I'd suggest that the heresy-hunters here have come up with examples of ever more exquisite politico-linguistic sin. The effect is to serve the goal announced by Abba Eban long ago: "one of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all."
Let's consider the original sinful passage (from Cockburn) with another noun, and a few changes (for "proper context"). Does its meaninglessness expose Cockburn's anti-semitic subtext? Or does its rather banal truth raise the question of why its observations might cause alarm? The point of Cockburn's column was hypocrisy about racism in high places in America.
"It's supposedly the third rail in journalism even to have a discussion of how much the Wasps do control the economy. Since three of the prime founders of Wall Street were Wasps who grew up within fifty miles of each other in New York, it's reckoned as not so utterly beyond the bounds of propriety to talk about Waspish power in Wall Street, though people still stir uneasily. [It has been said] that even if the Wasps don't control the economy overall, it is certainly true to say that they control discussion of the economy in the media here. Certainly, there are a number of stories sloshing around the news now that have raised discussion of the US and of the posture of American Wasps to an acrid level. The perpetrator of the Oklahoma City bombing was a former soldier, Waspish, with a record of baiting colleagues of Semitic origins, and with the intent to blame the bombing on Muslim terrorists. Rocketing around the web and spilling into the press are many stories about American federal police spies in the wake of 9/11. On various accounts, they were trailing Atta and his associates, knew what was going to happen but did nothing about it, or were simply spying on US citizens. Finally, there's Bush's bloody repression of Middle Eastern peoples in Turkey and Iraq, and Enron's powerful role in Bush's foreign and domestic policy..."
So Cockburn is surely an antisemite...
On Sun, 24 Mar 2002, Doug Henwood wrote:
> C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
> >Hyperbole like this would just be silly, were it not an example of
> >antisemite-baiting, as mentioned.
> >
> >It is in fact true that "the terror attack on the WTC by Muslims raised
> >discussions of the posture of American Muslims to an acrid level." It did
> >a good bit more -- it put a lot of them in jail. And one is not a racist
> >swine for noting the facts.
> >
> >Similarly, Cockburn was simply reporting what is the case when he wrote
> >that "there are a number of stories [he gives examples] sloshing around
> >the news now that have raised discussion of Israel and of the posture of
> >American Jews to an acrid level." And he ran afoul of only the language
> >cops.
> >
> >I believe that Pradeep and I are suggesting that it shouldn't be different
> >when it's the Jews. --CGE
>
> The "language cops" took exception when Ace started talking about
> "The Jews," as if they were a homogenous and powerful entity. You did
> it here too. Whether intentional or not, it bears the scent of
> anti-Semitic discourse.
>
> Even though this exchange has gotten pretty nasty, I haven't
> intervened to (try to) stop it, because under the invective there are
> some real issues - like the relations between anti-Zionism and
> anti-Semitism, and the use of anti-Semitism to police discourse
> (which works several ways, it seems: not only the classic fashion of
> foreclosing criticism of Israeli behavior, but also invoking that
> classic repressive use to defend turns of phrase like "The
> Jews...."). I'll probably run out of patience with the exchange soon,
> though.
>
> Doug
>