Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind
Reader comment on item: Extremists on Campus

Submitted by James J. Daly Sr. (United States), Jun 26, 2002 at 12:07

Jewish intellectuals in American Universities have for years taught and promoted anti-Americanism as an acceptable dissent. Radical movements in the 1960s and 70s were often led by Jewish scholars, activists and legal minds. One of the favorite concerns of these individuals was third world liberation movements. A break in this connection temporarily occured when the radicals began to include Israel as a western imperial power at about the time that the first pro-Palestinian demonstrations were being held on an East Coast campus. This caused many Jewish radicals to make a choice between Israel and their political positions. A very interesting book was published in the 1970s called "The Jews And The Radical Left". In it Jewish radical thinkers wrote of their disenchantment with the radical left because of its position on Israel. The one odd man out, of all people, was Irving Kristol, the incipient founding father of neoconservatism. Irving couldn't find the sophistry to separate himself from the left until he later discovered economics, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and common sense (give Crystal credit though, he wasn't a hypocrite). However, many of these Jewish leftists maintained a schizophrenic view of the United States as evil and Israel as noble and still continued to support leftist takevovers in the third world that were hostile to United States interests. It continues to this day.

I often asked my best friend, who was Jewish and conservative, why so many Jewish leaders harbored this dislike for the U.S. and its economic system; a country that had given them tremendous material, educational and political opportunities? Jews are the most succsessful immigrant group in the US since 1900. Why are more Jews not conservative because of this success? He had no answer and couldn't understand it himself.

Now all of the polemics against the US by the professorial class are now being used against Israel. Students are conditioned to accept these arguements against the "oppressors" with the Arabs being "victims". And guess who have been the biggest promoters of victimhood in US universities? Also, a question, that is not easily disassembled for American students who are not Jewish is, "why support Israel unconditionally, when you won't support the United States at all?"
In reality, Israel is considered by most people in the world to be a highly successful country that has benefited from its special relationship with the US. What the Jewish intellectuals have never understood is that what is good for the US is good for Israel and what is bad for the US is very bad for Israel

American Jews, as a whole, because of their material success and visiblility in economics, education, politics, and the media are highly vunerable to a new wave of anti-semitism in the US. The cult of victimization has put them in the camp of "opressors" . Success breeds enemies. In a book by a Temple University sociologist, "The Negroes and the Jews" she pointed out that all the philanthropic and civil rights activities by Jews were not enough to dispel the high level of anti-semitism in African-Americans. If all this disturbs American Jewry, they have only their "thinkers" to blame. All this nurturing of the leftist tree of anti-Americanism is now bearing poison fruit for Israel (by the way, I am pro-Israel in terms of its right to exist).

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