In Defence of Prejudice
Israel Shamir answers ADL complaint
Beyond the Golden Gate, on a sandy shore of the cold North Pacific,
spayed by black rocks and frequented by Sirens, lies Marin County. In
this most delightful part of California, the
Sirens do not ravish seamen; well-nourished mammals (also called
manatees or sea-cows) peacefully flock on the beach, near equally
peaceful and tranquil humans. They (humans, not sea-cows) are pleasant,
blond and suntanned, given to yachting, white wine and Sufi poetry; or
so it seemed to me after a fly-through visit. The comfortable life does
not make the residents sluggish and placid, probably due to relatively
bracing climate: Marine County is the home to this rare breed, the
American radical. There are more of our readers and friends there than
in the whole city of New York.
More than once I found myself mumbling: Northern
California and its people are too good for the United States. The border
should be drawn at Monterey. Let the Yanks keep the urban spread of LA
with its toothy lawyers, their broad-backed spouses, the steroid
instructors and silicon starlets who provide their relief. Northern
California should be hitched to a few large whales and moved to the
Atlantic shore of Europe, somewhere next to Normandy. Not in vain did
this strip of land belong to Russia for a while, and it retains some of
the Russian soulfulness, though it faces the Pacific rather than the
Baltic.
Their local paper, the Coastal Post, is
mind-bogglingly free from subservience to the Lobby. So free that they
ran my piece
Carter and Swarm,
in defence of President Jimmy Carter after he
crossed the line and the Lobby
served him the black mark and threatened him with prosecution under
a quaint law of 1799. The ferocious Jewish political police, the ADL,
attacked the paper and me “objecting to unsubstantiated
perpetuation of stereotypes of a malicious cabal of Jews "pushing for
war," as well as Shamir’s stereotype of "Jewish media-lords" that
"clinch the party line."
Here is my reply to the ADL’s attack:
In Defence of Prejudice
Stereotypes and
prejudice are a legitimate part of our life. They are here to make our
life easier. If you walk the dark streets of an urban ghetto and notice
a gang of male teenagers without a single woman among them, your
prejudice tells you to make a prudent detour. If a tramp in rags
proposes to sell you a gold watch, your prejudice advises you to avoid
the deal. If a charming stranger is eager to get bedded, your prejudice
calls you to use a condom – or run away. ADL correctly states that there
is a stereotype of a “malicious cabal
of Jews” who are “pushing for war," as well as that of "Jewish
media-lords" that "clinch the party line.”
A stereotype, or prejudice, usually is a result of
many unpleasant experiences by persons who did not heed them. Ghetto
teenagers may beat you up, the tramp is likely to unload hot goods, a
brazen hussy may supply you with the clap. And organised Jewry did push
for World War Two, for the Iraq War, and now for the war with Iran and
Syria, while supporting apartheid in Israel. American mainstream media
from The New York Times and Washington Post to the
Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times has Jewish owners
and sticks to the party line.
Prejudice makes
life difficult for stereotyped persons, and this is sometimes unfair:
the tramp may be a rightful heir and owner of the golden watch, a
charming stranger may be a chaste creature swept away by your wit and
looks, the teenagers may discuss Plato’s Cave, while
a publicity-shy Israel Taub, an octogenarian scion of a great Hassidic
dynasty, a Jewish prince, of sorts, spends his personal fortune
rebuilding Palestinian houses destroyed by Israeli soldiers. Together
with a Palestinian prince Nashashibi and a WASP Professor McGowan he
erected a memorial to the victims of the Zionist-perpetrated
Deir Yassin Massacre. For
him, Jimmy Carter is right, while AIPAC is even worse than the Israeli
destroyers. Still, such men are
rather the exception to the rule, and in chance encounters, a prudent
man will hope for best and expect the worst.
A person unhappy
with a stereotype or with prejudice may fight it. There is a good,
hard way to fight a stereotype you dislike: act contrary to the
stereotype. At the end of 19th century, Asians were
stereotyped as weaklings and walkovers, doomed to submit to the White
Man’s Destiny. The Japanese did not like the stereotype, pulled up their
socks and sank the Russian Navy, before doing the same trick to the
American one. In 1950s, Japanese goods were stereotyped as ‘shoddy’.
They did not complain, but worked harder and by the 1980s, Japan-made
cars became a byword of quality.
Indeed, prejudice
may be defeated. If you are a ghetto dweller, be stranger-friendly and
make your ghetto a nice place to visit, proving that prejudice is
baseless. This was done by the Chinese who suffered from terrible
prejudice in the beginning of 20th century. They got
together, eliminated petty crime, and now their ghetto, Chinatown, is a
delightful place to come for a stroll or for a dinner out. Prejudice
against the Chinese died out, or rather got limited to Mia Farrow.
