'Final Solution,' Phase 2

Such is the richness of European culture, even its decadence is creative. Since 1945 it has produced the truly remarkable phenomenon of anti-Semitism without Jews. How does Europe do that?

Now it offers Christian anti-Semitism without the Christianity. An example of this is the recent cartoon in La Stampa -- a liberal Italian newspaper -- depicting the infant Jesus in a manger, menaced by an Israeli tank and saying "Don't tell me they want to kill me again." This reprise of that hardy perennial, Jews as Christ-killers, clearly still strikes a chord in contemporary Italy, where the culture is as secular as a supermarket.

In Britain the climate created by much of the intelligentsia, including the elite press, is so toxic that the Sun, a tabloid with more readers than any other British newspaper, recently was moved to offer a contrapuntal editorial headlined "The Jewish faith is not an evil religion." Contrary to what Europeans are encouraged to think. And Ron Rosenbaum, author of the brilliant book acidly notes the scandal of European leaders supporting the Palestinians' "right of return" -- the right to inundate and eliminate the state created in response to European genocide -- "when so many Europeans are still living in homes stolen from Jews they helped murder."

It is time to face a sickening fact that is much more obvious today than it was 11 years ago, when Ruth R. Wisse asserted it. In a dark and brilliant essay in Commentary magazine, she argued that anti-Semitism has proved to be "the most durable and successful" ideology of the ideology-besotted 20th century.

Successful? Did not Hitler, the foremost avatar of anti-Semitism, fail? No, he did not. Yes, his 1,000-year Reich fell 988 years short. But its primary work was mostly done. Hitler's primary objective, as he made clear in words and deeds, was the destruction of European Jewry.

Wisse, who in 1991 was a professor of Yiddish literature at McGill University and who now is at Harvard, noted that many fighting faiths, including socialism and communism, had arisen in the 19th century to "explain and to rectify the problems" of modern society. Fascism soon followed. But communism is a cold intellectual corpse. Socialism, born and raised in France, is unpersuasive even to the promiscuously persuadable French: The socialist presidential candidate has suffered the condign humiliation of failing to qualify for this Sunday's runoff, having been defeated by an anti-Semitic "populist" preaching watery fascism.

Meanwhile, anti-Semitism is a stronger force in world affairs than it has been since it went into a remarkably brief eclipse after the liberation of the Nazi extermination camps in 1945. The United Nations, supposedly an embodiment of lessons learned from the war that ended in 1945, is now the instrument for lending spurious legitimacy to the anti-Semites' war against the Jewish state founded by survivors of that war.

Anti-Semitism's malignant strength derives from its simplicity -- its stupidity, actually. It is a primitivism which, Wisse wrote, makes up in vigor what it lacks in philosophic heft, and does so precisely because it "has no prescription for the improvement of society beyond the elimination of part of society." This howl of negation has no more affirmative content than did the scream of the airliner tearing down the Hudson, heading for the World Trade Center.

Today many people say that the Arabs and their European echoes would be mollified if Israel would change its behavior. People who say that do not understand the centrality of anti-Semitism in the current crisis. This crisis has become the second -- and final? -- phase of the struggle for a "final solution to the Jewish question." As Wisse said 11 years ago, and as cannot be said too often, anti-Semitism is not directed against the behavior of the Jews but against the existence of the Jews.

If the percentage of the world's population that was Jewish in the era of the Roman Empire were Jewish today, there would be 200 million Jews. There are 13 million. Five million are clustered in an embattled salient on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, facing hundreds of millions of enemies. Ron Rosenbaum writes, "The concentration of so many Jews in one place -- and I use the word 'concentration' advisedly -- gives the world a chance to kill the Jews en masse again."

Israel holds just one one-thousandth of the world's population, but holds all the hopes for the continuation of the Jewish experience as a portion of the human narrative. Will Israel be more durable than anti-Semitism? Few things have been.

The salient views of the U.S. public about the Mideast conflict are these: 34% of the U.S. public takes the side of Israel and 9% of the U.S. public takes the side of the Palestinians in their Mideast conflict. It is widely said, on the basis of this, that the U.S. public favours the Israelis over the Palestinians by a margin of 4 - 1. This conclusion ignores that a vastly greater proportion of the U.S. public claims that it either does not take sides in the conflict (30%) or has no opinion (27%) in the matter.

