracy if its existence butts up against notions of third-world victimhood and causes so much difficulty for the Western intelligentsia? Still, few intellectuals were silly enough to dress up that insane idea under the pretext of a serious argument (an unhinged Vidal, Chomsky, or Said does not count). Judt did, and now he has confirmed what most of us knew for years -- namely, that there is an entrenched and ever-bolder school of European thought that favors the de facto elimination of what is now a democratic Jewish state.
What links all these people -- a Muslim head of state, a rude crowd in Michigan, an experienced magazine contributor, and a European public intellectual -- besides their having articulated a spreading anger against the "Jews"? Perhaps a growing unease with hard questions that won't go away and thus beg for easy, cheap answers.
Why call for introspection when the one-syllable slur "Jews" suffices instead?
A Malaysian official and his apologists must realize that gender apartheid, statism, tribalism, and the anti-democratic tendencies of the Middle East cause its poverty and frustration despite a plethora of natural resources (far more impressive assets than the non-petroleum-bearing rocks beneath parched Israel). But why call for introspection when the one-syllable slur "Jews" suffices instead?
And why would an Arab-American audience -- itself composed of many who fled the tyranny and economic stagnation of Arab societies for the freedom and opportunity of a liberal United States -- wish to hear a reasoned explanation of the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian war when it was so much easier to hiss and moan, especially when mainstream observers would ignore their anti-Semitism and be impressed instead with the cadre of candidates who flock to Michigan?
How do you explain to an audience that Quentin Tarantino appeals both to teens and to empty-headed critics precisely because something is terribly amiss in America, when affluent and leisured suburbanites are drawn to scenes of raw killing as long as it is dressed up with "art" and "meaning"?
How could a Tony Judt write a reasoned and balanced account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when to do so would either alienate or bore the literati?
So they all, whether by design or laxity, take the easier way out -- especially when slurring "Israel" or "the Jews" involves none of the risks of incurring progressive odium that similarly clumsy attacks against blacks, women, Palestinians, or homosexuals might draw, requires no real thinking, and seems to find an increasingly receptive audience.
You see, in our mixed-up world those Jewish are not a "people of color." And if there really is such a mythical monolithic entity in America as the "Jews," they (much like the Cubans) are not easily stereotyped as impoverished victims needing largesse or condescension, and much less are they eligible under any of the current myriad of rubrics that count for public support. Israel is a successful Western state, not a failed third-world despotism. Against terrible oppression and overt anti-Semitism, the Jewish community here and abroad found success -- proof that hard work, character, education, and personal discipline can trump both natural and human adversity. In short, the story of American Jewry and Israel resonates not at all with the heartstrings of a modern therapeutic society, which is quick to show envy for the successful and cheap concern for the struggling.
This fashionable anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism -- especially among purported intellectuals of the Left -- reveals a deep-seated, scary pathology that is growing geometrically both in and outside the West. For a Europe that is disarmed, plagued by a demographic nightmare of negative population growth and unsustainable entitlements, filled with unassimilated immigrants, and deeply angry about the power and presence of the United States, the Jews and their Israel provide momentary relief on the cheap. So expect that more crazy thoughts of Israel's destruction dressed up as peace plans will be as common as gravestone and synagogue smashing.
For the Muslim world that must confront the power of the patriarch, mullah, tribe, and autocrat if it is ever to share the freedom and prosperity of the rest of the world, the Jews offer a much easier target. So expect even more raving madness as the misery of Islamic society grows and its state-run media hunker down amid widespread unrest. Anticipate, also, more sick posters at C-SPAN broadcast marches, more slips by reasonable writers, and more anti-Israeli denunciations from the "liberals."
These are weird, weird times, and before we win this messy war against Islamic fascism and its sponsors, count on things to get even uglier.
These are weird, weird times, and before we win this messy war against Islamic fascism and its sponsors, count on things to get even uglier. Don't expect any reasoned military analysis that puts the post-9/11 destruction of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein's evil regime, along with the liberation of 50 million at the cost of 300 American lives, in any sort of historical context. After all, in the current presidential race, a retired general now caricatures U.S. efforts in Iraq and quotes Al Sharpton.
