SOBRAN'S --
The Real News of the Month
August 2002
Volume 9, No. 8
Editor: Joe Sobran
Publisher: Fran Griffin (Griffin Communications)
Managing Editor: Ronald N. Neff
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CONTENTS
Features
-> Summing Up Ted
-> Wartime Journal (plus Exclusives to this edition)
-> "For Fear of the Jews"
Nuggets (plus Exclusives to this edition)
List of Columns Reprinted
FEATURES
Summing Up Ted
(page 1)
Yes, all in all, Ted Williams, the glory of the
Boston Red Sox, was what he aspired to be: "Someday I
want people to look at me walking down the street and
say, 'There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.'"
His death at 83 leaves only Stan Musial, Bob Feller,
and Yogi Berra as the surviving giants of the great
postwar era.
Williams didn't revolutionize the game, as Babe Ruth
did, but he was the most artistic, the most esthetically
and intellectually interesting, of all hitters. He was
that rare thing, a power hitter who seldom struck out. He
studied the physics of pitching and the geometry of the
strike zone and wrote a book that established him as the
game's answer to Isaac Newton. His autobiography, MY TURN
AT BAT, is a great read, full of salty opinions and
irresistible humor.
Even though Williams lost five of his prime seasons
to war, he won two Triple Crowns -- leading the league in
batting average, home runs, and runs batted in -- and
narrowly missed winning two more. He was twice named Most
Valuable Player in a league that included Joe DiMaggio,
and it might well have been five times, but for the
personal spite of sportswriters: in neither of his
Triple-Crown seasons was he named MVP. He might well have
hit over .400 two or three times, instead of his
legendary once, had he played the five seasons the U.S.
Government robbed him of.
I was such a Williams fan that his lost seasons (and
DiMaggio's) were not the least of my reasons for
resenting World War II. I used to amuse myself by
calculating what Williams's awesome lifetime record might
look like with five more full seasons, at the rate he was
hitting when he went off to war. I reckoned that his
batting average would have been well over .350 (instead
of .344) and his total home runs around 700 (instead of
521). Such a colossal record would have left no doubt of
his rank.
His defiant personality might also have earned him a
record for enemies, at least among the press; but other
players always found him generous. His defiance also made
him rise to every challenge, from the day he refused to
preserve his .400 average by sitting out the last game of
the 1941 season (he got six hits) to his last time at bat
in 1960, when he said good-bye to baseball with a final
home run. In between, he won two All-Star games with
dramatic home runs.
Williams's one signal failure was his bleak hitting
in his only World Series, in 1946. His critics cited this
as proof that he couldn't win the big games; he endured
this charge for many years, refusing to make excuses, but
the truth is that he was playing with an injured arm
about which he told nobody. Unable to swing his bat
properly and desperate for a hit, at one point he did
what he almost never did: he dropped a bunt. So momentous
was this felt to be that it nearly upstaged the game
itself. A Boston newspaper headlined, "WILLIAMS BUNTS."
By the time he died, Williams had long since ceased
being controversial; he was universally loved, respected,
venerated, and he returned the fans' affections with
obvious warmth. Yet as soon as the eulogies began to
abate, a new storm broke out when his son and business
manager decided to have his body cryogenically frozen.
Even dead, Williams was still making headlines.
Wartime Journal
(page 2)
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Cleveland's
school voucher plan doesn't violate the U.S.
Constitution's (imaginary) "separation of church and
state." Of course it doesn't; more to the point, the
Constitution permits the states to do all sorts of
things, as long as they don't conflict with the specific
powers assigned to the Federal Government. Which doesn't
mean that vouchers are a good idea; they still force some
people to pay for other people's schooling through
taxation. This is a truth from which we should not be
distracted by the fleeting pleasure of seeing the
teachers' unions apoplectic.
* * *
President Bush has come up with an elegantly simple
peace plan for the Middle East: the Palestinians must
achieve the impossible, and the Israelis, meanwhile, may
continue to do as they bloody well please. At least
that's what it boils down to. Not only must the
Palestinians end terrorism; they must adopt American-
style democracy, separation of powers and all, and elect
a new leadership acceptable to the United States. Then --
maybe -- they can have their own state and "self-
government."
