I don't know the origins of this, but it references John Murray Cuddihy's
book. My favorite: Helen Suzman, the 'courageous' veteran Jewish
implacably-anti-Apartheid member of the South African parliament and consequently
the recipient of numerous international honors and awards including an honorary
doctorate from Harvard University, 'believes that everything Israel has
done has been retaliatory' (Fair Lady magazine 22 May 2002 p39) in spite
of the fact that the Israelis, with support from Jews elswhere particularly
in the US and its government, have been able to take over Palestine with
absolute impunity, disregarding with absolute and violent contempt the lawful
rights of the Palestinians. This hypocrisy is very common in the Zionist
community which forms the overwhelmingly dominant part of South African
Jewry, but was not publically discussed for reasons of press ownership and
commercial power.
Subject: Jewish liberalism and support for Israel
UNDERSTANDING JEWISH LIBERALISM
AND SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL
Jews are well known in most western countries for their liberalism, many
even being associated with the left. The situation in Palestine though with
its utterly violent denial of human rights has not come under the usual
scrutiny by those Jews who usually determine what is or isn't politically
correct, what is or isn't on the agenda. Is this just the result of a momentary
inadvertent omission, the 'moment' lasting a fleeting 50 years or more?
Steven M Cohen in American Modernity and Jewish Identity (1983)
has the following to offer: "At least since the days of the New Deal, Jews,
more than other Americans, have been disproportionately 'liberal', as inexact
as the term might be" (p134). "The fundamental patterns in these data suggest
some very broad inferences. Generally, Jews were indeed more liberal than
the rest of America. Their disproportionate liberalism is clearly shown..
Jews were generally, though selectively, more liberal than others.. The
departures from the pattern of disproportionate liberalism are also instructive.
They hint at a selective erosion of liberalism wherever Jewish group interests
are at stake.." (pp142-3). "Political commentators and communal thinkers
of the past decade have advanced the proposition that support for Israel
and advocacy of the liberal agenda are fundamentally incompatible.." (p164).
"The adjusted column shows the highest concern for Israel among the most
liberal group" (p166). "Second- and later-generation Jews used the synagogue
not so much for strictly religious purposes - Jewish religious service attendance
ahs long been far below that of Catholics or Protestants - but more as an
arena for ethnic-based socializing and group mobilization.. No other religious
or ethnic community could boast as elaborate an institutional network designed
to advance its group interests. These included lobbying, litigation, public
relations campaigns, and coalition-building with other political and ethnic
interest groups." (p 44-5).
Milton Himmelfarb in Emerging Coalitions in American Politics
(ed Seymour Martin Lipset, 1978) notes that "Jewish voters are typically
more liberal and more democratic than any other (white) ethno-cultural groups..
even more distinctively Democratic than blacks." (p297). "If traditional
Jewish values favor liberalism, we should find more traditional Jews to
be typically more liberal and less traditional Jews less liberal, but we
find the opposite.." (p299). "We may conclude that liberalism itself was
the Jewish self-interest. To use a phrase that enrages many Jews and embarrasses
most of the rest, liberalism was 'good for the Jews'." (p 303).
"Domestically, the crucial issue that may loosen Jewish ties with the liberalism
of the future.. is what one may call group fair shares - proportionality.
In a usage that has become prevalent, Jews are 'overrepresented' among college
students and teachers. Is it not as unfair for one group to be overrepresented
as for another to be underrepresented? That is an unavoidable implication
of proportionality. The New Liberals say they want proportionality to work
for 'minorities, not against others.' (Only when a proportionalist lets
his guard down does he blurt out, 'quotas'.)..
Between the two world wars, country after country in Central and Eastern
Europe adopted a numerus clausus (closed number) to limit the proportion
of Jews in the universities, the press, and cultural life generally - not,
ostensibly, against the advantaged Jews, but for the disadvantaged Christians..
most Jewish organizations, while repeating their support of 'affirmative
action', opposed 'reverse discrimination'. The old Liberalism's principle
of individual merit was, among other things, good for the Jews. The New
Liberalism's principle of group fair shares is, among other things, bad
for the Jews." (p303-4). ["(In the period following World War II) elite
universities moved strongly in the direction of a meritocracy, both in terms
of students and the hiring of faculty. Those who benefitted most from this
were Americans of Jewish background who moved quickly into elite universities
where, by the 1960's, they constituted as much as 25 to 30 percent of the
undergraduate student bodies and some 20 percent of the faculties." (op
cit p 341); Jews made up 3% of the general population of the US at this
time.] "In the late 1960's and early 1970's a series of dramatic conflicts
seemed to pit Jews against black people... Were the Jews now exposing themselves,
at last, for the conservatives they really were?" (p301).
