The Game of Hate
by J. R. Nyquist
Weekly Column Published: 6.04.2010
PrintThe day before yesterday a perfect stranger buttonholed me in a parking lot. She began by commenting on the weather, then it turned into a soliloquy about illegal aliens, then digressed into a diatribe against Israel, then into a rant against the Jews, then into holocaust denial, and finally she said a few kind words about Adolf Hitler. What brought all this on? She was agitated by the Israeli Defense Force's interception of the "Free Gaza" flotilla. "How dare the Israelis blockade starving women and children!"
Yesterday I had an exchange with someone, formerly associated with an American intelligence agency, who claims to be knowledgeable about the Middle East. I offered the following view on the Middle East, to which he later responded: Quite naturally the United States has important interests in the Arab world, especially in terms of a commitment to protect certain Arab princes in the Gulf region, and to protect "democracy" in Iraq. At the same time we wish to prevent a second holocaust -- a second mass extermination of Jews. Seen by many to be an ally and friend to Arabs, the United States is an ally and friend to Israel as well. This is a very uncomfortable position for America, because the conflict between Israel and the Arabs appears to be non-negotiable (especially with the insertion of Islamism into the conflict). We are thus confronted with a dilemma. Either Israel will survive and Islamic power will be broken for centuries to come, or Israel will be destroyed and Europe will come under the same pressure Israel now feels.
It is useful to take note of the rabid anti-Jewish feelings that prevail in the Muslim world. Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, is taken seriously there, along with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Holocaust denial is a mainstream idea in the Islamic world. Not so long ago, Iran sponsored a conference which suggested that the mass extermination of Jews during World War II was a hoax arising out of a deliberate Jewish conspiracy. The hatred of Jews is encouraged by a steady and poisonous propaganda, from which it is almost impossible to break free. This hatred is so fierce, so irrational and overwhelming, it promises only one outcome to the future. It is the promise that Hitler once made to the German people; namely, that the next war would result in the elimination of the Jews from Europe. Only today the promise is to eliminate them from the Middle East. The Jews, making a stand upon their ancient homeland, now possess nuclear weapons and vow to rain destruction upon those that would follow Hitler's example.
For peace to come about in the Middle East, it is not enough that the Israelis show sympathy for the plight of Arabs. This is what we would all like to see. But what of Arab sympathy for the plight of the Jews? But no one is sufficiently "insensitive" as to insist upon this. And given the Islamist's favorable attitude toward Hitlerism, it is understandable that many are worried about Iran's potential for developing nuclear weapons.
There is another point to be made as well. Islamic power ostentatiously stands in opposition to Western power. Which of these powers will prevail? This is not necessarily a military question, but also a cultural question. Can the two powers live in peace, side by side? If Israel is considered an outpost of the West, can the Arabs agree upon a border with Israel? Or must we accept the destruction of Israel? Here the bitter experiences of India, alongside those of Israel, suggest that peace with Islam is always and forever problematic. Do we imagine there is no lesson to be found in the Islamic invasions of the Roman Empire, Europe and India? We are told to be sympathetic to the Islamists, to the plight of the Arabs. What about sympathy for Christians and Jews?
How do we eliminate feelings of hatred an enmity for us, when these feelings are being continually stirred up against us. You may recall that Israel is the "Little Satan" of Islamic lore. America is the "Great Satan." Who is spreading this hatred, and how can it be stopped? Our leaders today in the West imagine that negotiation can overcome this hatred. I would argue, instead, that we must insist on a more fundamental ground for mutual understanding and peace. The preachers of hate must stop their preaching, or else there cannot be peace in the Middle East. Anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly mistaken. In addition, we must not take for granted the survival of the West or of Israel. Nations and civilizations are fragile, and so is our existence -- especially in a world where mass destruction weapons have appeared.
The former intelligence professional (mentioned above), replied to me as follows: The Arabs have been dominated by European colonial powers and fear a new colonialism. They see Israel as an instrument of Western colonial occupation. What they oppose is illegal occupation. By what right does Israel expand its settlements? Israel's survival depends on a two-state solution. To avoid this solution is to play into the hands of the Israeli hard right.
In response to this I would like to quote the words of Yaacov Lozowick, taken from his book, Right to Exist: "Try as you may ... the scope for casting Israel as a colonial power is limited, even if ... you are willing to inflate greatly the number of dead in Israel's Lebanese campaign or to disparage the independence of Israel's courts. If you are predisposed to identify conflicts between Western powers and anyone else in terms of 'liberal colonialism,' rather than in empirical analysis or a universal evaluation of the morality of the protagonists, the real culprit, of course, is the United States: very big, very rich, very powerful, the mainstay of the first world."
Thus we come round to the key point in the anti-Jewish rhetoric of today. The ultimate target of the hateful rhetoric in the Middle East is America and not Israel, it is capitalism and the West. What we find, at bottom, is a Marxist dialectic in progress. The conflict is therefore a class conflict, between the Third World and the First World. It is fed and encouraged by the Second World. We are talking about a war of national liberation sponsored by the Soviet Union (i.e., the Russian Federation). Those that talk about "colonialism" are using political concepts and strategies engineered in Moscow. It is no accident that this rhetoric continues, or that it infects our own political elite as well as intelligence professionals.
This is the game of hate, as played today.
Copyright © 2010 Jeffrey R. Nyquist
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