* * *
Bush's War on Terrorism -- i.e., his plan to attack
Iraq -- has less and less to do with Osama bin Laden and
al-Qaeda (who are seldom mentioned anymore) and is ever
more tenuously related to the events of last Septem-
ber 11. Its real purpose, clearly, is to assert and
enlarge the prerogatives of American Empire, while
angling for Zionist and fundamentalist Christian
political support.
* * *
Bush has reacted to the Wall Street scandals in
typically spasmodic fashion. He has lectured CEOs on the
need for "conscience" and promised to send a new Federal
"SWAT team" to fight fraud. As with the War on Terror, he
seems to assume he can solve the problem by grabbing new
executive powers. And like most Republicans, he thinks
the fate of "the economy" depends on how the government
guides, or pampers, Big Business. Whether the cause is
"building socialism" or "saving capitalism," we always
seem to get more government.
* * *
Haven't we had enough of Rudy Giuliani? Ever since
the 9/11 attacks he's been feted as a national hero, and
now he's featured in READER'S DIGEST as an authority on
heroism. Pray, what brave deeds has he performed? Hogging
the cameras and mikes? The faux association between Rudy
and heroism threatens to become as indelible as that
between the Kennedys and courage.
* * *
Rudy has also wrapped up the messy divorce that was
making him such a laughingstock until he became a hero.
He'll be paying his ex, Donna Hanover, a cool $6.8 mil-
lion. Don't tell me he made all that money in public
service! The court also found his open adultery "cruel
and inhumane" to his missus. Yet conservatives have taken
this worm to their bosoms. I believe the phrase is
"defining deviancy downward."
* * *
This year's Wimbledon men's finals were interrupted
by a streaker, who was duly escorted off the court.
Imagine -- streakers, at this late date! How passé. So
awfully twentieth-century, what? The English are so
stodgy, aren't they, Ducky?
Exclusive to the electronic version:
Major League Baseball is headed for the pits.
Another strike looms -- billionaire owners versus
multimillionaire players, none of whom cares a whit about
the traditions and integrity of the game. Witness the
scandal of steroid consumption, which corrupts
competition, threatens users' health, and cheapens the
records. The only drug Babe Ruth ever needed was alcohol.
Time for the fans to call a strike. A permanent one.
Personally, I'm not going back until they clone Ted
Williams.
"For Fear of the Jews"
(pages 3-6)
[[ Text dropped or modified solely for reasons of space
appears in double square brackets. Emphasis is indicated
by the presence of asterisks around the emphasized
words.]]
The news that I would be addressing the Institute of
Historical Review came to some people as ... well, news.
It was mentioned in the Jewish newspaper FORWARD and on
the Zionist WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE. The editors of
two conservative magazines called and wrote me to express
their concern that I might damage my reputation, such as
it is, by speaking to "Holocaust deniers."
I'm not sure why this should matter. Even positing
that I was speaking to a disreputable audience, I expect
to be judged by what I say, not whom I say it to. I note
that my enemies have written a great deal about me, yet
they rarely quote me directly.
Why not? If I am so disreputable myself, I must at
least occasionally say disreputable things. Is it
possible that what I say is more cogent than they like to
admit?
My enemies are always welcome to quote anything I
say, if they dare. I would say the same things to them,
and they may consider my remarks to the IHR as addressed
to them too. I wasn't just speaking to "Holocaust
deniers," but also to Holocaust believers.
Because I've endured smears and ostracism for my
criticism of Israel and its American lobby, some people
credit me with courage. I'm flattered, of course, but
this compliment, whether or not I deserve it, implies
that it's professionally dangerous for a journalist to
criticize Israel. That tells you a lot.
But if I'm "courageous," what do you call Mark Weber
and the Institute for Historical Review? They have been
smeared far worse than I have; moreover, they have been
seriously threatened with death. Their offices have been
firebombed. Do they at least get credit for courage? Not
at all. They remain almost universally vilified.
When I met Mark, many years ago, I expected to meet
a raving Jew-hating fanatic, such being the generic
reputation of "Holocaust deniers." I was immediately and
subsequently impressed to find that he was just the
opposite: a mild-mannered, good-humored, witty, scholarly
man who habitually spoke with restraint and measure, even
about enemies who would love to see him dead. The same
is true of other members of the Institute. In my many
years of acquaintance with them, I have never heard any
of them say anything that would strike an unprejudiced
listener as unreasonable or bigoted.
