> Don't you find the tone of this a little weird?
[...]
> And the point of this is?
Sure, I see what you mean. The whole subject is so vexed. In Cocky's case, I don't suspect any real anti-semitism. He likes to break taboos and maybe he failed to cultivate the right tone for this one. On the other hand, his stuff about Jews and the media is just weird. He got some of it from Jude Wanniski, though. How do you like that, Doug, you Jude-lover?
But Ace was at least aiming in a vague way to make a point that deserves to be made. If some Internet conspiracy theorist proposed that Turkish intelligence was behind 9/11, no one would accuse - or even suspect - him of bigotry against Turks as an ethnic group. But someone mentions the Mossad and right away the listener almost instinctually begins to probe for signs of anti-Semitism. I mean, I've found myself doing this too.
Then the question arises - to what extent is this a justified response to the reality of anti-Semitism, and to what extent is this a specemin of political paranoia?
Chaim Weizmann - the leader of pre-state Zionism and then Israel's first president - used to go around hyping the role of "the Jews" in the Bolshevik revolution. It's not clear if he actually believed this or if it was a useful thing to say to persuade frightened British officials to give in to Zionist demands. But the fact is, there were a lot of Jews among the Bolsheviks. And there are huge numbers of Jews in the US media and in Hollywood. Jews joke about this all the time, I don't see why anyone else should be timid about mentioning it. But the idea that Jewish "media influence" is the cause of the pro-Israel bias is ridiculous. Before Israel became a prized US asset, the New York Times had a policy of not allowing Jewish correspondents to cover Israel. There's also evidence the Times covered up information about the Holocaust out of fear of being seen as advancing some Jewish cause. Today the Times has several Jewish correspondents in Israel and, to my knowledge, no Arabs.
Right now I'm reading Tom Segev's terrific book about Palestine under the British mandate. His main thesis is that British policy was pro-Zionist - not because it was in the British interest but because the British really believed the anti-Semitic fantasies about world Jewish power. Yet throughout the book Segev almost goes out of his way to show instances of the extraordinary influence the Zionists did actually manage to wield. Everyone seemed to believe the Jews had power, so they complied with Jewish demands. The when others saw this, they concluded that the Jews really did wield power. In the end, the anti-Semitic fantasy came true because everyone believed it.
Seth