On my way to Europe recently, I had a most remarkable conversation with a rabid Anti-Semite. The man, let us call him John, is as unabashedly antisemitic as I am a frequent traveler. The conversation took place in Newark Liberty International Airport while we were both waiting for our respective flights to Europe (Brussels for him; Paris for me). There is, of course, no such thing as a rabid antisemitic look. But whatever profile I might have had in mind, John most certainly did not fit it. Casually dressed with his baseball hat on, and not a tattoo or piercing in site, John is a white man who had been married to a black woman. He plays blues as a hobby; and he is a masterfully articulate and clever person. Moreover, he is quite a keen observer.
On the flight from Syracuse to Newark, he had heard me mention that I forgotten some medication. And as I passed the gate where he was waiting around for his flight to Brussels, he struck up a conversation with me by inquiring as to how I had resolved the problem of the medication that I had forgotten. What a cordial beginning.
With lightening like speed, we got from the few personal remarks about his life (mentioned above) to there being a Jewish conspiracy. I have no idea as to why he thought I might be sympathetic to his unadorned bashing of Jews. He was of the opinion that I am a well-off black man; and perhaps he is of the mind that very successful blacks have an antisemitic streak in them. What I do know, however, is that he was relentless in his attacks on Jews.
John’s first move was extremely shrewd. He informed me that Jews, through their control of the newspapers, had distorted the words of the Iranian president and that the president had never made any of the harsh claims about Israel attributed to him. When I inquired as to why he thought that, John further informed me that he had read on-line a translation from a French newspaper of what the Iranian president had really said. The implicit premise in John’s move is that Jews have much less control over newspapers in France than over newspapers in the United States. Further more, from his perspective that the likelihood was very small that I knew French and France well enough to challenge him about what had been reported in French newspapers?
But, of course, he gambled and loss. I countered with that the observation that the antisemitic words of the Iranian president had actually been reported in France’s premier newspaper Le Monde; and that I knew this because I had read the story myself. In fact, I drew attention to the article in an entry on this blog.
Well guess what? I suddenly became a victim of the Jewish conspiracy itself. My being a victim of the Jewish conspiracy became the explanation for why I was so well attired. Alas, I had sold out for money. My being a victim of the Jewish conspiracy was also the explanation for why I did not accept his story that Jews have brilliantly maligned Arabs.
Naturally, I reminded him that his charge did not change the fact that I had read the story that I had read in France’s leading newspaper. But too late: the Jews had wrapped their tentacles around me. I had more money than he did, so he surmised; and now he had a very good explanation for that disparity. I set aside this untoward observation, because I was quite interested just what he took to be the basis for his view that there is a Jewish conspiracy.
So that was my question: “John,” I asked, “Could you give me your very best example in support of your claim that there is a Jewish conspiracy?” Although he was more than willing to oblige, the truth of the matter is that he had nothing to say that wouldn’t convince a person who did not already hold the views about Jews that he advocated.
He launched into a tirade about the real Jews being Sephardic Jews (primarily from northern Africa) and the imposters being Ashkenazi Jews (primarily from eastern Europe). Only Ashkenazi Jews are evil. Then he insisted that Ashkenazi Jews do not think for themselves, but simply do the bidding of their leaders. Regarding this assessment, I countered with the observation that his characterization Ashkenazi Jews seems more applicable to Muslims than to Jews (be they Ashkenazi or Sephardic). Jews, in fact, are notorious for disagreeing with another. I pointed out to John that Jews often make fun of themselves in this regard with claims like the following: “Every Jew has two synagogues. One he attends and one he refuses to attend”. “Get two Jews in a room, and you will have three opinions.”
Not surprisingly, John was more than a little curious as to just how it turned out that I was so informed about these matters. But I placated him with the observation that some of my best friends are Jewish. Naturally, that more than explained how it turned out that I was a victim of the Jewish conspiracy ! ! !
As to John’s observation that Jews merely follow their leader, I pointed out this claim seems far more applicable to Muslims than to Arabs, as the case of suicide bombings would seem to show. This bothered him, but he was unphased. After all, he reminded me, Jews are not the only ones who blindly follow their leaders. The problem, of course, is that if blind obedience is the core explanation for Jews controlling the world, then Muslims should surely control the world and more.
John’s best example of a Jewish conspiracy was the cartoons of Mohammed that appeared in the Dutch newspaper. My counter was that at the very least this is an extremely controversial example, since it assumes what he purports to establish, namely that Jews control newspapers; for the journalist who was key in the publication of the cartoons is not even Jewish.
I then expressed to John my disappointment in his believing so strongly in a Jewish conspiracy, though he could not produce a very good and uncontroversial example of such a conspiracy. He acknowledged that he had failed in this regard. This, though, was a reflection upon him, mind you—and not the implausibility of there being a Jewish conspiracy.
How did the conversation end? Well, apparently I insulted him. How did I do that? I asked him if he was a member of the KKK. In the name of being utterly disgusted by my question, John then informed me that although my initial cleverness in responding to him was amusing, he had grown tired of it.
John is in the grip of an ideology—antisemitism, in this case. It is unequivocally clear that neither lack of evidence nor implausibility is a relevant to him except insofar as it confirms what he believes. The most striking thing about antisemitism is that so few people are nonetheless responsible for so much that is wrong.
I pointed out to John that by his own account, the number of Jews in the world makes his story next to impossible. This is especially so in John’s case since he thinks that only Ashkenazi Jews are evil. John was completely unphased by this reality.
Anyone can hold a mistaken view. But there ought to be at least an initial plausibility to the view. For instance, in the absence of a theory of gravity and a theory of kinematics, we understand why people once thought that the sun revolved around the earth. Again, it is understandable that people once thought that whales were very big fish instead of giant mammals.
The striking feature about ideology—at the extreme, at least—is that the facts seem so utterly irrelevant. In the typical case, the ideologically driven claims about Jews are about as implausible as the average fairy tale. One of the most incredulous in this regard is that Jews use the blood of non-Jewish teenagers for the Jewish festival of Purim. The claim is so absurd that it defies refutation, which in one respect is part of the problem. The Holocaust would seem to get in the way of a Jewish conspiracy. But even here there are two options. One is to deny that it ever happened; the other is to note rather smugly that this was a means whereby Jews tightened their control upon the world as revealed in the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The more basic question, obviously, is this: What inclines a person to embrace a view that is so shorn of evidence that it flies in the face of reason?
John is a well-mannered and articulate man who is clearly capable of intellectual sophistication. He was certainly no fool. The same holds (all the more) for both Louis Farrakhan in the United States and Dieudonné in France. Idiots are easy to contend with precisely because they are easy to dismiss as being intellectually bereft.
Blaise Pascal observed that “Love has reasons which reason cannot understand”. Most poignantly, and ever so painfully: Evil may be more like love in that regard than we would ever want to suppose