Do not look for the Islamic community here to acknowledge that the United States, in little over a decade, freed Kuwait, saved most of the Bosnians and Kosovars, tried to feed Somalis, urged the Russians not to kill Chechnyans, belatedly ensured that no longer were Shiites and Kurds to be slaughtered in Iraq, spoke out against Kuwait's ethnic cleansing of a third of a million Palestinians -- and now is spending $87 billion to make Iraqis free.
That the Arab world would appreciate billions of dollars in past American aid to Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority, or thank America for its help in Kuwait and Kosovo, or be grateful to America for freeing Iraq -- all this is about as plausible as the idea that Western Europeans would acknowledge their past salvation from Nazism and Soviet Communism, or be grateful for the role the United States plays to promote democracy in Panama, Haiti, the Balkans, or the Middle East.
No, in this depressing age, the real problem is apparently our support for democratic Israel and all those pesky Jews worldwide, who seem to crop up everywhere as sly war makers, grasping film executives, conspiratorial politicians, and greedy colonialists, and thus make life so difficult for the rest of us.
(20) Anonymous, April 10, 2005 12:00 AM
Courage - The missing link
What a wonderful display of factual analysis. Mr Hanson demonstrates that facts actually highly succeed in confronting fuzzy-wuzzy left-wing ideology with its consorting victimology and sugar-coated scapegoating of success.
What is lacking in our post-modern highly static societies,besides a surfeit of "intellectual" laziness is the lack of basic courage.
It takes courage, strangely enough, to actually think and ponder the facts, with no preconceived agenda.
May I suggest that people perhaps secretly resentful at having to accept, undigested, propaganda whether conservative or liberal, secretly hate the mirror held up by those who absolutely refuse labelling and insist on success..to wit the Democratic State of Israel.
It is, I think an affront, to all who would embrace victimhood and those who would bestow condescending "acceptance" upon the "victims". To be a survivor and then to move up to "success", rattles the cages of the many who would keep every individual under tight "control".
Yes the focus is always on Israel, and the Jewish nations, but for all the wrong reasons.
It should be really be a question of emulation and using the same patterns to also achieve success, prosperity.
However, where vested interests are concerned, I suppose it is too much work, and certainly "stressful" to care.
It is so much easier to destroy than to build....
(19) Diane Weber, December 7, 2003 12:00 AM
Insightful commentary on the madness of today's world
Nowhere have I read a more succinct and clear commentary on the madness of our world, where all that is Jewish, all that promotes freedom and democracy, and all that recognizes Israel's and America's accomplishments -- is a target for unmitigated hatred. This article summarizes what I have felt for a long time. America and Israel are united in more ways than one.
(18) Elba Montalvo, November 13, 2003 12:00 AM
Right on
Well written, clear analysis. Hoping for more articles like this. Many thanks for giving me a clear view. Long live Israel.
(17) Kathryn in Kansas, November 13, 2003 12:00 AM
Yes, even in USA
Yep, there's anti-semitism all around us. This article doesn't hit hard enough. Even the stone globes at Walmart these days don't have Israel...just a slightly larger Palestine! Imported from CHINA into our livingrooms for our kids to study....
kenny the K, February 12, 2015 4:37 PM
I didn't realize that
Kathryn I didn't know the globes at WM didn't show Israel, I'm going to look for myself. If that is so I'm going to write to WM and complain, not that it's going to do much good. Yep, anti Semitism is again rising; Jews should always be aware, and be armed as well.
(16) David, November 13, 2003 12:00 AM
Wake Up Call
A sad reminder of the world we live in today. Many of us are being forced to wake up from the naivety fostered by comfortable lives. No longer can we keep quiet. No longer can we deny who we are. The only choice left is to be good Jews.
(15) Steve, November 13, 2003 12:00 AM
Takes your breath away.
Hard hitting and on target as far as I'm concerned! As a decendant of two German brothers who came to this country over 250 years ago to flee anti-semitism, this country is like Custers last stand. It once again seems like the Nazis, (or their mentality) seems to have followed us here! Look around you and see what has become of a nation founded on Christian principles! It's disgusting to see what has come out of the woodwork like a slithering snake to once again rear it's ugly head!