Helen Suzman, the 'courageous' veteran Jewish implacably-anti-Apartheid
member of the South African parliament and consequently the recipient of
numerous international honors and awards including an honorary doctorate
from Harvard University, 'believes that everything Israel has done has been
retaliatory' (Fair Lady magazine 22 May 2002 p39) in spite of the fact that
the Israelis, with support from Jews elswhere particularly in the US and
its government, have been able to take over Palestine with absolute impunity,
disregarding with absolute and violent contempt the lawful rights of the
Palestinians. This hypocrisy is very common in the Zionist community which
forms the overwhelmingly dominant part of South African Jewry, but was not
publically discussed for reasons of press ownership and commercial power.
"I remember those balmy years as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins quite
well. The air was full of pacifism - intense, revolutionary pacifism in
opposition to the war in Vietnam. There were campus demonstrations. There
were bearded "outside agitators." There were books by Bertrand Russell.
Many of the pacifists were Jews, and all Jews I met were pacifists. "Suddenly
war erupted in Israel, and all Jews immediately became fervent militarists,
publicly praying for military victory in Israel. "I was stunned. At the
time I regarded this reaction as simple hypocrisy. It seemed clear that
they were not pacifists at all. Rather, they opposed any war in which Euro-Americans
fought against brown people, particularly if Jews were required to put themselves
at risk. It was only many years later (after I read John Murray Cuddihy's
masterpiece, "The Ordeal of Civility") that I began to understand the true
significance of this event. This uniform emotional reaction to war in Israel
was immediate, passionate and completely unplanned. There was no discussion,
calculation or other debate. There wasn't the slightest concern for public
appearances. Bertrand Russell was cast aside without so much as a moment's
reflection.
"All modern liberal democracies share a common characteristic with Sir Arthur's
Universalist state. Before they go to war they make a massive and prolonged
propaganda investment in demonizing an enemy and whipping up public support.
This happened in the United States in World Wars I and II, in the "Domino"
wars of Korea and Vietnam, as well as in the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein.
It happens in all wars in which the very survival and independence of the
U.S. is not directly threatened. But the Jews in the U.S. (whose lives were
not threatened by war in Israel) did not need to be propagandized into wanting
war with the Arabs. The reaction was entirely spontaneous and uncontrolled.
It was quintessential racial behavior.
The minds of all Jews seemed automatically programmed to react in the same
way to the news of war in Israel. It wasn't hypocrisy in the conscious sense.
It was a deeper reaction of the lower brain - that part which preserves
humans over multiple generations without having to rely upon the weaker
impulses of reason, logic, and planning. Multi-ethnic democracies require
an enormous amount of physical energy and capital to whip the public into
a war frenzy. But in the case of the Six-Day War, the communication among
Jews was absolutely effortless and free. The mental response spread with
an instantaneous impulse, much like waves of gravity that penetrate instantly
throughout the universe with no resistance whatsoever. These mental reactions
are a primal force we do not yet fully understand. They are quintessential
racial phenomena that are immune to censorship and will trump propaganda
every time.
"They are, of course, a prime example of the operation of Sir Arthur Keith's
dual code of tribal mentality. The signal event in this drama of pacifism
followed by instant conversion to militarism is not Jewish sympathy for
Israel nor Jewish support for Israel's military. That sympathy is easy to
understand. The signal event is the immense effort Jews invested in creating
a Universalist logic of pacifism to place before us Gentiles in public -
a pacifism which their lower brains commanded for us, but rejected when
applied to themselves. It is this elaborate public staging - signifying
that we who were opposing a communist regime are a "them" - aliens from
a different tribe - that has evolutionary import. Like good tribesmen, they
stuck with one another and told each other the truth, while they told us
- whom they see as aliens - Universalist lies.
Jews are often prone to portray Wasps ('white Anglo-Saxon Protestants')
as archetypal racists. However, Jewish (even liberal-Jewish) support, tacit
and active, for the violently exclusionist, not to say genocidal actions
and policies of the State of Israel, grounded on ethnic bias, has for long
indicated that this is just a hypocritical ploy or tactic. Unfortunately,
the structure of media influence and ownership being what it is, prevents
any candid public discussion of the topic. It is peculiar to think that
the most 'liberal' constituency in the US is actually more rigorously, violently
and consistently ethnically-self-serving than the notorious right wing South
African supporters of Apartheid era ever were, contrary to the orthodox
image painted in the US mainstream media. Surely it's time for a new definition
of the term "liberalism"?
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