October 15, 2007 Dawkins and the Jews: a reply
A little over a week ago I linked to an extraordinary statement made by Richard Dawkins about the power of the Jews.
In case you missed it here it is again: When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place. The result of my post was tens of thousands of hits and hundreds of comments from around the world. I want to respond here to two of the main strands of thought in these comments, because they pop up remarkably often whenever remarks of the Dawkins kind are made. One type of response was that Dawkins was clearly correct. How could I deny that American Jews influences that country's foreign policy, making it more supportive of Israel? And, of course, that's quite right. I can't, and don't, deny it. Like any group of American citizens, supporters of Israel, organise themselves into a lobby and clearly, sometimes their campaign work is successful. But Dawkins goes much, much further than that. He says the "Jewish lobby" (not supporters of Israel), "more or less monopolise American foreign policy" (not sometimes influence it). Interestingly the Professor doesn't restrict this characterisation to policy on the Middle East. This either means he believes that Jews monopolise policy on all foreign matters (say action on North Korea) or, more charitably, that he makes the common error of considering foreign policy towards Israel so important that no other foreign policy is worth mentioning. This is not merely a pedantic point. Let's take policy on Iraq, for instance. Does Dawkins hold the view that the monopoly of foreign policy held by the Jewish lobby extends to policy to the Iraq war? And his failure to distinguish between Israel and Jews is important here too, since lots of Jews supported the Iraq war, while Israel itself was more worried about Iran. And, of course, most of the important architects of the Iraq war (Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and so forth) weren't Jewish. As a scientist, Dawkins surely can't approve the following statement - Jews support Israel, American foreign policy supports Israel, therefore the Jewish lobby controls American foreign policy. Yet this seems all he's left with. The second type of comment was even more fascinating. Over and over again, I was told off for "attacking" Dawkins as being "anti-semitic". It was outrageous that one couldn't make remarks about Jewish influence without this horrible accusation being made.
Why was this fascinating? Because I didn't accuse the Professor of anti-semitism. I just noted his comments and said I found it frightening that he could believe that. Which I do. It is pretty standard this. A comment is made about Israel or Jews and when that comment is questioned the originator or their defenders says: "Ooh, don't get all shirty and come the politically correct with me. Don't accuse me of anti-semitism every time I criticise you". But they haven't been accused of anti-semitism at all. No one even mentioned it. They are using the idea that they are being accused of anti-semitism as a cover for insupportable remarks. And that is the case here. I don't know Richard Dawkins, but I think it is unlikely he is anti-semitic. Some of his best friends are Jewish, I am sure. He is anti-Judaism, but that's quite a different thing. Yet that makes his remarks worse, not better. If the Professor was merely prejudiced then his suggestion that Jews monopolise American foreign policy could be lightly dismissed as another manifestation of his hatred. I wouldn't be, as I said I was, frightened. Instead I am faced with a lucid, liberal intellectual lending his support, apparently through careful sifting of the evidence (but without any justification I can see), to a contention supported by Nazi Jew haters. And that, that I do find frightening.
POSTED BY DANIEL FINKELSTEIN ON OCTOBER 15, 2007