(14) Sharon Kass, November 13, 2003 12:00 AM
Active antisemitism growing in U.S.
I live near Washington, D.C., and I get insulted, harassed, and messed over constantly due to antisemitism. People bumping into me on the street, in a store, on the bus and pretending it's an accident (or not saying anything); receptionists giving me the doctor's lunch hour for an appointment, which I don't realize till I get there; the health inspector coming into my apt. and marking up my belongings with his RED felt-tipped pen, which I discover later; the list goes on. Jews don't want to face that this is actually happening, but it really is. Really.
(13) Sheldon D. Klein, November 13, 2003 12:00 AM
why the meanering?
While Mr. Hanson makes valid points, it is most unfortunate that it takes much effort to find them. If only he would simply and clearly state his arguments so that even dummies such as I could easily see them, without having to wander through "rubric"and other expressions--as well as long, run-on sentences--his commentary would not only be instructive, but memorable. In which case, some action might be the result.
(12) Barbara Karlton, November 13, 2003 12:00 AM
It's true. Every last word of it. Long live the Jewish people.
Dear Mr. Hanson:
It's good you write your articles but, through out history G-d comes through all the time. We are indeed the chosen people and I am happy to say I am a Jew. We love everyone,even if we think we don't. We have never hurt any one unless they hurt us, and even if I were the last I would still say, Here oh Israel, the lord our G-d the Lord is one. I would love to stand out in a group of people. It is good to be free and to know who you are. Thank you for writting and, thank you for listening.
(11) David C Buxbaum, November 13, 2003 12:00 AM
Excellent article
This articleshould be widely circulated.
(10) David Morse, November 13, 2003 12:00 AM
Lieberman
I'm sure most people despise Lieberman because he is a "liberal" but I give
him credit for going before a crowd
that he had to know would not give him
even one vote, and many of whom
probably would be glad to see him dead.
By any means.
(9) rochelle abramson, November 12, 2003 12:00 AM
FABULOUS
Complex, well-reasoned, well-written, analysis is dead-on correct. Very depressing. No wonder I'm so alienated! Can't wait to read what Hanson says about Soros. As a Jew I was embarassed to learn he is a co-religionist.
(8) Bobbie, November 11, 2003 12:00 AM
on target
Tucked away in your insightful article was the one word which has driven this anti-semitism. Envy.
(7) Freda Flood, November 10, 2003 12:00 AM
Kudos
Brilliant article - one of the best I've read. Thanks, Victor Hanson, you are one of the "greats."
(6) Gary Knutson, November 10, 2003 12:00 AM
Author forgot about G_D
The author verbalized all of the reasons for Isreal's success i.e., education, hardwork, ect.. But most important, I believe, is G_D's care and protection of Isreal. You are His chosen people! G_D's blessings on Jerusalem! Shalom.
(5) Anonymous, November 10, 2003 12:00 AM
Whew!!
Powerful writing! Smart analysis, cogent, logical, in short, blew me away.
(4) Brian Camenker, November 10, 2003 12:00 AM
Not a good article at all
This article confuses legitimate concerns about the bad behavior of prominent Jews -- whom we must take to task -- with actual, viscious anti-Semitism that harms all of society. This is a distinction that we need to make and not simply gloss over.
(3) Mara, November 10, 2003 12:00 AM
I guess editing was required
I never saw editing of comments before at Aish. Now I wonder if other comments are edited. There is so much anger in your article. My point was that there is a lot of condemning others in your article. America did not enter the war( 2nd) until it itself was attacked (Pearl Harbour). Roosevelt knew what was going on as did all other nations. There is nothing new under the sun. Don't make assumptions about so called Leftists. We are all individuals with our own perceptions. I left out talking about Emet (truth). Chaver(friend) You do not have a monopoly on truth.
(2) Mara, November 9, 2003 12:00 AM
What the world needs now ...
What the world needs now is less ideology and more lovingkindness [in Hebrew Hesed]. We need lovingkindness to each other not a dialogue that tears the Jewish Soul apart.
(1) Ruth Broch, November 9, 2003 12:00 AM
Wonderful, concise, telling-it-as-it-is article. Am passing it around to friends.