A proposal to achieve Jewish-Christian cooperation in defense of the West

Ezra F. writes:

With regard to the exchange between Sam H., Gintas, and you regarding the issue of Jewish loyalty to the West, many Jews might feel an intense loyalty to a West that explicitly endorses (through the public statements of the great majority of Western leaders) the following two-point doctrine:

1) The West is founded upon and principally nourished by Christian beliefs and practices.

2) Christian beliefs and practices obligate Westerners to love and protect the Jews AS JEWS (believers in and practicers of Judaism).

Jewish anxiety about forthright declarations that the West is a Christian civilization is due to the absence of the second point from these declarations.

I think that the second point is theologically plausible.

Also please note that the second point in no way necessitates any repudiation of attempts by Christians to convert Jews to Christianity, nor does it necessitate repudiation of explicit statements by Christians that Christianity is better than Judaism.

The second point also requires permitting Christians and other non-Jews to convert to Judaism, because acceptance of converts is fundamental to the Judaism that is to be loved and protected.

I think that “love and protect the Jews AS JEWS” rather than merely “love and protect the Jews” is required, because if it is merely “love and protect the Jews,” that is, individuals who just happen to be Jewish, then this love and protection might be compatible with legal penalties for failure to convert to Christianity.

I think that “LOVE and protect the Jews as Jews” is required, not just “protect the Jews as Jews,” if an intense loyalty of Jews to an explicitly Christian West is to be aroused; otherwise, Jews might suspect that they will protected only so long as they don’t annoy their protectors. If we want Person A to feel an intense loyalty to Person B, we must ensure that Person A will not be continually anxious about the possibility of annoying Person B; we can ensure this by assuring Person A that Person B loves him “for who he is.”

- end of initial entry -

Paul Gottfried, who is of course Jewish, writes:

I suspect all of this is wishful thinking. Most Jews I have known detest Christians and Christianity, with the notable exceptions of Sephardic Jews, who lived under the Muslims, and the younger generation of Israelis, who identify Christians with Dispensationalist allies. What drives Jewish liberalism more than anything else is the overriding passion to neutralize Christian influence as quickly as possible.

LA replies:

Then what approach do you propose for Western Christian society to save itself without becoming anti-Semitic?

PG replies:

Simply ignore Jewish malice. The problem is the WASP majority take the antiquated hostilities of aggrieved minorities too seriously. They either beat their breasts contritely or in a few cases become neo-Nazis. I can’t imagine that a WASP patrician in 1900 would have given a damn what some Jewish leftist maniac thought about him.

LA replies:

But we’re not speaking here of Jewish leftist maniacs. We’re speaking of Jewish mainstream liberals and conservatives whose ambivalence about Europe and Christianity and the majority gentile culture is such that when push comes to shove between the West and Islam, many of them will not positively take the side of the West, as seemed to be indicated by Daniel Pipes’s detached, neutral prediction of a battle for the possession of Europe between Muslims and Europeans. Given the great influence of Jewish writers and opinion makers, this remains a serious problem. The reason for the problem, says Ezra F. is that Jews fear that any renewed Western patriotism against Muslms will exclude the Jews from membership in the West. So Ezra proposes that if the majority declares that it protects and loves the Jews as Jews, that will overcome the Jews’ rational fears and win their intense loyalty to the West. But you say this will not work, because the Jewish animus against Christianity is too great.

If you’re right, where does that leave us? You say ignore them and just do what has to be done. The bad news I see in what you’re saying is this: an attempt by the majority Christian culture to elicit explicit Jewish loyalty by means of a quid pro quo will only weaken the majority culture. But the good news that I see is this: if the majority culture just goes ahead and begins to defend itself, many members of minorities such as the Jews will go along. In other words, the majority culture will get minorities’ cooperation and even their loyalty, not by seeking it, but by leading. Which relates to my long-time view that minorities’ disenchantment with the majority has not been due to the majority’s being oppressive, but to its giving up its belief in itself and its authority.

Gintas wrote:

Paul Gottfried said:

What drives Jewish liberalism more than anything else is the overriding passion to neutralize Christian influence as quickly as possible.