This is not very different from what Gallup found at the time of the Yom Kippur War when Nixon, against the advice of his Secretaries of Defense and State, ordered that every piece of military ordnance that could be moved should be sent to Israel without delay, an action that saved Israel from annihilation. What is especially noteworthy is that this was a presidential action, and it was taken in the face of a threatened Arab oil boycott that did indeed quickly materialize after Nixon's vigorous support of Israel had reversed the tide in the Yom Kippur War. It was NOT taken with the broad support of U.S. public opinion which was generally dismayed to learn the U.S. had declared a 'nuclear red alert' in the face of threatened Soviet intervention.

Mr Will must (or should) know that current desecrations of religious places and antisemitic acts in Europe are largely related to a growing Muslim minority in Europe, and they do not reflect the attitudes of that 'silent majority' of Europeans which, like the majority of the U.S. public (more than 50%) -- as opposed to the U.S. Congress -- does not choose to take sides in the Mideast conflict. Those are the facts and they lend no succor to the sanctimonious rhetoric in Mr. Will's column, which implies that there is a great gulf between majority opinion in Europe and the U.S. whereas the true gulf between the U.S. and Europe is at the level of state, not public support for Israel.

According to his own logic, Will could be fairly accused of mindless anti-Europeanism -- among other things. He writes as if all Europeans subscribed to something that all of them manifestly do not. Can Mr. Will provide any cogent evidence whatever to show there are more anti-semites per capita in Europe than in the U.S. ? Will's rhetoric overwhelmingly services the worst kind of xenophobic jingoism and nationalistic sanctimoniousness. He comes across as if he were a dolt who just fell off a turnip truck.

Correct. The problem this creates for a U.S. president is that the 60% do follow the dictates of their pocket books, and the President, as in Nixon's case, soon finds that, if the economy goes into the dumper, the 60% have a negative opinion of the president's job performance. It is seldom recalled that, after Nixon fired the Special Watergate Prosecutor in October of 1973 (the same week as the Yom Kippur War), and after most of the 'garbage' about Watergate had already surfaced, the U.S. public was still strongly opposed to his impeachment. However, as the months passed and the Arab oil boycott ate into the U.S. and world econmies -- most of the damage having been done by the time the embargo was lifted in March of 1994 -- opposition to Nixon's impeachment gradually eroded, following the same downward trend as the economy. By about August of 1994, when he resigned, opposition to Nixon's impeachment finally slipped below 50%, but much of the slide in his numbers had occurred in concert with a declining economy, well before August of 1974.

You use good words and sound impressive, but you don't make the point that you hoped to make.

First, Mr. Will did not talk about desecrations or anti-Semitic acts. While these actions may or may not be legitimate evidence of an anti-Semitic attitude in Europe, they are a straw man in your argument against Mr. Will.

Secondly, Mr. Will offered a couple of pieces of real evidence to support his assertion. He mentioned that in France's upcoming election, one of the candidates in the run-off is a "populist" anti-Semite. Getting into a run-off is not a sign that one has majority support of a voting public, but if the "silent majority" of Europeans who are not anti-Semitic were large, this guy would be much less likely to be in the run-off. The other evidence that he cites includes the support of European governments for the Palestinians and the prevalence of newspaper editorials that are anti-Semitic.

I realize that your argument is that the governments on both sides of the Atlantic do not reflect the ambivalence of the people that they govern. To some extent, you may be right, but your evidence is suspect. If a poll is taken when things are relatively quiet in the region, it wouldn't surprise me for more than half the respondents to claim not to care. However, when something significant is happening and people start to consider the situation, they often take sides based on the available information. Another question is whether your poll represents voters or just average people who answer the phone. Half of eligible voters do not vote, but that does not mean that they are ambivalent about our government. They may be lazy, but they care that we have an elected government.

I also take a very different message from the commentary than you do. I don't see the commentary as a criticism of Europeans as much as a warning against anti-Semitism in any venue and even a warning against the ambivalence that you seem to see as a positive thing. I see a great deal of anti-Semitism even among very educated people. I also remember reading somewhere that Hitler received only 37% of the vote when he rose to power. A "silent majority" that doesn't care is hardly a comforting sign for those who do not want to see the Arabs finish what Hitler started.

