The writing is on the wall, as the Old Testament says. Richard Cohen is against boycott in The Washington Post; but he sees what’s happening to his beloved Israel.
What matters most about the boycotts is what they represent — widespread and growing antipathy toward the Jewish state. It’s facile to attribute this entirely to anti-Semitism, although it surely lurks here and there. But in the United States at least, anti-Semitism is a spent force — witness the appointment of the third Jew in a row to head the Federal Reserve. A generation ago, more than a few commentators would have mentioned the International Jewish Conspiracy or some such thing. That now exists only in the rattled brain of a Louis Farrakhan.
Nonetheless, there is a special, worrisome fury directed at Israel. I hear it from people who are not in any way anti-Semitic. (I would hear more of it if many people were not afraid of being labeled anti-Semitic.) Sometimes I think the anger comes from having repressed criticism of Israel lest it offend. Sooner or later, though, the emotions come spilling out.
Whatever the cause, the fact remains that Israel’s occasionally harsh occupation of the West Bank has put the country on the defensive…
[W]hat they say is not as important as the sound they make. The Israel I love is increasingly hated.
So he alludes to bankers Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellin. I grew up counting Jews, as a sign of our inclusion. Does that mean others get to count them, too? Thanks to Peter Voskamp.
“witness the appointment of the third Jew in a row to head the Federal Reserve.”
Richard Cohen writes lots of dumb things (usually, it’s borderline racist stuff about African-Americans), but this may be the dumbest. America is a tolerant place, and accepting of its Jewish population, but that is hardly proven by the fact that it trusts Jews to handle the Fed. There have been Jews on the Board of Governors for as long as there has been a Board (the first was Paul Warburg), and America was not as accepting of Jews in 1914. The Warburg were a German family; Germany is another place that trusted Jews to manage money, until, well, they didn’t.
I don’t think there’s anything particularly remarkable about the coincidence that the last three Fed chairs have been Jews. It’s much more notable that Janet Yellin is a woman than that she’s Jewish.
Don’t be silly. Only Jews can criticize Israel or the Jewish establishment(like Beinart) when it supports Apartheid. And even that is not enough.
It can’t be the universalist Jews like Max Blumenthal. It has to be the “I pretend I’m a liberal but really I defend any real attempt to stop Apartheid” Jews like Roger Cohen or Bradley Burston(who recently went out of his way to attack “left-wing extremists” like said Blumenthal for his temerity of questioning Ariel Sharon’s sainthood).
“Occasionally harsh” classic!
..occasionally harsh occupation
Other gems in the series
The occasionally stupid investment polices of Lehman
The occasionally mendacious nature of Netanyahu
The occasionally unsuccessful war in Iraq
>> “Sometimes I think the anger comes from having repressed criticism of Israel lest it offend. ”
This may well be true. I recall reading a book about this effect relative to the breakdown of consensus amongst elites in the former USSR and Pre Islamic Iran. Basically it was how everyone tows the line due largely to the social but also very real penalties of violating custom. Then, more and more people notice that speaking out doesn’t quite carry the penalties it once did and the result is an avalanche as popular opinion turns against the regime. The more oppressive a regime is the more the effect is hysteretic. Unfortunately, revolutions produce unpredictable results and sometimes worse results. I sure wish I could remember the author or book title. I think it came out in the early 80’s and was by a USD prof.
I hope we don’t go through something like that if the country is forced into a war with Iran and subsequent accelerated economic/military decline of empire.