He could have said:

What drives liberalism more than anything else is the overriding passion to neutralize Christian influence as quickly as possible.

and it would have been just as true. Or, perhaps:

What drives Darwinism more than anything else is the overriding passion to neutralize Christian influence as quickly as possible.

There is something like a pathological anti-Christianity in the air. It doesn’t seem a particularly Jewish thing, but sounds like the Enlightenment project in general.

LA replied:

Gintas, if you don’t stop these David Duke type rants I’ll be forced to exclude you from VFR.

Gintas replied:

STAB IN THE BACK! Oops, sorry, that just slipped out, some days I simply can’t control myself.

I agree with PG on his answer to you. Be fair, but non-indulgent and -apologetic. There is an authority in being the majority. Any authority that wrings its hands helplessly, or grovels, loses respect. Isn’t one of the illnesses of the West the loss of authority? It’s pervasive.

Paul Gottfried continues:

If you read my books on multiculturalism and the strange death of Marxism, you will discover that I focus on the white Christian majority in the West. They, and not the Jews, blacks, or Sikhs, are the most serious obstacle to any kind of Western renewal and self-defense. I work at a college where the few Jews who are present on the faculty are actually more conservative than the leftist Protestant majority. A Christian student of mine from Zimbabwe was appalled at how the faculty took the side of the Muslims and would-be Marxists in African politics. The Catholic students and faculty are even crazier than the Protestant ones, with all due respect to my paleo friends who mistakenly believe that if we were a Catholic country, we would still be morally and culturally intact. Such deluded converts to Rome should travel to “Catholic” Quebec, where the Francophone inhabitants have become extreme caricatures of american multiculturalists.

LA replies:

Well, that’s my position too. For years I’ve been saying that grassroots conservative Christian organizations are the “ground zero of national suicide,” because they are the one element in American society that has the numbers and organization to turn around the immigration issue, and they don’t.

Mark K. writes:

One reads at VFR the notion, in defense of Western civilization, that the majority needs to re-affirm itself again as the majority in order to assert the historic values of Western civilization.

However was Western civilization in its element because a majority of people adhered to its core values? It appears to me that the majority of people don’t actually think through the basic principles of a society. They adhere to them in a loose, unthinking, instinctive way. It is the leadership at the top—in government, in academia, in the media, in the arts, in the sciences, etc.—that enunciates a coherent and consistent epistemology and ethic. When that is lost, the majority is dispersed and incoherent.

LA replies:

I would say that leadership must come from individuals and groups that represent the majority, but those leaders need to be backed up, not necessarily by a numerical majority of all people in the society, but by a “governing” majority. So in the movement toward American Independence, leadership came from a relatively small number of men in each colony, and they had the positive backing of about a third of the population. That was enough.

Steven Warshawsky writes:

I am a secular Jew who grew up in Orange County, California, went to college at an Ivy League school, and lived several years in the Baltimore-Washington area; I now live in Manhattan and work in the legal profession. Needless to say, I have encountered many Jewish people in my life. Contra Paul Gottfried, I personally have never known any Jews who “detest Christians and Christianity.” Are there such Jews? I am sure there are. Just as there are blacks who “detest” whites and white society. And Christians who “detest” Jews. But to suggest that this is a widespread phenomenon in the American Jewish community is just plain wrong. Granted, it may be common among the far-left Jewish intelligentsia in NYC and on certain college campuses, but that is hardly a majority of Jews. Intellectuals, on the right as well as on the left, frequently believe that the rarified world in which they operate reflects the larger reality of life. Well, it doesn’t. Just because Jews are disproportionately represented in the ranks of leftist intellectuals whom conservative intellectuals consider their “enemies” does not mean that the allegiance of Jews in the civilizational conflict with Islam should be questioned—certainly no more so than the allegiance of millions of liberal Christians should be questioned. To the extent there is a problem here, it is a problem of liberalism, not Judaism.

LA replies:

Mr. W.’s points are well taken. “Detest” is clearly too strong a word. The question before us is not whether Jews detest Christianity or Christian majority society, but rather to what extent will Jews, particularly Jewish intellectuals, positively take the side of Europe against Islam when the conflict comes, as it inevitably will, and European survival may depend on the mass expulsion of Muslims from Europe, not to mention from the rest of the West? Leaving aside the question of “detestation,” the point I derived from Mr. Gottfried’s comment was that Jews will not support such an effort of Western defense, regardless of any majoritarian efforts to win over Jews to that project.

