House Slaves at Work

I have been to several of the left wing Israel hate fests. They are scary. There is real passion in the air. There is something about Israel that gets the juices going. Anti-Semitism is a part of it. There are a lot of people who are envious of Jews, on the left as well as the right. Patrick Buchanan thinks Jews have hijacked the conservative movement. But on the left, particularly in the academy, and in journalism, I am certain there is professional envy of the many Jewish faces and what better way to get even, and get back for sometimes losing the competitive battle, than by picking on the Jewish state as a surrogate. Leftist Jews sometimes lead the assault against Israel in these venues, thereby giving the attacks, whatever their reason, greater moral authority. Few Jews will stand up for Israel in these environments, because of the great pressure on the left to conform to the group think in the institutions they control.

Yeah, I been there back when I was a Leftist. The sense of being in a Nuremburg-rally type situation is not even slightly exagerrated. I do think he misses one thing here, which is what Malcolm X called the phenomenon of the house slave. Like the house slave of old, who was allowed into the master's household and eventually came to identify with him, a lot of Jewish Leftists have gained their positions of influence by rejecting every aspect of their Jewish identity. They have literally exchanged their previous, ethnic identity, for a political one. To take another tack on Israel automatically results in one's expulsion or ostracization from Leftist circles. It also adds the need to "prove" that one is not swayed by one's previous ethnic loyalties, thus pushing these intellectuals into more and more violent rhetoric. Of course, this also serves to legitimize the vicious statements of the non-Jewish anti-semitic Left, since their Jewish colleagues have already provided them cover. Nasty, sordid little mess, isn't it? I think there's a book in this somewhere, don't you?