It was his enemies who were raving, hate-filled
fanatics, unable to discuss "Holocaust deniers" in
measured language, without wild hyperbole, loose
accusation, and outright lies. I began to wonder: if they
can't tell the truth about "Holocaust deniers," how can
they tell the truth about the Holocaust itself?
Even if the Holocaust had really happened, as I
assumed, maybe it should be studied with a critical
rationality most of its believers obviously lacked. After
all, even Stalin's crimes might be exaggerated, quite
understandably, by his victims. As Milton puts it, "Let
truth and falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth put to
the worse in a free and open encounter?" Even those in
error might have something to say, some marginal
clarification to offer. Why stop our ears against them?
Why on earth is it "anti-Jewish" to conclude from
the evidence that the standard numbers of Jews murdered
are inaccurate, or that the Hitler regime, bad as it was
in many ways, was not, in fact, intent on racial
extermination? Surely these are controversial
conclusions; but if so, let the controversy rage. There
is no danger in permitting it to proceed. It might be
different if denying the Holocaust could somehow affect
the course of events, as the denial of Stalin's crimes by
the NEW YORK TIMES in the 1930s helped him to continue
committing them. Why is the Institute for Historical
Review notorious, while the TIMES, despite its active
support of Stalin at the height of his power, remains a
pillar of respectability?
The Holocaust has never been a consuming interest of
mine. But as I read the JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW over
the years, I found in it the same calm virtue of critical
rationality I'd found in Mark himself. And it was applied
to many other subjects besides the question of whether
Hitler had tried to exterminate the Jews.
[[ I'm especially indebted to one fascinating
article on another taboo subject: Abraham Lincoln's long
pursuit of the policy of sending former Negro slaves
outside the United States. This completely reshaped the
book on Lincoln I was writing. I realized that you can't
understand Lincoln unless you grasp that he waged the
Civil War with a dual goal: to prevent the political
separation of North and South, while achieving the racial
separation of whites and blacks. His dream was a united
white America. He was by no means the color-blind
humanitarian we have been taught to revere. ]]
The IHR's mission can't be fairly summed up as
"Holocaust denial." Its real mission is criticism of the
suffocating progressive ideology that has infected and
distorted the telling of history in our time. But of
course its specific skepticism of the standard Holocaust
story is regarded as blasphemy, and has earned it the
dreaded epithet of "anti-Semitism."
Not long ago the only label more lethal to one's
reputation was that of child molester, but, as many men
of the cloth are now discovering, there is this
difference: a child molester may hope for a second
chance.
There is also another difference. We have a pretty
clear idea what child molestation is. Nobody really knows
what "anti-Semitism" is. My old boss Bill Buckley wrote
an entire book called IN SEARCH OF ANTI-SEMITISM without
bothering to define "anti-Semitism."
At the time I thought this was an oversight. I was
wrong. The word would lose its utility if it were
defined. As I observed in my own small contribution to
the book, an "anti-Semite" used to mean a man who hated
Jews. Now it means a man who is hated *by* Jews.
I doubt, in fact I can't imagine, that anyone
associated with the IHR has ever done harm to another
human being because he was Jewish. In fact the IHR has
never been accused of anything but thought-crimes.
The same is true of me. Nobody has ever accused me
of the slightest personal indecency to a Jew. My chief
offense, it appears, has been to insist that the state of
Israel has been a costly and treacherous "ally" to the
United States. As of last September 11, I should think
that is undeniable. But I have yet to receive a single
apology for having been correct.
If I were to hate Jews en masse, without
distinction, I would be guilty of many things. Obviously
I'd be guilty of injustice and uncharity to Jews as human
beings. I would also be guilty of willful stupidity. More
personally, I'd be guilty of ingratitude to my
benefactors -- which Dante, in his INFERNO, ranks the
worst of all sins -- since many of my benefactors, in
large ways and small, have been Jewish.
Moreover, I would be becoming exactly the man my
Zionist enemies would like me to be; a man like them, in
whom ethnic hostilities take priority over all other
values and considerations. I would justify them in
treating me as an enemy. In fact I'd go so far as to say
that I would be helping to justify the state of Israel. I
consider that if I fight these people on their terms,
they have already won.
What, exactly, is "anti-Semitism"? One standard
dictionary definition is "hostility toward or
discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial
group." How this applies to me has never been explained.
