It's been a while, but I wrote of Andrew Sullivan's anti-Semitism previously. See, "Andrew Sullivan: Anti-Semitic Neocon Derangement."
As good a case as I might make, it's nothing compared to Leon Wieseltier's utterly breathtaking decimation of Sully, "Something Much Darker" (via Memeorandum):
Consider some squibs that Sullivan recently posted on his blog. “Most American Jews, of course, retain a respect for learning, compassion for the other, and support for minorities (Jews, for example, are the ethnic group most sympathetic to gay rights),” he declared on January 13. “But the Goldfarb-Krauthammer wing–that celebrates and believes in government torture, endorses the pulverization of Gazans with glee, and wants to attack Iran–is something else. Something much darker.” Michael Goldfarb is the former online editor of The Weekly Standard, about whom the less said, the better. Charles Krauthammer is Charles Krauthammer. I was not aware that they comprise a “wing” of American Jewry, or that American Jewry has “wings.” What sets them apart from their more enlightened brethren is the unacceptability of their politics to Sullivan. That is his criterion for dividing the American Jewish community into good Jews and bad Jews–a practice with a sordid history.
As far as I can tell, Krauthammer’s position on torture is owed to a deep and sometimes frantic concern for American security, and his position on the war in Gaza to a deep and sometimes frantic concern for Israeli security, and his position on Iran to a deep and sometime frantic concern for American and Israeli security. Whatever the merits of his views, I do not see that his motives are despicable. Moreover, Krauthammer argues for his views; the premises of his analysis are coldly clear, and may be engaged analytically, and when necessary refuted. Unlike Sullivan, he does not present feelings as ideas. Most important, the grounds of Krauthammer’s opinions are no more to be found in, or reduced to, his Jewishness than the grounds of the contrary opinions–the contentions of dovish Jews who denounce torture, and oppose Israeli abuses in the Gaza war, and insist upon a diplomatic solution to the threat of an Iranian nuclear capability–are to be found in, or reduced to, their Jewishness. All these “wings” are fervent Jews and friends of Israel. There are many “Jewish” answers to these questions. We all want the Torah on our side. And the truth is that the Torah has almost nothing to do with it.
Sullivan is hunting for motives, not reasons; for conspiracies, which is the surest sign of a mind’s bankruptcy. These days the self-congratulatory motto above his blog is “Of No Party or Clique,” but in fact Sullivan belongs to the party of Mearsheimer and the clique of Walt (whom he cites frequently and deferentially), to the herd of fearless dissidents who proclaim in all seriousness, without in any way being haunted by the history of such an idea, that Jews control Washington. Sullivan might have a look at the domestic pressures–in lobbies and other forms–upon American diplomacy toward China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Cuba, and give a thought or two to the elaborate and sometimes exasperating nature of foreign-policy-making in a democracy; but he prefers not to dive deep into the substance of anything. It is less immediately satisfying than cursing and linking. Does Sullivan think that Obama’s engagement with Iran–which, accurately described, is an engagement with the Iranian dictatorship and not with the Iranian people–is paying off? Does he believe that the Israeli war against Hamas was an unjust war, or that Israel should have continued to absorb Hamas’s rocket attacks–which were indisputably criminal–and not acted with force against them? His answers may be inferred from his various ejaculations–“the pulverization of Gazans,” for example, is a phrase that is calculatedly indifferent to the wrenching moral and strategic perplexities that are contained in the awful reality of asymmetrical warfare–but they are not so much answers as bar-room retorts; moody explosions of verbal violence; more invective from another American crank. Worst of all, the explanation that Sullivan adopts for almost everything that he does not like about America’s foreign policy, and America’s wars, and America’s role in the world–that it is all the result of the clandestine and cunningly organized power of a single and small ethnic group–has a provenance that should disgust all thinking people.
And this is not all that is disgusting about Sullivan’s approach. His assumption, in his outburst about “the Goldfarb-Krauthammer wing,” that every thought that a Jew thinks is a Jewish thought is an anti-Semitic assumption, and a rather classical one. Bigotry has always made representatives of individuals, and discerned the voice of the group in the voice of every one of its members. Is everything that every gay man says a gay statement? I will give an example. On October 15, 2001, when the ruins of the World Trade Center still smoldered, Sullivan published a piece in the Times of London called “A British View of the US Post-September 11.” In this piece he accused Bill Clinton of “appeasement,” and praised George W. Bush for assembling “the ideal team” for a “task” that “cannot be done by airpower alone,” and had kind words for America’s “world hegemony”–the politics changes, the fever remains the same–and also included this unforgettable sentence: “The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead – and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column.” A fifth column! It is a genuinely sinister sentence. I wish to emphasize two features of Sullivan’s comment. The first is that it is an exercise in demonization: it divides the American people into good Americans and bad Americans. The second is that it is in no way an expression of Sullivan’s homosexuality. It must never be said that when Sullivan lauded the bellicosity of Cheney and Rumsfeld–which wing of American Christianity, by the way, shall we blame for them? –he exchanged the company of the good gays for the company of the bad gays. To say that would be homophobic. Here is what such homophobia would look like: Most American homosexuals, of course, retain a respect for art, and compassion for the other, and support for minorities. But the Sullivan-Shmullivan wing of American homosexuality–that celebrates and believes in torture and war, and endorses the pulverization of Afghan villages with glee, and wants to attack any country where Al Qaeda may be found–is something else. Something much darker. Get it?
RTWT at the link.
Dan Riehl says the enormity is much more than anti-Semitism: "Sullivan is Actually Not An Anti-Semite." Brad DeLong, in a wide, winding path, comes to the same conclusion. And others on the left have circled the wagons.
But I'm with Wieseltier on this one. See also, Darleen Click, "Excitable Andy: ‘Watch out for the Jooooos!’."
1 comments:
As nearly as I can see, the distinctions that Mr Sullivan takes (good Jews vis a vis bad Jews, in Mr Wieseltier's formulation) exists only because Mr Sullivan is trying to divide his political enemies: that Charles Krauthammer is a Jew needs to be mentioned only because he supports policies Mr Sullivan dislikes.
It would be interesting to know how often Mr Sullivan noted the religion or ethnicity of people with whom he agrees.
Mr Sullivan is hardly the first person recently -- think: since the beginning of the Reagan Administration -- to note the influence of Jews among the neoconservative movement. It has always seemed to me to be more of a means of pointing out how gosh-darned different the neocons are from the rest of us; they just think differently, you know, because they are different. Kind of makes it easier than having to tell readers why neoconservative positions in favor of freedom and democracy are so untrustworthy, are so intellectually bad.
Post a Comment