by
Ian Buckley
What's in a name? Certainly not much when it
comes to the hackneyed and over-used term of
'anti-Semitism'. All kinds of people have been
uncovered as sufferers from this regrettable
condition, from G.K. Chesterton to Roald Dahl
and Humphrey Bogart.*
Now - pardon me for injecting a note of sense
into this heated topic - but if 'anti-Semitism'
means anything at all, then it means someone who
hates Jews - all Jews - for no other reason than
that they are Jews. Happily, this definition
means there are next to no real
anti-Semites around whatever. However, this
absence doesn't stop the determined and possibly
demented from trying to fill the vacuum. Of
course, most recently Stephen Pollard of the
Times plonked Israel Adam Shamir into this
category following his appearance at the House
of Lords in Westminister.
Now our good friend has been accorded the
particular honour of being declared not just an
ordinary 'anti-Semite', but a 'toxic' and a
'rabid' one. That latter epithet comes from the
littlegreenfootballs weblog**, a
particularly noxious Zionist supremacist site,
which distinguished itself in infamy by its
repulsive comments about Rachel Corrie.
One is struck by the extreme childishness with
which his opponents conduct their campaigns,
with their bizarre allegations that he's really
a Swedish fascist. Shamir has called himself a
'Mediterranean man', and his photos attest to
this. If he's not what he's claims, a case could
conceivably be made that's he's a Greek, a
Maltese, an Arab or an Armenian. But one thing
he most obviously is not is a Swedish fascist
skinhead, presumably complete - if only in the
imaginings of Pollard - with tattoos, boots and
a bicycle chain!
If such allegedly intelligent people ever took
the trouble to thoroughly read Shamir's books
and commentaries, they would be forced to admit
one telling fact. That fact is that he has both
an extensive knowledge of and an easy
familiarity with Judaica which would be
virtually impossible for any outsider to
acquire.
The outraged comments bewailing the fact that
Shamir was allowed to address a group at the
House of Lords seemed somehow to suggest that
he'd 'polluted' the place in some strange,
metaphysical manner. As if everyone - in Britain
especially - didn't realise that both Houses of
Parliament have a full complement of crooks,
perverts and scoundrels in regular attendance.
Oh dear, Israel Adam, you mustn't try to make
people think!
Now it's quite true that Shamir does like to be
provocative at times. Despite now being an
Eastern Orthodox Christian, he's quite the
iconoclast in his way. When a topic is
forbidden, he goes in and explores it. Of
course, this does sometimes provide his
detractors with useful quotes wrenched totally
out of context.
When you actually explore what he says on these
controversial topics, the quality of shock
horror his enemies seek to impart vanishes away.
Take The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
: Shamir doesn't claim that these are
really as 'advertised', but does find
interesting nuances to comment upon. Likewise
with the 'blood libel', when he merely takes
issue with those who say that no Jewish person
at any time or in any place could ever have
committed a murder with ritualistic aspects. It
is much the same argument that was put forward
by that neglected author Bernard Lazare.
Shamir is definitely an economic radical, or
economic democrat, if you like. But he is also
socially conservative, probably due to a mixture
of personal temperament and his new Orthodox
Christian faith. This is a very rare combination
today, the diametrically opposing viewpoint
being sanctified and promoted by press and
politicians. This might be termed the
Clinton-Blair manoeuvre: privatisation and
pension cuts combined with the promotion of
homosexuality and unlimited abortion. In my own
benighted country, this policy has been such a
wonderful success that - to take just two very
recent statistics out of many - we have the
largest prison population ever and the greatest
gap in life expectancy between rich and poor
since the Victorian era.
After the anti-Shamir calumny, it's almost a
relief to turn a reasonable bit of criticism,
Damage Control: Noam Chomsky, otherwise
Blankfort vs. Chomsky. As I quite often seem
to be defending Chomsky to a Palestinian friend
- whom she views as 'insincere' - maybe I
should try the same before a wider audience. I
would content that Noam is basically an honest
and very knowledgeable man, despite his
occasional personal blind spots.
It should be freely admitted that Chomsky
doesn't go far enough on the Middle East. At the
same time, his thesis does at least deserve some
consideration. Israel is small but nasty, in
geopolitical terms rather like a rabid bull
terrier: the leviathan is in the United States.
It matters little whether one sees this in terms
of the simplistic 'Israel within America' of Bin
Laden, or the more subtle domination of the
'Judaic paradigm' over the US first noted by the
early ( and 'anti-Semitic') Marx.
Whatever the slight defects and blind spots in
this particular area, he still deserves kudos
for his excellent, indeed pioneering,
investigations into the distortions of the mass
media and the profoundly undemocratic nature of
'democratic' societies. An article such as
The Victors represents Chomsky at his best,
jam-packed with facts and analysis, mercilessly
hammering Uncle Sam, who hypocritically
'protects' Kurds and Kuwaitis, while leaving a
trail of destruction and ruined lives in his own
backyard.
After a reading of Chomsky, you are inoculated
for good against the foetid netherworld of the
mainstream media. We should pity the poor saps
who still accept news stories about Palestinian
'terrorists' attacking tanks with rifles, the
'booming' American and British economies and
those cheery, gum-chewing Marines completing the
long overdue 'pacification' of Falluja. British
television news sometimes has the feel of taking
a trip through the brain of Tony Bliar. Not a
pretty experience!
As is Shamir, I would suggest that Chomsky also
is a true Voltairean, standing for freedom of
thought and action, not afraid to stand up for
those outside the ever-shrinking circle of
permitted discourse. This is a great rarity, in
these days of ever more open repression, of
curbs on the freedom of speech, of semi-rigged
elections, in America, Australia and - we may
anticipate - Britain.
There is nothing wrong at all with a little
criticism, but we shouldn't lose sight of who
the 'good guys' really are. After all, there are
so few of them around.
And in my book, both Shamir and Chomsky are good
guys.
* Larry Adler reported that Bogie is supposed to
have said something on the lines of: 'I know I
married one, but I don't like the influence some
of the others have over this country.'
** Incidentally run by a 'Christian' Zionist