My "hostility" toward Israel is a desire not for war, but
for neutrality -- out of a sense of betrayal, waste, and
shame. Our venal politicians have aligned us with a
foreign country that behaves dishonorably. Most alleged
"anti-Semites" would wince if Jews anywhere were treated
as Israel treats its Arab subjects. Moreover, Israel has
repeatedly betrayed its only benefactor, the United
States. I have already alluded to the place Dante
reserves for those who betray their benefactors.
These are obvious moral facts. Yet it's not only
politicians who are afraid to point them out; so are most
journalists -- the people who are supposed to be
independent enough to say the things politicians can't
afford to say. In my thirty years in journalism, nothing
has amazed me more than the prevalent fear in the
profession of offending Jews, especially Zionist Jews.
The fear of the label "anti-Semitic" is a fear of
the power that is believed to lie behind it: Jewish
power. Yet this is still pretty much unmentionable in
journalism. It's rather as if sportswriters covering pro
basketball were prohibited from mentioning that the Los
Angeles Lakers were in first place.
[[ In my 21 years at NATIONAL REVIEW, I had a front-
row seat. I watched closely as Bill Buckley changed from
a jaunty critic of Israel to what I can only call a
servile appeaser. In its early days, the magazine
published robust editorials blasting politicians who
sacrificed American to Israeli interests in order to
pander to the Jewish vote; in those days it was con-
sidered risque to suggest that there was a "Jewish vote."
Today Bill's magazine supports Israel with embarrassing
sycophancy, never daring to intimate that Israeli and
American interests may occasionally diverge. It has
forgotten its own principles; today it would never dare
to publish the editorials written by its great geopoliti-
cal thinker of those early days, James Burnham. ]]
There has been a qualitative change that is
downright eerie [[ -- not only in Bill Buckley and
NATIONAL REVIEW, but ]] in American conservatism
generally. The "fear of the Jews," to use the phrase so
often repeated in the Gospel according to John, seems to
have wrought a reorientation of the tone, the very
principles, of today's conservatism. The hardy
skepticism, critical intelligence, and healthy irony of
men like James Burnham, Willmoore Kendall, and the young
Buckley have given way to the uncritical philo-Semitism
of George Will, Cal Thomas, Rush Limbaugh, and of course
the later Buckley -- men who will go to any lengths, even
absurd and dishonorable lengths, to avoid the terrorizing
label "anti-Semite."
It was once considered "anti-Semitic" to impute
"dual loyalty" to Jews -- that is, to assert that most
American Jews divide their loyalty between the United
States and Israel. This is now passe. Today most
politicians assume, as a matter of course, that Israel
commands the *primary* loyalty of Jewish voters. Are they
accused of "anti-Semitism" for doing so? Does this
assumption cost them Jewish votes? Not at all! Dual
loyalty nothing! Dual loyalty would be an improvement!
Once again, it's a practical necessity to *know*
what it would be professional suicide to *say.* No
politician in his right mind would accuse Jews of giving
their primary loyalty to Israel; but most politicians act
as if this were the case. And they succeed.
You can read Jewish publications like COMMENTARY for
years, and you'll read interminable discussions about
what's good for Israel, but you'll never encounter the
slightest suggestion that what's good for Israel might
not be good for America. The possibility simply never
comes up. The only discernible duty of Jews, it seems, is
to look out for Israel. They never have to choose between
Israel and the United States. So much for the "canard" of
dual loyalty.
[[ The very word "anti-Semite" is reminiscent of the
term "anti-Soviet." It serves a similar function of
facilitating imputations of ill-defined guilt.
[[ The strength of Western law has always been its
insistence on definition. When we want to minimize an
offense, say murder or burglary, we define it as clearly
as possible. We want judge and jury to know exactly what
the charge means, not only to convict the guilty but,
also, just as important, to protect the innocent.
[[ Clear definitions put a burden of proof on the
accuser, and properly so. If you falsely accuse a man of
murder or burglary, not only is he apt to be acquitted --
you may pay a heavy penalty yourself. As a result, few of
us are afraid of being charged with murders and
burglaries we didn't commit.
[[ By contrast, the Soviet legal system left
prosecutors with a wide discretion in identifying "anti-
Soviet" activities. Almost anything irritating to the
Soviet state could qualify. An impossible burden of proof
lay on the accused; guilt was presumed; acquittals were
virtually nonexistent. To be indicted was already to be
convicted. Since the charge was undefined, it was
unfalsifiable; there was no such thing as a false
accusation. As a result, the Russian population lived in
fear.
