ANTISEMITISM'S ROOT CAUSES

As really nothing more than your typical anti-Israel lefty who just happens to be Jewish, Antony Loewnstein has received far more attention – both from blogs and the MSM – than he deserves. I therefore decided to stop writing about him. Unfortunately for my long suffering readers, there's much stupidity yet to be covered – I knew the pool is deep but had no idea it was bottomless. Silly me.

The current edition of the Sydney University newspaper Honi Soit features a two page interview with the fearless dissenter. Hitherto unknown "facts" are revealed: Loewenstein is developing a "cult-following" of "middle-aged women"; his book "contains a lot of history, footnotes, facts and figures that would put your average PhD to shame, it is also surprisingly readable"; and the book has "page-turning urgency". Most importantly, My Israel Question is revealed to be a "novel". Well, that explains the plot-enhancing factual, er, errors.

While the Honi Soit article is a funny example of fluffy lefty-worship from a naive university student, a post at Loewenstein's blog is very revealing of the goings on inside his head. Loewenstein responds to this from Paul Gardner of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria:

As for the premise that Israeli policies and actions are responsible for promoting anti-Semitism, this is ludicrous. Actually, anti-Semitism is caused by anti-Semites. Tough Israeli policies — sometimes necessary in Israel’s fight for survival — merely provide an excuse for anti-Semites to feel free to spout their hatred.

With this:

Let me get this straight. People are anti-Semitic simply for no reason, a sickness borne out of a malignant hatred of Jews. Israeli actions are totally unrelated. To believe this is as deluded as believing that anti-Americanism is unrelated to US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Up to now Loewenstein has been at pains to draw a distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Now they're one and the same. Not only that, antisemitism is not irrational, it has root causes.

Now I'm not one to gratuitously mention Hitler or Nazis but Loewenstein's comments could be used to justify the Holocaust. I mean, Germans wouldn't have taken the drastic step of exterminating six million Jews unless the Jews had started the war (and were siphoning off far too much oxygen with those really big noses), right? There's no blaming the Holocaust on Israel, which didn't yet exist. Regardless, the Germans are a rational and cultured people who wouldn't go to the trouble of trying to hunt down and kill all the Jews in Europe unless they had good cause.

Even a loyal commenter at his echo-chamber thinks Loewenstein has gone too far:

Gardner is right about anti-Semitism, though. The idea that Israeli policies and actions are responsible for promoting anti-Semitism is indeed ludicrous. What they do promote are criticism of Israel and digust at Israel’s actions, but not anti-Semitism.

In reality there's nothing to worry about here; Loewenstein has no idea what he's talking about. Some people just don't like Jews.