Roger L. Simon: In Praise of Victor Davis Hanson

I admire classical historian Victor Davis Hanson more with each articles of his I read. He is a man of gret knowledge and great courage. Today he has a piece on Real Clear Politics - A New Strain of Anti-Semitism is Spreading - that clearly and eloquently expresses what, alas, many of us already know. The disease we thought had been staunched after World War II is coming back quickly in a virulent strain.

Comments

Comments require registration through TypeKey. Abusive remarks may be deleted. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Roger Simon.

Now we understand that they are both completely nuts. I'm glad the good people of South Dakota dumped the Senator and would be even more happy if the EU told Turkey to F**k Off until they decided to find the late 20th century, if not the 21st.

dclydew - perfect reaction. Just what Hanson and Simon would want - increase the hate.
Hanson forgot to tell you the the Turkish fellow was in office for all of 367 days - and that it was a fluke of their parliamentary system. And that he is currently under house arrest. And that he is banned from politics. That sort of ruins his story.(I've a few more details on my blog)
So let's call demonize and hate the Turks, and then wonder why no one wants to join a coalition the next time we need one.

Have you read some of the commentary following Dr. Hanson's article? Just amazing.

"This new face of anti-Semitism is so insidious because it is so well disguised, advanced by self-proclaimed diplomats and academics -- and now embraced by the supposedly sophisticated left on university campuses."

This is another way of saying that a good size percentage of Democratic Party "elites" hold these values. My guess is that roughly a third do so. Please note that Pat Buchanan is no longer a Republican. When will the Democrats also clean house?

The psychiatrist Alice Miller wrote that anti-Semitism is an indicator of severe mental illness.

When someone begins publicly stating their Jew-hatred, it's a sure sign that they're in a full-fledged psychological meltdown.

This is another way of saying that a good size percentage of Democratic Party "elites" hold these values.

Yes, exactly--that's the smear Hanson is propagating. He conflates genuine anti-Semitism with criticism of Israeli government policies with opposition to neoconservative policy, and finally levels the accusation at an impossibly vague and broad set of people without actually identifying any examples (because if he did identify individuals, it would be possible either to refute the charge of anti-Semitism or to demonstrate their isolation from the broad group of people Hanson is targeting). It's a sick, dishonest piece of mass character assassination.

It seems to me that there is an important difference between the old anti-Semitism and the new anti-Semitism. Traditionally, Jews were disliked and even hated because they were perceived as "different" from the societies in which they lived. Today, they are likely to be reviled *specifically because* they exemplify the values of their societies.

People on the left don't (for the most part) dislike Israel in spite of the fact that it is a technologically and econmically advanced, democratic, Enlightenment-based societies...they dislike Israel *because* of these factors.

Tom Hilton, maybe VDH is thinking along the lines of elephants & gnats (an expression he often uses to point out where politics has hidden history, scale & context). Maybe it's something like:

Elephant: Seventy straight years now of Euro state fascisms followed by several hundreds of millions of petro-wealthy Muslim fanatics actively working to annihilate Israel/the Jews, while a few million Jews/Israelis, trying to annihilate NOBODY, merely seek to survive.

Gnat: verbal hidey-holes such as the western left's obsessively posited "distinction between the Jewish state and the Jewish people".

Yet when the United States bombed European and Christian Serbia to help Balkan Muslims, few critics alleged that American Muslims had unduly swayed President Clinton

Actually, they were pointed out in the European media and there was a documentary just before the last election on PBS showing the links between Albanian terrorist supporters and the US Democratic Party. Jewish groups were also prominent in advocating first pro-Croatian policies, later support for the Bosnian separatists, and finally the NATO assault on Serbia. Many others also lobbied to bomb the Serbs including so-called human rights organisations.

The idea that only Jewish groups get accused of influencing politicians is bizarre coming from sites that are always mentioning CAIR. The Cuban lobby has also been accused of a disproportionate influence on US policy towards Cuba.

If VDH is going to compare Serbia and Israel he should bring up the fact that Serbs were far more vilified around the world and in popular media than Israel for doing pretty much the same thing: Protecting their people and territory from outside and internal aggression. I don't recall NATO bombing Israel for a couple of months in response to its robust reaction to Muslim terrorists. I guess that means anti-Serbianism is much stronger than anti-Semitism but VDH has nothing to say on that subject.