Paul Gottfried replies to Mr. W.:

That’s funny! As someone who has spent most of his 66 years in the company of Jews and who went to a Jewish college, I have heard nasty remarks about Christians as religious haters of Jews for over 50 years. I suspect that most of the insistence on secularizing America that I hear from Dershowitz, Foxman and other American Jewish celebrities is based on their anti-Christian bias. Actually Dershowitz admits this much in his book Chutzpah.

Jed W. writes:

Watched your back and forth with Paul Gottfried. And he is speaking for himself when he talks about “most Jews detesting Christians and Christianity.” I’m Jewish and I naturally know lots of Jews who don’t share this feeling. My experience is about as scientific as his. (If most Jews detest Christians, why are they intermarrying at record rates?)

He would be more accurate to say that many liberal Jews detest religion in general (and that applies to their own) since they are secular humanists.

LA replies:

Again, the question before us, at least for me, is not whether a decisive number of Jews “detest” Christianity, but whether a decisive number of Jews are unable to identify sufficiently with the Christian majority society so as actively to take its side against Islam. And I believe that such an attitude of non-identification exists among many conservative Jews as well as liberal Jews.

Paul Gottfried writes:

I have no way of telling how American Jews would react to such a hypothetical situation; but if the American Christian Right wishes to have massive Jewish support against the Muslims, it should not emphasize the defense of Western Christian civilization. I couldn’t imagine such an appeal would have much traction in the American Jewish community. It might however help if the conservative Christians in this situation stressed Israeli security and the danger of Muslim anti-Semitism and then couched its appeal in some human rights boilerplate.

LA replies:

Well, then, if Mr. Gottfried now is saying that gaining Jewish support is at least possible, what about Ezra F.’s proposal, with which this discussion began? I think his idea is thought-provoking and original, even if I have doubts about it.

Jeremy G. writes:

I am Jewish, grew up in a community with a large Jewish population, went to an Ivy League university, and participated in Jewish religious institutions. When it comes to how Jews generally feel towards white Christians, I have to side with Paul Gottfried. I find it striking that I can’t think of a single conversation I have had with Jews (outside of Jews I have met at American Renaissance conferences) where positive statements were made about white Christians. In contrast, not a single negative comment was ever said about blacks in my company. Even the strong Christian support for Israel is a source of embarassment for most American Jews.

In response to Jed W, the Jews who are leaving the faith are not intermarrying with “Christians,” they are intermarrying with liberals.

I also agree with Paul Gottfried that Jews will not rally to the defense of Western Civilization or even to the defense of America. In fact, most would get a good laugh at the idea.

LA replies:

Jeremy doesn’t say that he heard negative statements made about white Christians.

In my view the thing that explains this whole problem we’re discussing is that there is something missing in the experience of most American Jews—though our cultural dissolution has gone so far in recent decades that what I’m about to say probably describes not just Jews but a large part of the white population. That missing something is an identification with America as a historic and actual people, appreciating them and loving them, and feeling them to be one’s people. And that means specifically and particularly the Anglo-Saxon Americans, the original American people and the majority through most of our history.

Ezra F. said that the Christian majority needs to love, or to declare that it loves, the Jews. I think what’s needed more is for the Jews to love the white Christian majority.

Call me a dreamer, but it’s a good thing on occasion to state the ideal, leaving aside how likely it is to happen.

Mr. Jones writes from England:

I don’t know about the specifically Jewish angle but I was involved in left-wing politics for a long time and met hundreds of non-Jewish Left-Liberals who had an extreme hatred for any aspect of national identity, patriotism and Christianity. It always seemed very driven, emotional and irrational to me. The only explanation I could think of was that it was a Newtonian, psychological reaction to the extreme nationalism of the Nazis. It wouldn’t be surprising if Jews were affected by this more than others. I think cultural Marxists jumped onto this psychological bandwagon and moulded it for their own ends but it’s the emotional power of the reaction that gives the movement its fuel.

