In today's Jerusalem Post, David Horowitz decries the resurgence of the world's oldest hatred. He starts by discussing, and quoting from Nick Cohen's recent piece "Hatred is turning me into a Jew." Nick Cohen is a man of the left and a non-Jew, yet the virulence of the resurgent anti-Semitism in Britain is alarming, and non-rational, to him:
Cohen... steers his agonized polemic toward the consequent dangers facing his local Jewish community. In a stunning indictment of the current mindset, he asserts that Britain's Jews are "the only ethnic minority whose slaughter official society will excuse. If a mass murderer bombed a mosque or black Pentecostal church, no respectable person would say that the 'root cause' of the crime was an understandable repulsion at the deeds of al-Qaida or a legitimate opposition to mass immigration. Rightly, they would blame the criminal for the crime."
David Horowitz then adds a chilling corollary:
Let's just slightly rework his key sentences: Israel is the only sovereign state whose destruction international society will excuse. If it came under existential attack, we can guarantee that within minutes the airwaves would be filled with insinuating voices insisting that the 'root cause' of the crime was a rational anger at its behavior. Put like this, the position of Israel sounds grim.
Do we doubt any of this? Terribly, we cannot.
Indulged by societies that have lost their moral compass, Iran and the Islamists are banking on nothing less.
America has been Israel's staunchest and steadiest defender yet with the ascension of the newest "best and the brightest" to Washington, that support is waning even as the best and brightest believe they are paving the way for Peace. Barack Obama's intellectual background was steeped in academic political correctness and the same can be said of a great many of the members of his administration. They all attended our finest academies, studied the social sciences and incorporated the modern liberal post-modern mindset suffused with Political Correctness. This, more than naivety or venality, paves the way for disaster.
The core tenets of Political Correctness are often scoffed at yet there is an entire intellectual edifice that has been erected upon those core premises. In the PC academy there is no such thing as different endowments for different populations. If a racial group (and the very concept of race as a defining element is both denied and assumed in PC thought; consistency is conspicuously missing from the PC construction) is particularly unsuccessful in any meaningful area, and that group is an acceptable victim group, then their lack of success can only be attributed to the discrimination of the more successful populations. When no overt discrimination can be found, unconscious discrimination is invoked. At the same time, as if by definition, the victim groups have no responsibility for their plight. This construct applies equally to American blacks, with their record of past discrimination, current affirmative discrimination, and substandard achievement as to the benighted Palestinians, who despite their own manifestly disastrous behavior and failed culture are never held responsible for any of their own failures.
The denial of differences (even as the superficial diversity of skin color, if not the deeper diversity of thought, is celebrated) leads inexorably to anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, and ultimately to anti-Caucasian racism.
It is a fact of life that Western Civilization, that cultural triumph that has led to the greatest comfort, greatest freedom, and greatest wealth for the greatest number of people in history, was brought about by those who came from the Judeo-Christian ethic. These people were, and are, predominantly (but not exclusively) Northern Europeans. They are overwhelmingly white Christians, with a significant subset, often hated and repudiated, of white Jews.
Whether fueled by guilt or fear, the white (no longer particularly) Christian elites in Europe are all too ready to direct, and join in, the hatred of "the (Muslim) other" for the Jew.
President Obama's decision to take part in Durban II is tragic for several reasons, not just because it will further fuel modern anti-Semitism and Israel hatred. His efforts to show understanding of the toll that racism has exacted upon the third world nations that are the main actors in Durban II (such exemplary characters as Iran, Syria, Cuba) also unintentionally serves to reinforce the existing Politically Correct and noxiously dangerous belief that only white people and their allies can be racists. Some of the worst racism in the world exists in the third world, where Sunni Arabs detest Shia Arabs, Persians look down on Arabs, and they all consider blacks inferior beings. This far more extensive racism is ignored and hidden behind the smokescreen of rationalized anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism.
Barack Obama had the chance to move the dialog past the lazy, cliched, and ultimately extremely damaging strictures dictated by Political Correctness. His behavior, amplified by the misguided speech from the new Attorney General, will retard any chance of further detoxifying race relations. In fact, by showing himself unable to escape his own assumptions about the way the world is organized the Obama Administration is likely to worsen polarization and worsen the plight of the millions who suffer terribly from overt racism and hatred. In the process he is lending his august authority to those who imagine that sacrificing the Jews will protect them and resolve issues whose resolution will eventually require their complete surrender and submission. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, someone whose wisdom and ability to speak plainly is sorely missed today, those who believe that Israel and the Jews will sate the crocodile of Islamic fascism will soon find that they have always been, and will remain, the main course on the menu.
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