Scapegoating to divide and conquer
Nelson Ascher says unanimity isn’t required:
We all have spent too much time talking about the widespread anti-Semitism in the Muslim world and discovering, to our surprise, that many in the West actually share this feeling, while many more couldn’t really care less. This is a mistaken approach.
Instead of trying to understand “why they hate us� and why they (and many others) hate the Jews (something I hope we’ll be discussing for several generations), what we have to understand right now is: what is anti-Semitism good for? What are the uses of anti-Semitism?
Whether those who manipulate anti-Semitism are themselves anti-Semites (or anti-Zionists or whatever), whether they personally share the hatred, all that is irrelevant right now. The historical roots of the hatred, its psychology and so on are not questions we have the time to analyse, dissect, discuss endlessly nowadays. (And we’re still debating the Holocaust, how and why it happened etc., 62 years after the end of WW2, without having reached anything resembling consensual answers.)
We are spending precious time getting surprised or scared, wondering about the hatred itself, its depth and extension. That’s important, but not what’s most important right now. What we need to understand is that this hatred is being once again used cynically to obtain certain results.
Besides being anti-Semitic themselves, the Nazis used anti-Semitism brilliantly to subvert other countries and societies. Though Nazism was (among other things) a form of German expansionism, wherever there were anti-Semites the Germans would also find collaborators. Anti-Semitism was used by the Germans to undermine from the inside countries, societies and armies that could or would stand up to them.
The Nazis managed to convince millions and millions of Frenchmen and Poles, Belgians, Norwegians etc. and, yes, Brits and Americans that, since they were fighting a common enemy, the Jews, they weren’t really the mortal enemies of France and Poland and Belgium and Norway and England and the US. Untold millions were eager to believe that Germany wasn’t really threatening them and their countries, that the Germans didn’t really want to conquer, exploit and kill them. Why? Because they either thought that they could make a common cause with the Nazis against the Jews, or remained indifferent, neutral and defenseless because, being indifferent to the fate of the Jews, they believed it was none of their problem. Many of them even turned against those in their own countries who wanted to fight the Nazis and blamed them for putting everyone else in danger just to “protect the Jews�.
In short: if the Jews were used in the beginning as scapegoats, their main use throughout the war was as a tool to “divide and conquer�. Thanks to their sincere or opportunistic ant-Semitism the Germans were able to paralyse important forces in the countries and societies they wanted to defeat and submit.
That’s just what is happening once again before our very eyes. Though the Jihadists have their own clear, even megalomaniac goals, and while they kill thousands in the US or fight for Shari’a in Europe, while they complain about East Timor or fight for Kashmir, it is enough for them to involve the Jews, particularly Israel, in their struggle or their declared agenda to get the active support or at least the indifference of those in Europe, the US and elsewhere who would like to believe that their complaints, grievances and goals are restricted to or only motivated by Israel. Of course, they also declare they’re fighting against America, but then, for those who hate America anyway (and often the Jews and/or Israel too), the same logic works perfectly.
The Jihadists have shown us how brilliantly they can manipulate for their own purposes something as irrelevant as half-a-dozen cartoons in a Danish newspaper. Thus, it is rather unimportant whether Israel’s destruction is or isn’t their main goal (it isn’t). They seem to have discovered through trial and error that the hatred of Jews is alive and well in the West and, as the Nazis did before, they are using it not only to further their own different goals, but to recruit collaborators and to paralyze whole countries and societies as well. It goes without saying how terrible this is for the Jews themselves, but it is at least as dangerous to the rest of the West that is allowing anti-Semitism to be used against itself. Hatred of the Jews and of Israel is the loaded weapon the Jihadis are putting in the hands of a civilization that’s willing (again) to commit suicide.
August 18th, 2006 at 8:38 am
This is why the claim that the creation of Israel is the center of Middle Eastern conflicts and violence needs to be unequivocally rejected. The inability of Arabs and Muslims to construct forms of political legitimacy other than those centered on promises to destroy Israel might be at the center, but that’s something very different. Not grievance against Israel can be given any credence expect for those pursued by directly involved parties through peaceful, universally accepted means. Any future Arab or Muslim democracy depends upon this very basic lesson in deferral: you must at times conform yourself to conditions not completely of your own making or liking; you can’t destroy the world because it contains a “blot.”
August 19th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
I agree with the analysis. The terror must be opposed by all means, including the military. However, it must be bourn in mind that the military solution is a mere short-term suppression of symptoms. The terror must be understood (not to be confused with “justified”).
Regarding Israel: the statement is very laudable, but impossible to apply at the present time. The Palestinians want the West Bank, and they may ask for it. If Israel agrees, it will be subjected to missile barrages, if it doesnt agree, it gives the Hamas, Jihad and others the clear licence to engage in the very same missile launching, because the negotions will have failed. Would Israel ever agree to share Jerusalem with the Arabs? Will it give up the Gollans? As you see, the negotiations here are over even before they begin. Thus, the violence continues.
August 19th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
On your own account the negotiations are over before they start because the Palestinians refuse to enter them seriously, which would involve accepting something less than the entire West Bank plus half of Jerusalem, dropping the “Right of Return” of the 1948 refugees and renouncing terrorism. The Golan, of course, has nothing to do with the Palestinians, but the fact that you introduce it is one of the “symptoms” we need to address–are we talking about “Palestinian”, “Arab” or “Muslim” demands? It can’t be all three at the same time, and you can’t slip into whichever is more convenient at the moment. And of course it’s impossible to apply–the terms of a peace deal can never be applied until both sides are convinced they have nothing more to gain through war. But you need to have your basic conditions in place in advance, even in order to know why you are fighting.
One of the “deeper” causes of terror is, in my view, the failure of the West to use force consistently and effectively. In that case, starting to do so is far more than a suppression of symptoms–it is putting in place new rules of the game.
August 19th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
Almost totally off the subject and on the lighter side, my friend forwarded me this Chris Buckley humor riff in the New Yorker, “The Stations of Mel Gibson”:
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/shouts/060821sh_shouts
(You might not totally get this if you’re not Catholic or aren’t familiar with the Stations of the Cross.)