May 19, 2002

"Hitler is dead," says TNR's

"Hitler is dead," says TNR's Leon Wieseltier, in an interesting essay cautioning American Jews against hysteria and the tendency to see echoes of the '30s and '40s in the anti-Semitic portents of today. "Is the peril 'as great, if not greater' than the peril of the 1930s?" he asks; the answer: "I do not see it." He has a point. Arafat is not Hitler. Hyperbolic descriptions of the recent horrors at Netanya, as well as those at Finsbury Park or SF State, in terms of a "New Kristallnacht" are rhetorically effective and may even contain a grain of truth (as to the state of mind of the participants anyway), but they are misconceived nonetheless. The Jews are not in the same kind of peril, not least because they are in a position to defend themselves as never before and have the support of the most powerful country in the world. TAPped enthusiastically hails Wieseltier and fellow New Republic-an Peter Beinart as "Jews for Moderation," representing a welcome emphasis on a "secular-pragmatic" approach to Israel's security rather than a "fundamentalist-apocalyptic" one.

Moderation is a virtue, for Jews and non-Jews alike, even where the Middle East is concerned. But what's missing from this is an acknowledgement that there can be situations in which there is, as it were, a pragmatic case for "apocalypticism." Wieseltier hints at it: "the real threat to Israel comes not from Jenin and Gaza, but from Baghdad and Tehran; not from booby-trapped casbahs, but from advanced missile technologies." This is not the same kind of peril as that faced by the Jews in Europe in the 1930s. Maybe, as Wieseltier believes, it is not even as perilous (though his faith in Israel's "spectacular deterrent" seems optimistic: those who most need deterring are nuts, remember?) But the threat is serious. Arafat may be "small and mendacious," but that wouldn't prevent him or his associates or his patrons from doing a tremendous amount of damage if they had the means. And no one doubts that they are trying as hard as they can to acquire these means. As for the motive and the extent of their ambition, I think you have to take seriously the Nazi-esque, exterminationist anti-Semitism that permeates the Arab press and the statements of the terrorist organizations themselves. They say "kill the Jews," not just "kill some Jews." Arafat may not be Hitler. Saddam Hussein isn't Hitler, either. Not yet. But with a nuclear weapon and a suicidal-nihilist ideology, anyone can be Hitler. It's not nearly as difficult as it used to be.

I recall hearing some Mideast expert or other (can't remember who) say that the way we know that Saddam Hussein hasn't yet acquired a functional nuclear weapon is that Tel Aviv is still standing and inhabitable. I think what is most disturbing about anti-Israel Europeans (as well as their mercifully few "co-thinkers" in the US) is the equanimity with which they appear to regard this prospect. As Mark Steyn flippantly put it in a recent column (can't find it, so once again I'm paraphrasing) the rest of the world seems to have decided that if anyone is going to be blown up in the Middle East, it might as well be the Jews. In the meantime, there are those who counsel a "moderate" response to those who plan and execute suicide bombing campaigns, negotiating with the perpetrators, offering concessions under the threat of blackmail, etc. Combine that triumph of hope over reason with a similarly tepid policy regarding the "axis of evil's" nuclear and bio-weapons programs, and, it seems to me, you get a virtual guarantee of an attempt at something like Ron Rosenbaum's Second Holocaust. And we're next. Pragmatically speaking, if that's not "apocalyptic," I don't know what is.

Posted by Dr. Frank at May 19, 2002 11:51 PM | TrackBack