Anti-Semite: Wishing the death of Israel is merely “putting America first”

I said I would be leaving the anti-Semitism issue for a while, but when people send me things deserving or requiring response, I will respond. Someone who calls himself Ken Hoop sent to American Renaissance editor Jared Taylor the following e-mail with a copy to me.

Mr. Taylor,

Lawrence Auster gives himself away when he posted on his Amnation site, “the most shocking thing I heard at the AR meeting was applause when a speaker predicted that Israel would not survive…” [LA note: I did not say that, but one of the AR participants who wrote to me about it.] He also is identified as Jewish in at least one FrontPage Magazine column.

Why should an American have so much emotion invested in a foreign country? Is it the old ethnic impulse of fear of a need to escape one day? Regardless, this points to the solution of a compromise between the “anti-Semites” and their opponents as far as AR activity is concerned. You should draw your Jewish participation, which seems essential to you, from the 14% minority (according to the recent AJC poll) who express no loyalty to or concern for a foreign nation whose Lobby 5th column in America has caused the U.S. so much worldwide harm.

Asking American Jews to put AMERICA FIRST in an organization purporting to point to a reinvigoration for our Culture should be no big deal.

Best,
Ken Hoop

This is a perfect specimen of the moral idiocy (to put it mildly) of the anti-Semites. According to many accounts from attendees at the AR conference, between a third and a half of the 300-member audience broke into loud and sustained applause when a speaker offered the neutral observation that Israel might not survive to its 100th birthday. These people were not “putting America first,” as Hoop innocently describes their behavior. They were wishing the death and destruction of a nation and people. They were the ones who were “investing their emotions” in a foreign country—emotions of mass-murderous hatred. Yet when normal, non-hating people expressed their shock at this genocidal outburst in the midst of what was supposed to be a civilized conference, the haters reply that they’re being unfairly attacked for merely “putting America first.” Which means that the people who are shocked at the haters’ behavior are not putting America first. To object to the primitive bigotry of the Israel haters, is to be less than a loyal American. Which further means that what defines people as loyal Americans, including the 14 percent of American Jews whom Hoop says could be included in AR conferences, is that they would have no problem with primitive bigots cheering for the death of Israel. See? Hoop isn’t an anti-Semite! He reaches out a hand of friendship to Jews, on the condition that they go along with him on the destruction of the Jewish state.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the hard-core Israel haters and anti-Semites are the scum of the earth. Does this mean that all of them must remain such? No. There could arise an American version of Nick Griffin, a former serious anti-Semite who has seriously (not cosmetically) criticized anti-Semitism, removed anti-Semitism from his party platform, and driven unregenerate Nazis and anti-Semites out of his party. But one thing is sadly and definitively clear. Jared Taylor, the guy who just can’t say no (to a Nazi), the guy who in his article about the anti-Semitic doings at his February conference did not even mention the shocking applause for the prospective murder of a fellow Western nation, let alone object to it, is not that man.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 04, 2006 02:26 PM | Send