Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism
By BERNARD WASSERSTEIN
The Chronicle
In the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, The Chronicle asked scholars in a variety of disciplines to reflect on those events. Their comments were submitted in writing or transcribed from interviews.
A century ago, anti-Semitism was called "the socialism of fools." Now something similar threatens to become rampant: anti-Americanism.
Psychologically, it fulfills some of the same functions as anti-Semitism. It gives vent to a hatred of the successful, and is fueled by envy and frustration. It attributes responsibility for all the ills of the world to one primary source. It ascribes to a supposed ruling clique of the despised group an ambition to control and exploit humanity. This new conspiracy theory has been embraced by large sections of the thinking classes in many countries. Like historical anti-Semitism, it transcends ideological boundaries and brings together economic, social, religious, and national animosities in a murderous brew.
Americans are advised by many abroad (and by some at home): "Ask yourselves why you are so hated." It might be worth remembering that similar questions were put to Jews in the 1930s. And to recall that, as Victor Klemperer recorded in his diaries of the war years in Dresden, some Jews internalized the worldview of their enemies and persuaded themselves that such violent hatred must, indeed, have had a rational source in their own behavior.
The parallel between anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism is more than just an analogy. The two paranoias are linked, and the nodal point of connection is the American-Israeli alliance. To some, the Israeli/Jewish hand is detected behind, controlling, the American leviathan. Perry Anderson (a British historian teaching at the University of California at Los Angeles), for example, writes in the latest New Left Review: "Entrenched in business, government and the media, American Zionism has since the sixties acquired a firm grip on the levers of public opinion and official policy towards Israel." The recent United Nations conference in Durban, South Africa, showed the degree to which anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism seem to have combined in a symbiotic relationship.
As an ideology, anti-Semitism dehumanized its object and so helped prepare the way for mass murder. So, too, with the new anti-Americanism.
But the answer to irrationalism is not more unreason. I detect strong support here in Europe for firm action -- including, if necessary, the use of force -- to capture those responsible for terrorist acts and to forestall further attacks. But the United States must not strike out like a blinded giant. It must not sacrifice its own civil liberties. Above all, it must not repeat the mistake of internalizing the discourse and values of unreason by ascribing a rational basis to this new socialism of fools.
Bernard Wasserstein is a professor of history at the University of Glasgow and president of the Jewish Historical Society of England.
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