WFTR
Julie II - The Education of Dr. Lee
Bill

It's unclear to me for what reason Mr. Will's heritage ought to bear a relationship to his evaluation of Europe.

Irregardless of heritage or artifacts of culture, there is vast gulf between Europe and the U.S. Europe is overwhelmingly a civilization which looks for its salvation to man; hence its socialism and welfarism.

The uniqueness of America has often been described as the "American Exceptionalism", this uniqueness being its devoutness, the high numbers of Americans who practice a religious faith.

In this, we have little in common with Europeans, thank the Lord.

Good for Wills that he sees the Europeans for what they are, a civilization on its last legs, about to be overwhelmed by a more vital religion, a Trojan Horse within.

Good points made. Like other neo-cons, Will's hatred of Europe (notwithstanding the fact that he is of European heritage himself and lives in a nation of European heritage) is frankly despicable.

I was not aware that neo-cons hated Europe. Can you support this sweeping statement?

Heretofore, I have only heard black supremacists talk about someone being of "European heritage." They are simply using a pedantic euphemism for "white." And to say that America is a nation "of European heritage" is vacuous. If you want to reduce America to its "European heritage," then you don't know much about America or Europe. Contempt for European arrogance is a healthy attribute. Now, what could possibly be despicable about Will's attitude towards Europe?

Your problem is, you don't say what you mean or mean what you say. So what's really behind your post?

Your argument is not completely without merit; however, there are several points I would like to address.

First, the Faith is not dead in Europe. In Eastern Europe (a signifigant part of the Continent, which no one ever seems to consider or to take into account in a discussion of "Europe"), if anything, it is growing. I daresay in Poland that the average citizen is more devout than the average citizen in America. And what about Ireland, Portugal, Spain? Overall, I would hesitate to say that Europe is signifigantly farther gone down the path to post-Christianity than is America- especially in American regions such as the West Coast.

Second, there is truth to your assertion that Europe faces a Trojan Horse from within, and although you did not say what Horse it was, you really did not need to; we already know. But it is ironic that neo-cons such as Will are at the forefront in condemning those who will fight for their heritage, who will fight for their people, who will fight this Trojan Horse. In any event, recent elections have proven (and future election will do so even more emphatically) that there are millions of Europeans who have not given up.

"I don't see the commentary as a criticism of Europeans as much as a warning against anti-Semitism in any venue and even a warning against the ambivalence that you seem to see as a positive thing."

I select this sentence from your post as being examplary. I said nothing to indicate that I see ambivalence as a positive thing. I surely do not. Further, if you do not see Will's remarks as a criticism of Europeans, I suggest you recast the column, replacing Europe and Europeans with America and Americans.

If Will wanted to warn his (mainly) U.S. readers against ambivalence, he could have chosen a more telling domestic example: the attitude of the U.S. public and government toward Jews during WWII, when Britain, a part of Europe, was led by Churchill, whose attitudes to Jews were exemplary in all respects.

Will is now, and always has been a shameless panderer to the America First mentality, which, in pre-WWII days, found it convenient to assault Jewish interests, but now, with the sanctimonious jingoism that only an H.L. Mencken could properly describe, wraps itself in undeserved rectitude.

Hatred was not an appropriate word, I suppose. Perhaps disgust or antipathy would be more accurate. But, however one phrases it, I do see it more often from those who are generally considered "neo-conservative" than those of any other political label. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the Europeans in general are skeptical of foreign adventures, while the neo-cons are very hawkish (or, if you will, "chicken"hawkish).

America is obviously not exclusively of European heritage racially- nor is it exclusively of European heritage culturally. But it is predominantly of European political and cultural heritage, and it is absurd to say otherwise. Our Founding Fathers based their system of government on European, Western principles, and improved on said principles. They did not base their philosophies on Etruscan, Aztec, or Confucian principles. If America is not a Western nation, then what is it? And would you argue that Western Civilization did not blossom in Europe?

