Monday, May 3, 2010
Oops:
For a man singularly obsessed with the perfidious Jews, you'd think John Mearsheimer would have the skill to keep his categories correct. For instance, in his latest death-to-Israel speech, he lists Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch as a "Righteous Jew," and Lester Crown, the Chicago businessman and Jewish leader, as a "New Afrikaner." But Anne Herzberg e-mails to report that Susan Crown, Lester's daughter, is on Human Rights Watch's Chicago committee, and that the Crown family foundation is a major donor to Human Rights Watch. So what does this make Lester Crown -- a Righteous Afrikaner? This is the problem with Jews -- so tricky!
Strange, very strange, exceedingly strange stuff. We all necessarily generalize and we all, no doubt at times, fall back on easy, on facile categories, whether with the aim of demoting or elevating some category, or with the aim of dismissing it due to the overwhelming complexities involved, or for still other, more innocuous purposes. But the endless varieties of, and the varied and sundry motivations and interests that fuel anti-Semitism, a set of phenomena that is singular, sui generis, wholly unto itself.
At bottom I agree with N. Podhoretz, Prager and others, I believe others such as Bernard Lewis, Robert Wistrich (sp?) have suggested much the same, that its ultimate roots are in the very advent of Judaic monotheism.
Of course that, all at once, says both too little and too much, but I am agreement with those intuitions nonetheless.