[[ The word "anti-Semitic" functions like the word
"anti-Soviet." Being undefined, it's unfalsifiable. Loose
charges of "anti-Semitism" are common, but nobody suffers
any penalty for making them, since what is unfalsifiable
can never be shown to be false. I once read an article in
a Jewish magazine that called the first Star Wars movie
"anti-Semitic." I was amazed, but I couldn't prove the
contrary. Who could? And of course people in public life
-- and often in private life -- fear incurring the label,
however guiltless they may be.
[[ If you want to distinguish between the innocent
and the guilty, you define crimes precisely. If, however,
you merely want to maximize the number of convictions,
increase the power of the accusers, and create an
atmosphere of dread, you define crimes as loosely as
possible. We now have an incentive system that might have
been designed to promote loose charges of "anti-
Semitism."
[[ Silly as all this is from a rational point of
view, the label of "anti-Semitism" is deeply feared. It
does signify one thing: Jewish hatred. When I became a
conservative as a college freshman, in 1965, nearly all
Jews were liberals and Jewish intellectuals associated
conservatism with "anti-Semitism." Bill Buckley was often
depicted as a fascist or crypto-Nazi; given the smears he
endured, it's understandable that he should go to great
lengths to appear pro-Jewish, even if he somewhat overdid
it by abetting smears of his fellow conservatives.
[[ The situation changed somewhat when many Jewish
intellectuals, upset by liberal criticism of Israel,
became what were called "neoconservatives." This term
implied no deep adherence to conservative principles, but
only the adoption of a few ad hoc principles useful to
Zionism, with no basic departure from New Deal liberalism
insofar as it was useful to Zionism. "Neoconservatism"
was really a sort of "kosher" conservatism.
[[ A few incidents from my years at National Review
may illustrate the point.
[[ In the mid 1980s, the neoconservative Earth
Mother Midge Decter, wife of Norman Podhoretz, accused
Russell Kirk of "anti-Semitism." Kirk's offense? He had
made a mild quip that some neoconservatives appeared to
believe that the capital of Western civilization was Tel
Aviv. Never mind that he had a point. Kirk had been a
founding father of modern conservatism and a NATIONAL
REVIEW columnist for many years, yet the magazine not
only failed to rally to his defense against this smear --
it didn't even report the incident! Decter's attack was
the biggest news of the season in the conservative
movement, but Buckley was afraid to mention it. So was
most of the conservative press.
[[ At about the same time, Israeli troops shot up a
Catholic Church on the West Bank during Mass -- a
horrible sacrilege that sent worshipers fleeing for their
lives and provoked an angry protest from the Vatican.
(The congregation had planned a march after Mass to
protest the beating of a Palestinian priest by Israeli
soldiers.) I mentioned the incident to Buckley, a fellow
Catholic, at an editorial meeting and gave him a news
clipping describing the event in detail; as I expected,
the magazine ignored this too. Even the violent
persecution of Catholics by Jews was unmentionable -- in
a "conservative" magazine owned and run by a Catholic.
[[ When the Pollard spy case broke, the magazine
called for the death penalty for Pollard -- but excused
Israel for sponsoring him, on grounds that it's normal
for friendly nations to spy on each other!
[[ And so it went. I could have understood a
favorable attitude toward Israel, having been pro-Israel
for many years myself; but surely even this alliance must
have occasional drawbacks. From time to time it's
necessary to criticize even friends. If we criticized our
own government every week, why not Israel once in a
while? But the magazine consistently refused to find the
slightest fault with Israel, and since I left in 1993 it
has gotten much worse. Today it has become assertively
slavish, to a comical degree.
[[ By 1993 I'd had enough. I wrote a column
correcting some of the things Bill had written about me,
in which I mentioned his evident fear; I wrote that he
was "jumpy about Jews." This was a pretty mild
description of his terror, but the column got me fired,
just as I expected. Since then it has become a
neoconservative legend that I was fired for "anti-
Semitism," but the truth is that it was far more personal
than that. Bill knew me too well to make such a charge. I
was fired for making him look bad. He considered making
others look bad his prerogative.
Since then ]] I've noticed how eager and desperate
mainstream conservatives are to avoid Jewish wrath.
