Hating Jews For Being Jews (And The Indifference of Many In The West)

From Victor Davis Hanson (courtesy of RCP) comes his latest essay, The New Anti-Semitism. Usually, he makes an compelling argument, but with this one I must take some exception to the overall message that he indicates in the title and in his claim. His facts are valid enough. But, having read this piece, an old line from the song "We Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who, came to mind:

Meet the new boss,
Same as the old boss.

(If you have ever seen the Who in concert that's the last line in this song, just before the song and the concert ends, with Pete Townsend slamming his guitar into the stage.)

But why do I say this? I do not see this new form of anti-semitism as much different than the old forms. Let's look at his opening statement:

Hating Jews, on racial as well as religious grounds, is as old as the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Later in Europe, pogroms and the Holocaust were the natural devolution of that elemental venom.

Anti-Semitism, after World War II, often avoided the burning crosses and Nazi ranting. It often appeared as a more subtle animosity, fueled by envy of successful Jews in the West. "The good people, the nice people" often were the culprits, according to a character in the 1947 film "Gentleman's Agreement," which dealt with the American aristocracy's social shunning of Jews.

A recent third type of anti-Jewish odium is something different. It is a strange mixture of violent hatred by radical Islamists and the more or less indifference to it by Westerners.

This is where he and I disagree. This is nothing new or different, in my view. This is the same anti-semitism, the same hatred, only the reasons for that hatred are different. The only exception is how far this "so-called" new wave has progressed, so far.

In Nazi Germany, it started out subtle. But, it was allowed to progress to the ultimate form of hatred, which was genocide. Why? Mostly because the rest of the world was in either a state of denial or just did not care.

They saw the events that led up to the worst manifestations of deep-seeded hatred, and they flat out ignored them. Far too many people (flat out) overlooked Kristallnacht and all of the hateful propaganda and rhetoric that whipped that nation into a paranoid frenzy, so much so, that the bulk of that nation's population began to feed into the lies and the vitriolic demonization of a small but brilliant group of people that were only guilty of being, who they were.

Lies told bold enough and long enough, soon have a way of being accepted as truth. They were a successful bunch and many resented it. Look at all of the brilliant contributions Jewish scientists have made to the world and tell me just what they have done to deserve going to gas chambers in mass numbers.

Now, let's look at today's anti-semitism, which Mr Hanson is claiming to be so different:

Those who randomly shoot Jews for being Jews - whether at a Jewish center in Seattle or at synagogues in Istanbul - are for the large part Muslim zealots. Most in the West explain away the violence. They chalk it up to anger over the endless tit-for-tat in the Middle East. Yet privately they know that we do not see violent Jews shooting Muslims in the United States or Europe.

This is the same form of indifference as yesteryear, at least in my estimation it is. There are many right here in the U.S. that couldn't care any less.

From the hard leftists that blame the state of Israel for the world's ills to the neo-Nazi Aryan supremacist types that blame the world's ills on Jews in general. But, the result is the same. The motives for the hatred may be different, but there is no difference as far as outcome is concern. Hatred is hatred, whatever the excuse may be given to justify it.

The state-run, and thus government-authorized, newspapers of the Middle East, slander Jews in barbaric fashion. "Mein Kampf" (translated, of course, as "Jihadi") sells briskly in the region. Hamas and Hezbollah militias on parade emulate the style of brownshirts. In response, much of the Western public snoozes. They are far more worried over whether a Danish cartoonist has caricatured Islam, or if the pope has been rude to Muslims when quoting an obscure 600-year-old Byzantine dialogue.

If that's not enough, look at this snippet that precedes the previous one:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promises to wipe Israel "off the map." He seems eager for the requisite nuclear weapons to finish off what an Iranian mullah has called a "one -bomb state" - meaning Israel's destruction would only require one nuclear weapon. Iran's theocracy intends to turn the idea of a Jewish state on its head. Instead of Israel being a safe haven for Jews in their historical birthplace, the Iranians apparently find that concentration only too convenient for their own final nuclear solution.

As chilling and frightening as this may be, it is certainly not surprising. But that's not all of it, get a load of this next excerpt:

In response, here at home the Council on Foreign Relations rewards the Iranian president with an invitation to speak to its membership. At the podium of that hallowed chamber, Ahmadinejad, who questions whether the Holocaust ever took place, basically dismissed a firsthand witness of Dachau by asking whether he really could be that old.

Now let's compare this with the indifference of yesteryear. To do this, you have to read this. There you will find a list of nations that turned a blind eye, back then. And even today, many people in these same countries are more than willing to turn a blind eye to the escalating events seen in the present day.

So, to say that this brand of anti-semitism is new, ignores many aspects of history. To think that this cannot ever happen again, demonstrates a certain naivete that can only be overcome by people opening their eyes to the past events. The events that are occurring today are bone-chilling reminders of similar events that were allowed to escalate, to what later became an out of hand situation that could have prevented, had it been dealt with much earlier.

And despite Mr. Hanson's many truths that are included in this essay of his, he misses the bigger picture that needs to be considered in the trends that are forming, in both the Middle East and the West, today. Western nations may not be openly collaborating with Iran by sending Jews to Iran to be exterminated, as was done by many during the Holocaust. But, by turning a deaf ear to the early warning signs that the Iranian government's leadership are freely displaying, how much longer will it be before this becomes a scenario that results in even more dead Jews?

This is a much more important question to ask, because this next time it will not be by a gas chamber, but from a nuclear bomb sent through the air on a missile. It will not take months to round up Jews and exterminate them a few hundred at a time, This time it will only take a few minutes, because millions are rounded up in a small area already (an area that was set up for them to live in peace and prevent this kind of atrocity from ever happening again).

Maybe in one respect VDH is right, this is different in that the violence against Jews has escalated by technology and logistics; and in that respect it stands to get even worse. But make no mistake, the anti-semitism today is the same hatred felt back in days of the Holy Roman Empire, led by Christians that blamed the Jews of that day, for the ones that killed Christ in a previous period. It's just Muslims that are propagating this hatred, today. And it's the same indifference of others that emboldens them to spread it.