New memes and old facts when it comes to the oldest hatred
Lately, Mr. Bookworm has been obsessed with Glenn Beck, and he keeps attacking my conservativism by saying that Beck is the “most dangerous man in the world.” The genesis for this theory is a series of Jon Stewart shows that skewered Glenn Beck shows, in which the latter attacked George Soros.
Soros, of course, is genetically Jewish, although he was raised as a Christian, assisted the Nazis with collecting Jewish property (an experience he describes as one of the best in his life), and is implacably hostile to the State of Israel, a hostility he backs by funding all sorts of anti-Israeli groups and causes. Nevertheless, because Soros is sort of Jewish, Stewart argues, and Mr. Bookworm believes, that Beck’s attacks on Soros are the television equivalent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The “Beck is an antisemite because he’s attacking George Soros” meme is spreading. Mr. Bookworm was very excited this morning to read a New Yorker opinion piece making precisely the same point: Beck is an antisemite because he’s pointing out that Soros is an antisemite. What’s really funny is that Beck quotes Soros directly, while the New Yorker labors mightily, using only its own words, to construct a narrative of Soros as victim, rather than an antisemitic sociopath who happened to have Jewish ancestors. Some spin.
This Soros/Beck focused meme is that it cleverly manages to ignore the real antisemitism out there — and that antisemitism, with the exception of a few universally ignored paleocons, comes from the Left. A case in point is the way in which liberal churches are allying themselves with the Palestinian “underdog,” merely because Palestinians are underdogs. The churches seem blind to the fact that these “underdogs” promote homosexual murder; the enslavement, torture and death of women; the genocide of Jews, the “wrong” Muslims and Christians; etc. For liberals, all that matters is that they’re underdogs. ‘Nuff said.
Likewise, these same churches are advocating the pernicious “replacement” theology, the same theology authorized the anti-Jewish atrocities that characterized the Middle Ages and, in Eastern Europe, managed to stay alive all the way through World War II. Currently, this “replacement” theology is especially foul because it’s being used to deny the Jews’ ancient and continuous ties to the Holy Land.
Others on the Left, blinded by their hated for George Bush (who has always supported Israel) and by their reflexive and ignorant affiliation with “underdogs” who are struggling against the U.S. and Israel (never mind that the underdogs are indistinguishable from Nazis, or worse, in their beliefs), are equally hostile to Israel and, by extension, to the Jews. JoshuaPundit has noted on two occasions that Andrew Sullivan, the intellectual darling of the Left, makes pronouncements that could easily have come from any old Jew hater — not that you’d ever hear them from Beck, who hates only Soros, but not the Jews.
Funnily enough, neither Jon Stewart nor the New Yorker, nor any other liberal (and liberal-Jewish) people and publications, seems to have a problem with the blatant antisemitism emanating from the Left.