Contempt for arrogance in general is probably not a bad idea, so why limit it to Europeans, who, ironically, perceive us as arrogant? What I find despicable is Will's eagerness to pigeonhole an entire continent, inhabited by hundreds of millions of people, most of whom are good, decent folk, to fuel his own insufferable arrogance. If he wants to pick on someone, let him pick on the radical Islamicists. He and other neo-cons seem to have forgotten who are friends are and who are enemies are.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

I would not argue with you about the faith in Eastern Europe. However, the focus has been on the expressed and publicized anti-semiticism of Western Europe. From every one whose opinion is well informed, they have noted that there is little practice of faith in Western Europe. I wish that it were not so. Even in places like Spain, urban dwellers are generally secular. I can't speak for certain about Ireland or Portugal, but I would image that the urban experience there is not much different..

As for the West Coast, Oregon is said to be the least churched state in the union. But in Washington and through out California, there are many places where faith is thriving, despite what people may believe. Hollywood's depiction of life in America is far from the life that Americans truly live.

As an astute critic pointed out, the only prime time program (aside from the PAX Channel) where a family regularly attends church is The Simpsons.

I believe that Will has devoted quite a few columns to radical Islam. Europe was overdue to take its lumps.

You attack Will for making sweeping statements -- as I attacked you -- so how can I defend him? Here's how. There's no contradiction between showering contemporary Europe with contempt, and admiring the Western tradition, because there is as complete a disconnect as is humanly possible between the two.

I spent a good chunk of my adult life (at one point, now receding far in the past, the majority of it) in Europe, studying some of its languages and much of its cultural heritage. I think I have a healthy respect for that heritage. I am not in awe of it, because the same place that gave us the rule of law, gave us communism, fascism, and national socialism. Of course, if you compare Europe to say, Africa, Europe looks awfully good. In Africa, you essentially get communism, fascism, and national socialism, but without the Mona Lisa, without King Lear, without Goethe's Faust.

But that is Europe, the cultural museum. The postwar Europeans are another story entirely. When I lived in West Germany, I used to run into supposedly well-bred, educated Europeans who liked to lecture me about how stupid America was. "You have a movie star for a president."

These people assumed that they were vessels of high culture, and that as an American, I was a hick. But they were really just hicks with pretences. They didn't even know that much about European culture. They thought the culture was their birthright, and so were lazy. And they weren't creating anything culturally of value. (Their state-subsidized theaters were producing politically correct trash years before the term had even been coined in the States.) While some Europeans slavishly followed everything American, the others reflexively looked down their noses on everything American. (But both groups wanted to spend time going to school and travelling here -- not unlike well-to-do Arabs!) Eventually, I got fed up with their lectures, and started lecturing them back.

With politics, it's even worse. They lecture us, against a backdrop of their own miserable failures. We bailed them out in WWI, and again in WWII, after which we rebuilt their cities.

If the Europeans now reject foreign adventurism, it is not out of philosophical wisdom, but convenience. Europeans were the original foreign adventurists, but for them adventurism was inseparable from colonialism. When they lost their colonies after The War, so too did they lose their taste for adventurism. But they expect us to subsidize them, and fight their battles for them.

Europeans once ran the world. But they destroyed themselves, and we had to save them from themselves. They still resent that we have the power they once wielded, and so they criticize us relentlessly, and even try to make life difficult for American corporations doing business in Europe. They can dish it out, but they can't take it. And in the one case in which they had tried, after The War, to reform themselves, the Holocaust, they have reverted to form.

I admire many Europeans, but they are all dead. And what those dead Europeans wrought, is the property of the entire world. The greatness once created in Europe, will in the future be enhanced in spite of Europe.

Now you are being silly.

No, all along I've simply tried to point out that Mr. Will made some statements about Europe and backed those statements with real evidence. He then used those statements to make some points. You, on the other hand, are just reacting hysterically to his valid criticisms. You refused to acknowledge the facts that he presented and retreated into polls that you couldn't place in context. Maybe I should have said more specifically that while he was criticizing Europe and Europeans, his message was for everyone. However, it probably wouldn't have mattered because you are so intent making the issue into a criticism of America. The only silliness on my part would be to continue a discussion with someone as clearly close-minded as you are.

WFTR
Bill

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