Helena Cobban asked in an email yesterday– apropos of the report that Netanyahu has called powerful Jewish aides to Obama "self-hating Jews"–which is worse: to be called an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew? Which calumny is more effective in preventing criticism of Israel? I say: to be called an anti-Semite. My reasoning:
Self-hater is more recent vintage. Chomsky says late Ambassador Abba Eban started it in 1973, when he called out Chomsky and "I.F. Stone, whose basic
complex is one of guilt about Jewish survival. They feel themselves associated with our unpardonable audacity at not
having been destroyed or eclipsed or, more accurately, at not having been
merged into some homogenized universalist utopia." As that quote shows, and as the charge against David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel also demonstrates, self-hatred is a ridiculous accusation. Some Jews even enjoy being called self-hating. Hannah Arendt said, when Gershom Scholem accused her of not loving the Jewish people back in 1963, I don't love a people, I love my friends. Max Blumenthal had a smart psychological turn on this recently: Yes I'm self-hating, but being Jewish has nothing to do with it.
In sum, I think Jews can get over the self-hating accusation, with a little liniment and a raw steak applied to the area.
As for anti-Semite, it goes back a lot further and is perceived to be more damaging. You can be sued for wrongly accusing someone of being an anti-Semite. I don't think you can be sued for calling someone a self-hating Jew. The smear of anti-Semitism was obviously deeply hurtful to Walt and Mearsheimer. They have refused to debate anyone who called them anti-Semites (they're both basically philo-Semites, take it from someone who knows them), and for a while, a year or so, it seemed to work; it kept other people from jumping in.
In fact, one reason I do this blog is because a dear friend, a gentile who I talk about Israel/Palestine all the time with, long ago challenged me: You have to write about this; I can't, they'll call me an anti-Semite.
I think the anti-Semite sting is losing its power, through misuse, but it still is more damaging.
