John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP WEISS IN MONDOWEISS
“I was wrong about anti-Semitism going away”
I am sorry, but no hatreds of any kind ever "go away."
That’s part of human nature, a good part of which is ugly.
But in a sense, it doesn't matter so long as we are well protected from their effects in society.
Hatreds are found everywhere and against many targets.
Just as in the United States, it is easy to find millions who still hate black people - the recent waves of anger about some football players respectfully kneeling during the national anthem as form of protest against police violence (American police, on average, kill three people a day) - proves that completely. So does a good deal of the Alt-right’s vehemence against Obama. It has a tone going well beyond just political differences.
What always matters is whether people's hatreds are allowed to affect our communities, to hurt people, and the truth is today, in advanced societies, that they are not, not in any significant terms. There is no tolerance of hatred in the press or in the government or in our social institutions. That's a big achievement.
Jews can go to any university, apply for any job, and live where they please. That was very much not the case in America, say, seventy-five years ago, but it is today.
I also think it appropriate to recognize and not hide from the fact that Israel's brutal behavior, as with snipers shooting down civilians in Gaza weekly, including women and children, definitely makes a lot of people angry, people with and without any hatreds. After all, decent people would not be decent if they weren’t affected by such horror.
Of course, that’s why Israel has such an intense bias against liberals because liberals focus on human and democratic rights and the rule of law. The people in Israel who hate liberals – and there are many of them, I know from my reading - do so because they perfectly understand that they are themselves in complete violation of such principles, some of Western civilization’s finest social and intellectual achievements over centuries of struggle.
It has been terrible to see a criminal like Netanyahu display himself as a leader for the Jewish people. No, he is no leader. He is an extremist, full of hatreds, and there are plenty of popularly-held hatreds in Israel to which he appeals, as we see with respect to both the Palestinians and to black refugees and black Jews who attempt to live in Israel.
