Partners in Paranoia
October 7, 2003
If
you want to understand some of Americas foreign policy
problems, you could do worse than to visit the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum. Its a gruelingly didactic experience, but the
message it labors to impart isnt necessarily the one you should
draw.
The carefully structured tour
includes a film strip on the history of anti-Semitism which, you are
encouraged to believe, culminated in the Nazi murder of six million Jews
(and unspecified millions of others, who
dont seem to matter as much). Its heavily implied that
Christianity is the source of anti-Semitism and all the sufferings of the
Jews over the last two millennia. An earlier film strip, withdrawn after
Christian protests, was even more explicit, blaming anti-Semitism on the
four Gospels accounts of Christs death.
Unlike other peoples, you gather,
the Jews never brought any of their troubles on themselves. They were
always the innocent victims of vicious Christians. Many Christian
countries are named England, Spain, France, Poland, Germany,
Russia, et cetera until you wonder how such an intelligent people
acquired such a bad habit of migrating to anti-Semitic lands. Youd
think that after a while theyd learn to take the precaution of
sending a scout ahead to any prospective new home, who might return with
the warning, Wed better not move to Poland. The Poles hate
us even worse than the Spanish do!
Perish the thought that Jewish
behavior was ever a factor in provoking the hostility that, according to
the Jews own account, has so consistently greeted them in one
country after another. But if Christian teaching is the root cause of
anti-Semitism, why did anti-Semitism peak when Christianity was losing
its influence? Why did it reach its crescendo under an apostate Christian,
Adolf Hitler, rather than a devout believer? And why are Jews today far
more unpopular in the Muslim world than in the West?
Such a one-sided even
paranoid polemical history invites skepticism. We are now hearing
equally lopsided explanations of the unpopularity of the Jewish state of
Israel. There again, we are told, Jews are always the faultless victims,
and all frictions are the fault of the gentiles, in this case Arabs and
Muslims.
But Israel has had the good fortune to enjoy the
patronage of a powerful country with a similar paranoid streak, the United
States of America. Americans have been significantly described, by
Abraham Lincoln, as an almost chosen people. And many
Americans still resist the idea that their country can ever be in the wrong
about anything.
When highly civilized, though
perhaps unchosen, people like the French, the Germans, and the Belgians
recently found American conduct in the Middle East arrogant and reckless,
the welkin rang with American voices crying
anti-Americanism! In fact our chauvinists use this charge
in exactly the way Jewish chauvinists use the charge of anti-Semitism.
No wonder so many people all
over the world think America and Israel deserve each other. President
George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon both represent their
countries most belligerently self-righteous tendencies, and they
are thick as thieves. Both men have apologists who defend their most
extreme measures, equate violence with defense, and regard criticism of
the two countries as enmity or treason.
Of course every country has its
chauvinists, and sometimes they prevail for a while. France and Germany
have certainly had their moments, but reality has had a chastening effect.
Losing a war can bring a country back to its senses when it has gone mad.
For a time it appeared that the Vietnam debacle had taught the United
States the limits of its power, and that the 1982 invasion of Lebanon had
done the same for Israel. But both countries soon forgot anything they had
learned from these bitter experiences.
Its no justification of
terrorism to say that the 9/11 attacks on the United States and the
suicide bombings in Israel should have given both countries second
thoughts about their policies. Unfortunately, these horrors have had the
opposite effect: theyve confirmed the chauvinist attitude that the
United States and Israel are hated for their virtues, like a pair of
beleaguered Othellos in a world of spiteful Iagos.
Self-criticism can coexist with
self-respect. Both countries can afford to admit their faults and mistakes.
In the long run, it may be disastrous not to do so.
Joseph Sobran
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