VDH seems to have lost all perspective. The world's negative reaction to US foreign policy seems to have sent him over the edge.

I mentioned the support of Jewish groups for Croatia and Bosnia. Below there is an explanation of how that came about and how it allowed public opinion to equate the Serbs with Nazis and thus pave the way for the mutilation of their nation.

measuring Israel against a standard of perfection, and (gosh) finding it wanting...

I have known American Jews since the 1960s who have been outraged at Israel's actually defending itself (with GUNS and.. SUCCESSFULLY), and eagerly believing every lie around (like massacres in Lebanon by Ariel Sharon. And now, (gosh) the anti-semites are coming out to play from every direction, aren't they?

As for the Serbs... slaughter in the balkans is hard to follow, and always has been. My opinion was formed when I saw a crowd of frightened non-Serbs, at a train station, waiting to be sent off ... somewhere. Much too evocative of WWII, for me anyway.

"finally levels the accusation at an impossibly vague and broad set of people without actually identifying any examples"

You're simply lying, Hilton. He names three people right in that article, and two others are quite obvious (Walt and Mearshimer). As for the horrible "smear" of "... conflat[ing] genuine anti-Semitism with criticism of Israeli government policies ..." it's true that it is possible to criticize Israel without being "genuinely" (presumably right-wing in Hilton's universe) anti-Semitic. But guess what - they sure hang around together a lot. In fact there is considerable overlap, so much so that I am wearying of giving benefit of the doubt.

Today in my experience, anti-Semitism is often thinly veiled as anti-Zionism. If I hear the words, "Jimmy Carter is right about Israel...." then I quickly vacate the building....

I'm a little surprised that VDH draws such animus. He writes in a scholarly style and for the most part offers some example or descriptive narrative to support his opinions. A 1500 word article has its limitations and a thoughtful reader would acknowledge that.

Maybe the internet just makes the abundance of gutter intellectuals more obvious.

Here'something that may interest readers.VDH wrote me apologizing for the article because he had many examples he wanted to use, but had to cut them to fit a 750 word limit. Of course, this kind of thing should be obvious via common sense... but not to some.

I hope the targets of my displeasure were clear. I admire and look forward to VDH's writing on classical and contemporary issues perhaps more than any other net author.

VDH's personal integrity comes through in his writing - a quality so sorely lacking in this upside-down postmodern world. Were it not for VDH, the author of this blog, and a few others I would wonder if there were any adults out there.

I still remember, back eight or ten years, reading an interview with great British historian (oh, alright, 'military' historian) John Keegan, wherein he was asked, as a way to wind up the talk, if there was any new work being done in the field. He answered something like, 'a young +Californian named Victor Davis Hanson is breaking new ground on the ancients'.

I recall wondering how anyone could break new on such plowed ground, so went out and bought his Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece. Couldn't, as they say, put it down.

The topic is mightily arcane of course, but VDH draws out in no uncertain terms persistant themes in human nature & circumstance that will shape us tomorrow as strongly as they shaped us yesterday.

I guess that's why some sneer and call him a neocon Bushie--because VDH tells us--convincingly--that everywhere we are now, and will likely be soon, we've been before, and this or that is how this or that has turned out in the past.

This brand of clarity is of course anathema to the modern western left, which requires much fog and confusion to sell its "ideas".

Buddy, the problem was the Athenians demonized the Spartans instead of sitting down and talking to them.

LOL --bet on it, that's exactly what our new lefties would think, that is had they ever heard of the Athenians or the Spartans.

Buddy, I don't really remember much about the Athenians and Spartans except for a little I learned in school what is now an all too long time ago. But I think I made my point, and I think you got it :^).

That in turn seems to depend on what one is betting, how much one has at risk on the line.

The creatures on the DC mall today, wearing their palestinian yashmags, aren't really betting much of anything, have pretty much zero at risk on the line.

Others elsewhere, having much, much more at stake, can hardly so frivolously ignore history.

September 13, 2007: In Praise of Victor Davis Hanson

Comments

Post a comment

Email This Post