Again, they don't just speak favorably of Israel; they
refuse to acknowledge any cost to American interests in
the U.S.-Israel alliance. They treat the two countries'
interests as identical; when they scold either
government, it's always -- *always* -- the U.S.
Government for failing to support our "reliable ally."
They are in headlong flight from reality. They have none
of the realism of James Burnham, whose writings and style
of thought would be wholly unwelcome in today's
conservative movement.
They are frightened. You can sense this in their
bluster, in the vicarious jingoism with which they
address Israel. Their fear produces a peculiar
intellectual thinness that pervades all their thinking on
foreign policy. [[ Gone is the critical intelligence that
used to set the tone for such earlier conservative
writers as Burnham, Kendall, Kirk, Whittaker Chambers,
Frank Meyer, Thomas Molnar, and the other distinguished
names that used to grace the masthead of NATIONAL
REVIEW. ]] Individualists have been replaced by
apparatchiks. Zionism has infiltrated conservatism in
much the same way Communism once infiltrated liberalism.
[[ I notice that Bill Buckley's latest book is a
novel about the Nuremberg trials. Over the past few years
Bill has made a habit of commemorating the Holocaust with
remarkable frequency. He has dropped references to
Auschwitz into countless of his syndicated columns and
interviews, as if compelled to banish the slightest
suspicion that he has any doubts about the Holocaust or
that he doesn't feel deeply about it. The Holocaust seems
to have joined, or supplanted, the Gulag Archipelago in
his historical memory.
[[ Since I vividly remember the days when Bill
regarded the Jews and Israel not with hostility, but with
a healthy and playful irony -- the same attitude he
brought to politics in general -- I find all this
solemnity pretty cloying. ]]
Here I should lay my own cards on the table. I am
not, heaven forbid, a "Holocaust denier." I lack the
scholarly competence to be one. I don't read German, so I
can't assess the documentary evidence; I don't know
chemistry, so I can't discuss Zyklon-B; I don't
understand the logistics of exterminating millions of
people in small spaces. Besides, "Holocaust denial" is
illegal in many countries I may want to visit someday.
For me, that's proof enough. One Israeli writer has
expressed his amazement at the idea of criminalizing
opinions about historical fact, and I find it puzzling
too; but the state has spoken.
Of course those who affirm the Holocaust need know
nothing about the German language, chemistry, and other
pertinent subjects; they need only repeat what they have
been told by the authorities. In every controversy, most
people care much less for what the truth is than for
which side it's safer and more respectable to take. They
shy away from taking a position that is likely to get
them into trouble. Just as only people on the Axis side
were accused of war crimes after World War II, only
people critical of Jewish interests are accused of
thought-crimes in today's mainstream press.
So, life being as short as it is, I shy away from
this controversy. Of course I'm also incompetent to judge
whether the Holocaust did happen; so I've become what
might be called a "Holocaust stipulator." Like a lawyer
who doesn't want to get bogged down debating a secondary
point, I *stipulate* that the standard account of the
Holocaust is true. What is undisputed -- the massive
violation of human rights in Hitler's Germany -- is bad
enough.
What interests me is the growth of what Norman
Finkelstein has called "the Holocaust Industry." True or
not, the Holocaust story has been put to many uses, some
of them mischievous. It is currently being used to extort
reparations and to blacken reputations, for example.
Daniel Goldhagen is soon to publish a book blaming the
Holocaust on the central teachings of the Catholic
Church. This is only the most ambitious project of a
school of thought, largely but not exclusively Jewish,
that sees Christianity as the source of all "anti-
Semitism."
So if you want to avoid being called "anti-Semitic,"
the safest course is to renounce Christianity. Whether
this is a safe course for your immortal soul is a
question Goldhagen doesn't address. The important thing
is to avoid Jewish censure. Obviously this sort of
thinking presupposes Christian fear of the Jews. Jews
themselves are not unaware of Jewish power; some of them
have rather exaggerated confidence in it.
But the chief use of the Holocaust story is to
undergird the legitimacy of the state of Israel.
According to this view, the Holocaust proves that Jewish
existence is always in danger, unless the Jews have their
own state in their own homeland. The Holocaust stands as
the historical objectification of all the world's
gentiles' eternal "anti-Semitism." Jewish life is an
endless emergency, requiring endless emergency measures
and justifying everything does in the name of "defense."
Jews and Israel can't be judged by normal standards, at
least until Israel is absolutely safe -- if even then.
