Fred Reed looks at the Jews, antisemitism, and prospects for the future with a surprisingly objective look at topics that are either shunned or are not treated objectively. From Reed at theburningplatform.com:
It is strange: Jews have been disliked everywhere and in all times. The dislike appears in odd places. I was astonished to find that my Nepalese trekking guides were intensely hostile to Jews. They said that Jews (actually Israelis in most cases I think, but the Nepalese do not seem to make the distinction) were loud, demanding, and always trying to force down the guides’ fees. Historically the hostility has often been powerful and, not infrequently, murderous. Jews have been expelled from country after country, excluded from polite society, subjected to quotas,and required to live in certain regions. Why?
How much anti-Jewish hostility is there today in America? . A lot? A little? Is it negligible? Potentially explosive? It is hard to tell because disliking Jews is often a firing offense, and a controlled press makes discussion impossible. A clue can perhaps be found in the comments sections of political websites whee, protected by anonymity, commenters are often bitterly anti-Jewish. But then, these comments may, or may not, be the work of a few cranks.
Today there appear news stories about growing hostility on campuses, that Jews are fleeing Paris because of increased or more openly expressed dislike, or that the German Right, never fond of Jews, gains strength.
Since the dislike has existed for at least two thousand years, there must be some enduring reason or reasons. What?
One I think is the Space Alien Effect. It is human nature to dislike people different from oneself. This fact runs against today’s cult of diversity, which accounts for the disastrous reality of American life, but a glance around the world reveals that diversity causes most of the planet’s troubles: Sunni and Shia, Jew and Muslim, Tutsi and Hutu, black, white and brown in America, Tamil and Sinhalese; Turks and Kurds; Turks and Armenians; Thais and Muslims, Germans and Jews. Protestants and Catholics in Ireland, on and on for a very long list of religious, ethnic, and racial differences. Diversity is nobody’s strength.
Diversity often disappears through assimilation. Today people named O’Toole and Libertini may be proud of their ancestry, but they think of themselves as American, not as Irish and Italian. So do others. Thus hostility to them, once intense, has vanished.
To continue reading: The Future of the Jews: More of the Past?