On the other hand the other thing I noticed was that among the influential leader figures the common element was an extreme intellectual snobbery. So perhaps it’s that snobbery that leads them to disdain the majority culture. Given the IQ research maybe that’s a factor. I’m not sure if there’s a way round that.

In Europe at least I think the reality of self-preservation is already starting to kick in among sections of the Left under the most immediate threat, particularly Jews and homosexuals. I don’t think PC refugees will join in the resistance except in a mostly counter-productive and annoying way e.g neo-cons, but I think they will gradually stop resisting the resistance. That on its own will be critical in my opinion. Having been part of the leftie world for a long time, and knowing how important the nuances of language are among the PC crowd, I see many signs of that starting to happen.

I think the U.S. is a bit different as the direct physical threat from Islam to individual members of the left-liberal bloc is further away. Thinking psychologically I’d say one thing that would help is the lifting of the Communist slaughters to the same level as the holocaust. May seem strange but that would lead to the common element of the Nazi and Communist regimes, totalitarianism, having more relative weight vis a vis racialism. I think this would change both the percieved threat of, and the current blindness towards, Islam. This will only make sense if you believe a large part of the left-liberal project since the end of WWII has been driven by an emotional reaction to the Nazis.

Apart from that my only other suggestion from my personal experiences is to find a miracle cure for intellectual snobbery.

LA replies:

This may be the most realistic but also the most hopeful comment in the discussion so far:

In Europe at least I think the reality of self-preservation is already starting to kick in among sections of the Left under the most immediate threat, particularly Jews and homosexuals. I don’t think PC refugees will join in the resistance except in a mostly counter-productive and annoying way e.g neo-cons, but I think they will gradually stop resisting the resistance. That on its own will be critical in my opinion.

“I think they will gradually stop resisting the resistance.” The left will never actively assist Western patriots against the Muslims. But—the hope is—they will get out of the way. Active support for Western patriots by the left and most Jews may be unattainable, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s also unnecessary. All that’s needed is that they get out of the way. Which stance was also hinted at in Daniel Pipes’s neutralist column that set off this discussion.

Also, I like Mr. Jones’s droll description of the neocons.

LA writes:

I think Mr. Jones’s comment has opened up a more hopeful way for us to see our political task, not just with regard to the coming clash with Islam in the West, but generally. We tend to focus too much on the inadequate conservatives, the right-liberals, believing that their inadequate conservatism is the main obstacle to a genuine resistance to the left, or to Islam, or to immigration, or to cultural decadence, or to whatever problem we’re talking about. But most of those inadequate conservatives will never become adequate. So it’s a waste of time focusing on them. Rather it’s up to us to take the lead and create an effective conservatism. Some of the inadequate conservatives will oppose us, some might join us, but many of them, recognizing the same problems we recognize, but prevented by their right-liberalism from doing anything about it, will step aside and let the genuine conservatives take the initiative and do what needs to be done.

LA writes (April 20):

Here’s a quote that backs up Mr. Jones’s idea, from Mark Steyn’s April 20 column:

A while back, I was struck by the words of Oscar van den Boogaard, a Dutch gay humanist (which is pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool). Reflecting on the Continent’s accelerating Islamification, he concluded that the jig was up for the Europe he loved, but what could he do? “I am not a warrior, but who is?” he shrugged. “I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”

Isn’t this exactly what Mr. Jones was talking about? A homosexual leftist, who now dreads the Islamization of his country, but who has no will, energy, conviction to do anything about it. Such a person will not stand in the way of people who do want to do something about it.

Mark Richardson, who writes the traditionalist blog Oz Conservative in Australia, writes:

“I think they will gradually stop resisting the resistance.”

That’s the key sentence. I have seen a few signs too indicating that this might be the case. In my own workplace the older leftists, those in their mid to late 50s, are still passionately left-wing and will attack you in full force if you say anything politically incorrect. The younger ones, even though they identify with leftism and carry on pushing leftist politics, seem less sure of it all. I’ve found I can have a reasonable argument with them.

Let’s hope your correspondent is right in this.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 18, 2008 12:13 AM | Send