http://www.uexpress.com/ups/opinion/column/js/text/1997/12/js971209.html
Rabid Reflections
By Joseph Sobran (12/09/1997)
WASHINGTON -- Writing in The Washington
Times, Frank Gaffney Jr. of the Center for Security
Policy makes a remarkable assertion. Several,
actually. You have to wonder if Gaffney fully realizes
what he's saying.
"In 1992, American Jews and others committed to
the security of the state of Israel were among the most
enthusiastic and generous supporters of the
Clinton-Gore ticket -- and with good reason. The
government of George Bush and Jim Baker was
arguably the most anti-Israel U.S. administration
since the founding of the Jewish state."
He adds that the 1992 election "afforded an
opportunity through public repudiation at the polls to
punish Bush for the harm he had inflicted on
relations between the two countries." Along the way,
Gaffney describes the columnists Rowland Evans and
Robert Novak as "rabidly anti-Israel," though (or
because) they praised Israel's Labor government.
To call Messrs. Bush, Baker, Evans and Novak
"anti-Israel" is stretching the language cruelly. To
call them "rabidly" so is simply irrational. But
Gaffney is hardly alone in these semantic excesses.
What these four men were doing, in their different
ways, was to assert what they perceived as American
interests in dealing with Israel. To be "anti-Israel," in
normal usage, would be to want to hurt Israel. To be
"rabidly" anti-Israel would be to demand war, or
something like it.
But for Gaffney, as for many others, any American
who tries to put American interests ahead of Israeli
interests is "anti-Israel." He even implies that
American Jews generally put Israel's interests ahead
of U.S. interests -- so much so that they would throw
other considerations and principles aside and vote for
the Clinton-Gore ticket for Israel's sake!
Far from disapproving, moreover, Gaffney implies
that this is quite proper, and that American Jews
were right to "punish" Bush in the 1992 election. In
other words, there is nothing wrong with letting
Israel's interests decide who will be America's
president.
The picture Gaffney presents is unflattering, if not
insulting, to Jews, even if he doesn't intend it that
way. The negative stereotype of Jews depicts them as
behaving precisely along the lines he describes.
All stereotypes have an element of fact. The harm
they do comes not from believing that some members
of a group fit the crude image -- some always do --
but from assuming that the whole group may be
judged by the exaggerated type.
Unfortunately, politics deals with people in crude
masses, and the exaggerated type is likely to be more
zealous and better organized than the normal
specimen. Politicians don't bother trying to appeal to
people who think independently; there is no political
party whose platform calls for recognizing moral
ambiguity.
So in politics, "the Jews" are reduced to those Jews
who form an active and effective mass. Hamlet may
be more thoughtful than the rash and passionate
Laertes, but Laertes leads a mob, while Hamlet broods
in the undecided column. (Can it be coincidence that
Hamlet is the only character in Shakespeare who
refers to Israel?)
Many American Jews would indignantly object to the
notion that they put Israel above the United States,
and to the notion, implicit in Gaffney's whole essay,
that the Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu
represents Jewish interests. Many Jews, in fact,
disapprove of Israel's treatment of non-Jews, and see
no reason why they, as Americans, should be forced
to subsidize it with their taxes.
But politicians who value survival can't afford to
appeal to the finer side of human nature. For them,
"the Jewish community" will always mean the Jews
with the most shekels to spend on politics. In the
language of politics, "community" (as in, to take
another example, "gay and lesbian community")
basically means "donors."
The logic of politics (we call it either "politics" or
"democracy," depending on whether we like the
results) requires one to embrace the negative
stereotype of any important group and turn it into an
image of virtue and victimhood. Group privileges
become steps toward "equality" or "remedies for past
discrimination."
And anyone who opposes special treatment for
Ruritania (paid out of his taxes, of course) becomes
"anti-Ruritanian." Perhaps rabidly so.
