June 25, 2004
IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING AN ANTI-SEMITE AND USING ANTI-SEMITISM?:
Conspiracy theories: Attempts to cast the war in Iraq as a plot should give its critics pause (Jonathan Tobin, 6/25/04, Jewish World Review)
[N]utty conspiracy theories are not the sole province of the Jew-haters who seem to dominate the Muslim world these days. Although it would be unfair to draw a straight line between vile Islamic anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and those of the American far left, let's just say that the crackpots of Cairo might find something to talk about with the likes of, say, Tim Robbins or Michael Moore.Robbins, the Hollywood star/playwright, had his anti-Iraq war satire "Embedded" produced at New York's Public Theater this spring. The play, which portrayed the war as a neoconservative conspiracy, will be remembered chiefly for the fact that, as Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout pointed out, Robbins actually used a publication put out by lunatic left-cult leader Lyndon Larouche as the source for a misquote of conservative philosopher Leo Strauss.
As for Moore, his new "documentary" film "Fahrenheit 9/11" is about to open after a huge buildup in the press. The flick, which won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, purportedly shows the war to have been a conspiracy cooked up by evil-doers in the White House.
Among the chattering classes, Moore is considered something of a comic genius, though his previous films were more agitprop than wit. I'll leave the skewering of his latest work to others after it comes out. But I will note that any one who could have written in a book, as Moore did in his best-seller "Dude, Where's My Country?" that George W. Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks, or that most Israelis "know they are in the wrong" in defending themselves against Palestinian suicide bombings, is not exactly a trusted source on the subject of the war on terrorism.
Though Moore belongs on the Sci-Fi Channel, his brand of analysis is being treated as the stuff of mainstream debate on C-Span. And that has consequences not just for the upcoming presidential election, but for the sanity of American democracy itself.
Why would it be wrong to draw that line? Doesn't it seem most likely that those who portray the war as a neocon (for which read "Jewish") conspiracy are trying to tap into ambient anti-Semitism in order to discredit a policy they don't like? Posted by Orrin Judd at June 25, 2004 11:39 AM
When you hate some group or someone as much as these people do, words lose their meaning. So you can throw around anti-Semetic phrases, call the president Hitler or call bloggers and talk show hosts digital brownshirts and not care one bit either about the implcation of those words or the devaulation of their effect by turning Adolf's name into a run-of-the mill invective or Jew hatred into the equivalent, say, of a Red Sox fan's dislike of the Yankees -- something to be trotted out for any occasion with no thought of any future consequences. But since for these people the time horizon ends at Nov. 2, 2004, anything is fair game to come produce a victory that day.