Their circumstances are forever abnormal.
But the daily news reports suggest that Israel may
not really be the safest place for Jews. Theodore Herzl's
original dream was of a Jewish state where Jews could at
last live the normal lives they were denied in the
Diaspora. Yet today it's Diaspora Jews who live
relatively normal lives, at least in the West, while they
must worry about the very survival of Israel. And far
from being the independent state Herzl hoped for, Israel
depends heavily on the support not only of Diaspora Jews
but of foreign gentiles, especially Americans.
Israel insists that its "right to exist" is nothing
more than the right of every nation on earth to be left
in peace. This right is allegedly threatened by fanatical
Arabs who want to "drive the Jews into the sea," as
witness the recent wave of Palestinian terror. But in
truth, Israel's claimed "right to exist" is much more
than it seems at first sight. It means a right to rule
*as Jews,* enjoying rights denied to native Palestinians.
We are told incessantly that Israel is a
"democracy," and therefore the natural ally of the United
States, whose "democratic values" it shares. This is a
very dubious claim. To Americans, democracy means
majority rule, but with equal rights for minorities. In
Israel and the occupied territories, equal rights for the
minority are simply out of the question.
Majority rule itself has taken a peculiar form in
Israel. The original Arab majority was driven out of
their homes and their native land, and kept out.
Meanwhile, a Jewish "majority" was artificially imported.
Not only the first immigrants from Eastern Europe, but
every Jew on earth was granted a "right of return" --
that is, "return" to a "homeland" most have never lived
in, and in which none of their ancestors has ever lived.
A Jew from Brooklyn (whose grandfather came from Poland)
can fly to Israel and immediately claim rights denied to
an Arab whose people have always lived in Palestine. In
recent years Israel has been augmenting its Jewish
majority by vigorously encouraging Jewish immigration,
especially from Russia. Ariel Sharon has told a group of
American senators that Israel needs a million more Jewish
immigrants.
[[ In recent negotiations, Israel has flatly
rejected demands for a "right of return" for Palestinians
exiled since 1948. It frankly gave as its reason that
this would mean "the end of the Jewish state," since an
Arab majority would surely vote down Jewish ethnic
privileges. If Israel remained democratic, it wouldn't
long remain Jewish.
[[ This confirms the contention of hard-line
Revisionist Zionists from Vladimir Jabotinsky to Meir
Kahane that in the long run, Israel must be either Jewish
or democratic; it can't be both. And in order to remain
Jewish, it must reject the equal rights for its
minorities that Jews everywhere demand where they are a
minority. Israel must be the only "democracy" whose
existence *depends* on inequality.
[[ Put otherwise, Zionism is a denial of the "self-
evident truths" of the Declaration of Independence. To
acknowledge those truths, and to put them into practice,
would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Again,
honest and rigorous Zionists have always seen and said
this.
[[ American gentiles, bemused by the propaganda
claim that a beleaguered little democracy is fighting for
its very right to exist, are vaguely baffled, unable to
comprehend what is before their eyes. They still haven't
figured out that Israeli "democracy" is essentially and
radically different from -- even repugnant to -- what
they understand as democracy. ]]
With the verbal sleight-of-hand at which they are
masters, the Israelis always appeal to the Holocaust.
Maybe they have nuclear weapons, but their existence is
threatened -- once more! -- by rock-throwing Arab boys.
The Arabs are the new Nazis, repeating and perpetuating
the eternal peril of the Jews. Israel is determined to
prevent another Holocaust and must crush the Arab threat
by any means necessary, including harsh measures.
Israel without the Holocaust is hard to imagine. But
let's try to imagine it.
Suppose the Holocaust had never occurred, had never
been alleged, had never been *called* "the Holocaust."
Imagine that no great persecution had provided the Jewish
state with a special excuse for oppressive emergency
measures. In other words, imagine that Israel were forced
to justify itself like any other state.
In that case, Israel's treatment of its Arab
minorities would appear to the world in a very different
light. Its denial of equal or even basic rights to those
minorities would lack the excuse of a past or prospective
"Holocaust." Civilized people would expect it to treat
those it ruled with impartial justice [[ -- like
civilized states ]]. Special privileges for Jews would
appear as outrageous discrimination, no different from
insulting legal discrimination *against* Jews. The sense
-- and excuse -- of perpetual crisis would be absent.