The Jews fought
against prejudice a few times and won every time. In the 18th
century they were considered illiterate and to be living in the Dark
Ages. In the 19th century they were considered unmanly. Each
time, they listened to the received wisdom of stereotype and acted to
correct their behaviour. They can do it now again. They may engage in
work conducive to the general benefit, shy away from stock markets and
banks, give Christmas presents, demand “troops out of Iraq, no aid to
apartheid Israel”, be friendly to their non-Jewish neighbours. Do not
demonise nor threaten with legal action everybody who does not agree
with you. Do not turn the media into your private reserve. Try this, and
an old stereotype will wither and vanish. Actually, Zionism came into
being as an idea of fighting the stereotyping of Jews by turning Jewish
money and media men into peasants and soldiers. This was partly
successful, but the old habits die hard.
The ADL and their wealthy Jewish supporters
went by an easier way: sticking to stereotypes and intimidating those
who notice their relevance. Together, they fit stereotype to a tee:
they are warmongering (against Iraq and now Iran), interfering with free
speech (see their attack on Carter), protecting of thieves (remember
Marc Rich?), spying on dissidents (as in the Blankfort case in
California), abusing the legal system (by suing their ideological
opponents), acting as a cabal (defending and hiding Israeli crimes). And
they still dare to speak of
“unsubstantiated perpetuation of stereotypes”! Next we may expect a
Spaghetteria fighting the stereotype of Italians eagerly devouring
spaghetti.
Jews are usually
quite happy applying stereotypes and prejudice, that is if they apply it
to somebody else. Michael Kinsley, a star of Jewish punditry (Harvard,
Oxford, LA Times, Slate, CNN, New Republic, Time, Economist, Harper)
blessed stereotyping of Arabs: “When
thugs menace someone because he looks Arabic, that's racism [because
it is done by others - ISH]. When airport security officials single
out Arabic-looking men for a more intrusive inspection, that's something
else [because it is done under control of a good Jew, Mr Chertoff
– ISH] , for the airport security folks have a rational reason for what
they do. An Arab-looking man heading toward a plane is statistically
more likely to be a terrorist. That likelihood is infinitesimal, but the
whole airport rigmarole is based on infinitesimal chances.”
Well, the whole life rigmarole is based on small
chances, but the chances that your average Jewish pundit will be
violently anti-Arab, pro-war, against Iran and generally will stick to
their party line are not small at all. They are better than winning in
rouge et noir. There are exceptions, but they are aware that they are
exceptional. The stereotyping of Jews is quite justifiable, and only
their behaviour change will change it.
The ADL serves as a bad example to other groups.
Instead of working harder or changing behaviour, they copycat Jews and
moan about prejudice. If the
Japanese would do that, they still would be producing shoddy cars, but
the hate laws would forbid us to mention it. Hate laws
and political correctness may hush up a problem but never solve it.
I know of it first-hand: my own Russian community had
a bad image problem in admittedly prejudiced Israel. Instead of whining,
the Russians created their own theatre, now arguably the best in Israel,
promoted their own newspapers and political parties, and eventually
asserted its place. Granted, they were helped a lot by Putin’s Russia
which reasserted Russian pride. In California, I’ve met the Black
Muslims, well-spoken and well-dressed men and women, who are respected
without appealing to hate laws. They remind me of the youngish senator
Barak Obama, another leader who does not need anybody’s condescension or
defence.
People should be equal in law, this goes without
saying. But stereotyping and prejudice usually correspond to reality,
and they will change with the change of reality.
The ADL is not a means of prevention of the
stereotype, but an important reason for its perpetuation. With their
army of lawyers, their seemingly unlimited resources and their access to
power they may forbid every related public expression of people’s
feelings. But they can not forbid the feelings, and suppressed feelings
will burst out sooner or later with greater, devastating force.
They are repeating the error of Soviet days: the
Party had banned criticism, people suppressed their feelings, and their
outburst swept away the Party rule. The democratic regimes allowed for
free speech and criticism because this provided an outlet for people’s
feelings and moderated the need for violent revolution. Now, with their
supreme power of censorship and intimidation, organised Jewry has almost
recovered the ground lost by the Party.
If all three major-party contenders for the
Presidency of the Republic go, hat in hand, to proclaim their fealty to
AIPAC, if a former President is unable to express his views without
being brutally abused by the ADL, America may need a revolution in order
to regain its freedom to express its feelings, unless the whining lot of
ADL activists is somehow reined in first.