Sunday, January 18, 2009
The anti-Semitism of the British elites
If Melanie Phillips is only half right, this is pretty chilling stuff. I wish I understood why the perception of Israel and the Jews is so different in Europe than in the United States. Sure, I understand the long history of it over there, but Europeans (including, for these purposes, the British) have changed their attitudes about a great many things in the last 100 years, including South Asians, Africans and Muslims. Why not the Jews?
9 Comments:
By 
smitty1e, at
Sun Jan 18, 10:23:00 PM:
I'm not a Jew (unless you want to go the 'by adoption' route of the Galatian Epistle) but I think it boils down to envy.
Given a culture superior by most measures to your own, your choices are to
a) emulate, or
b) envy and hate.
Route b) doevtails nicely with the progressive/postmodern agenda of nihilism.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sun Jan 18, 10:32:00 PM:
Where you work or go to school, or in any organization you belong to, isn't there a strong tendency that the person who points out a problem suddenly becomes defined as the problem? Everything was fine until they had to go and spoil everything.
Israel's situation is one of the sharpest indicators in the world that the UN/European elite model of foreign affairs does not work. That is intolerable to them.
As long as it was Hamas traumatizing Israeli children and killing a few it was considered low level, not news. It could be ignored and people could go back into their fantasies of how the world should work. Israel's determination to protect its people brings the ignored problem out in the open.
People think that if Israel goes away that all the other problems in the area will go away, as if violent tribalism has not been the norm in the ME for centuries.
By Viking Kaj, at
Mon Jan 19, 12:28:00 AM:
Pick up a copy of "Human Smoke" by Nicholson Baker.
Both Churchill and Roosevelt were notorious antisemites.
By 
, at
Mon Jan 19, 12:47:00 AM:
It's the mystery of evil isn't it? Irrational and inexplicable and the more we try to understand it the more we enable it. I just hope that the Jews around the world don't wait too long to get out (like they have before). There's really only two places for them to live, Israel and the US.
By Escort81, at
Mon Jan 19, 01:55:00 AM:
@Viking: "Both Churchill and Roosevelt were notorious antisemites." It's likely both of these towering figures of 20th Century history uttered an off-color remark directed at Jews from time to time, as was common among men of their backgrounds during that era. That doesn't make it right, of course, and I would not defend that. But there is a difference between "I don't want Jews in my country club / London private club" antisemitism and "OK, the next 200 Jews go in that railcar" antisemitism. Both are bad, but only one is murderously evil. The fact remains that whatever his personal prejudices, FDR enjoyed overwhelming support from the Jewish community in the U.S., so either FDR was good at hiding his inner Himmler, or perhaps it was not a big deal to Jewish voters. Also, Viking, I am a bit surprised that you would cite a work by Nicholson Baker -- a pacifist who would state that any and all wars are wrong, even one that was fought to defeat facism and Hitler -- to support your point. It is not the first time, though, that I have heard FDR painted as a "Jew hater," which surprises me each time it comes up.
As long as we are on the topic of FDR, let's do a little thought experiment. Let's say Israel never became a modern state -- that at that key moment in the post-WWII world, after FDR passed away and Truman had to decide whether to support the Zionist movement and have the U.S. recognize Israel, the Sec. Marshall school of thought won him over and he decided against it. Maybe the handful of American Jews who formed the American Council for Judaism and who opposed the establishment of Israel (because they believed displaced Jews would be safer in the U.S. in the long run, and did not favor Jewish nationalism) persuaded the Truman administration that not recognizing Israel would have no political cost in the Jewish community as long as the refugees could come here. Maybe it turned out that immediately after Israel, following the U.N. vote, declared itself a state, the Arab attack was successful and the state was stillborn. Whatever the scenario of alternative history, let's assume there is no Israel, OK? The Jews that live there now largely live elsewhere (the U.S., Europe, South America, South Africa) or live in a majority-Arab state in the Middle East.
Given all of that, does anyone believe that European antisemitism would not exist in some form today? Would it be any more moderate in its tone, or is it simply an immutable cultural pathology?
(Don't even bother speculating on what Arabia and the Middle East and Iran would look like without Israel to kick around, I am trying to be somewhat on point with the Spectator.uk piece).
By , at
Mon Jan 19, 09:09:00 AM:
Churchill an anti-Semite?
CHURCHILL, SIR WINSTON (1874-1965): British statesman. He strenuously opposed restrictive legislation on immigration into England, mainly affecting Jews, 1904-5; supported the Saturday Closing and Sunday Opening Bills; and fought for specific Jewish educational rights. As early as 1908, he expressed his "full sympathy with the historical aspirations of the Jews" to restore "a center of racial and political integrity" in Palestine. As Colonial Secretary, he virtually cut off Trans-Jordan from the Palestine Mandated territory (1921), and in the Churchill White Paper (1922) formulated what he believed would remain the basis of Anglo Jewish cooperation. His subsequent attacks against the measures proposed in the Passfield White Paper of 1939 were based on the premise that they constituted a breach of an agreed policy expressed in his own White Paper. Under his premiership during World War II, Britain maintained her respective policy in Palestine, but his Memoirs reveal that while concentrating singlemindedly on winning the war and wishing to avoid disagreement with his colleagues, he maintained his pro-Jewish attitude throughout. He was one of the first in Britain to insist on recognition of the State of Israel.
By , at
Mon Jan 19, 09:28:00 AM:
European anti-semitism has a long and disgusting history, even excluding the obvious German connection. Further, I think that the apparent tolerance of Asians, Africans, and muslims is likely less solid than one might think. Listening to people and reading articles written in the UK, and europe as a whole, I get the impression and feeling that the tolerance might be little more than a pretense.
I think that the focus of discrimination on the jews and the resurgence of blatant anti-semitism is a matter of convenience. Jews are an easy target and are reluctant, to some degree, to retaliate. The multiculturism and tolerance of europeans, in general, is an illusion. Anti-semitism concurrent with the refusal to condem Islamic extremism is nothing more than cowardice. It underpins the government, a large, if not majority of society, a desire to not confront anything unappetising. Except of course Israel and the jews. It is a common thread throughout European history. Always makes me wonder why europe is held in such high regard ?
By Ray, at
Mon Jan 19, 11:16:00 AM:
I'm going to suggest the possibility that the relative lack of anti-Semitism in American discourse is because American universities were mostly founded (or greatly expanded, assuming their current form) in the immediate aftermath of World War II, quite often by people with vivid memories of said war. Also, quite a few of the most prominent American academics of that generation were Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe.
That doesn't keep a very old tradition of anti-Semitism from persisting, however, especially in the foreign policy establishment, as exemplified by Walt and Mearsheimer in the present day.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Jan 19, 01:54:00 PM:
"Always makes me wonder why europe is held in such high regard ?"
The more educated I become, the more I wonder that very thing...