Israel might be forced or pressured, possibly against its
will, to be "normal." If it chose to be democratic, its
Jews would have to take their chance of being
outnumbered, just like majorities in other democracies.
Nobody would suppose that losing elections would mean
their annihilation.
In short, the Holocaust has become a device for
exempting Jews from normal human obligations. It has
authorized them to bully and blackmail, to extort and
oppress. This is all quite irrational, because even if
six million Jews were murdered during World War II, [[ it
doesn't follow that the survivors are entitled to commit
the slightest injustice. ]] If your father was stabbed in
the street, that's a pity, but it's not an excuse for
picking someone else's pocket.
In a peculiar way, the Holocaust story has promoted
not only pity, but actual fear of the Jews. It has
removed them from the universe of normal moral discourse.
It has made them victims with nukes. It has made them
even more dangerous than their enemies have always
charged. It has given the world an Israel ruled by Ariel
Sharon.
Benjamin Netanyahu has written that Israel is "an
integral part of the West." I think it would be truer to
say that Israel has become a deformed limb of the West.
[This article is taken from a speech given by Joe Sobran
at the IHR Conference held in Los Angeles, June 21-23,
2002.]
NUGGETS
WHO NEEDS IT? Why should the Palestinians have their own
state, anyway? Don't they have enough problems already?
(page 8)
COME TO THINK OF IT: As an acute reader points out, the
government that wants to root out corporate fraud is the
same one that has given us Social Security and Medicare.
(page 9)
ANONYMOUS GUEST EDITORIAL: "If God had wanted us to vote,
He would have given us candidates." Even so, I'm still
seeking the presidency. (page 12)
Exclusive to the electronic version:
REDEEMING QUALITIES: Say this much for "rogue nations" --
at least they aren't isolationist!
ENOUGH ALREADY! As a remorseless Clinton-hater, I still
say one has to draw the line somewhere. Listening to some
conservatives -- Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, among
others -- you get the impression that the Clintons not
only bear responsibility for the Wall Street scandals and
various natural disasters in the Southwest, but are
virtually in cahoots with al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
Call me a squish, but I'm ready to give them the benefit
of doubt on all these counts.
STILL A PAPIST after ALL THESE YEARS: The title of Garry
Wills's latest book seems about three decades overdue:
WHY I AM A CATHOLIC. Actually, it's a surprisingly warm
and personal book, full of gratitude and affection. His
impressive brain is matched by a big heart. True, his
faith is somewhat eccentric, but it's by no means the
watered-down liberal Catholicism I've mistaken it for. I
can't resist reading a richly gifted writer who usually
has more interesting reasons for being wrong than most
sensible people have for being right.
BEHIND THE LENS: Your mental images of Winston Churchill,
Bernard Shaw, Ernest Hemingway, and Laurence Olivier are
very likely the product of the luminous photographic
portraits of Yousuf Karsh, who has died at 93. His
unforgettable bulldog portrait of Churchill captured what
appeared to be the very soul of the indomitable wartime
leader; in fact, Karsh himself was responsible for the
famous scowl when, informed that he had been allotted but
two minutes to take the picture, he snatched away the old
man's beloved cigar. Generations of viewers have mistaken
the resulting look of peevish annoyance for a
determination to fight tyranny to the death. Karsh's
stature in his profession was such that a wag once
quipped that he was the only photographer who had never
been slugged by Sean Penn.
ALIENS, BEWARE: I'm afraid my days as a cineaste are
waning. My moviegoing these days is largely confined to
films my grandchildren drag me to. All this is my
sheepish preface to admitting that the latest movie I've
seen is the silly, crude, offensive, and hilarious MEN IN
BLACK II, reuniting Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith as the
secret team of space-alien hunters. The deadpan Jones
never fails to slay me. In one scene, Jones grabs a
cigarette from the lips of a grotesque alien in a post
office with the gruff rebuke: "No smoking in here."
REPRINTED COLUMNS (pages 7-12)
* Rejoice! (June 20, 2002)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/020620.shtml
* An Announcement (July 2, 2002)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/020702.shtml
* Church, State, and School (June 27, 2002)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/020627.shtml
* On to Victory! (July 4, 2002)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/020704.shtml
* Ted Williams: The Sequel (July 9, 2002)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/020709.shtml
* State of the Union, Signs of the Times (July 11, 2002)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/020711.shtml
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All articles are written by Joe Sobran
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[ENDS]