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The New York Times
October 13, 2013 Sunday
Late Edition - Final
New Chapter, Old Story
By JEFFREY GOLDBERG.
Jeffrey Goldberg is a columnist for Bloomberg View, a national
correspondent for The Atlantic and the author of ''Prisoners: A Story
of Friendship and Terror.''
THE DEVIL THAT NEVER DIES The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism
By Daniel Jonah GoldhagenIllustrated. 485 pp. Little, Brown & Company.
Enhanced Coverage LinkingLittle, Brown & Company. -Search
using:Company ProfileNews, Most Recent 60 DaysCompany Dossier$30.
In ''The Devil That Never Dies,'' Daniel Jonah Goldhagen reports that
there has been a worldwide rise in lethal anti- - Semitism. If he had to
pick a role model for the new generation of Jew-haters, he might
settle on an elderly Sunni cleric named Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Qaradawi, who is based in Qatar, is an important spiritual adviser to
the Muslim Brotherhood, but his fame and influence derive in large
part from his popular show on Al Jazeera, the satellite television
channel owned by the ruling family of Qatar. Al Jazeera has global
reach: bureaus in many world capitals and an American cable news
network. Qaradawi, the host of ''Islamic Law and Life,'' has been the
network's most famous on-air personality.
He is anti-American, sometimes bitterly so, but his anti-Israelism
takes on extreme coloration. In 2009, in a sermon broadcast by Al
Jazeera, he expressed an opinion of breathtaking vituperation.
''Throughout history,'' he said, ''Allah has imposed upon the Jews
people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment
was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them
-- even though they exaggerated this issue -- he managed to put them
in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing,
the next time will be at the hand of the believers,'' which is to say,
Muslims.
For the past several years, we have been witness to the antics of the
recently retired Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who made
himself into the world's most famous Holocaust revisionist.
Ahmadinejad denied the historical truth of the Holocaust while
creating conditions for another, an egregious thing to do. But one
thing he did not do was praise Hitler.
Qaradawi, in his sermon, pays lip service to the ideology of denial,
but his pathological hatred of Jews moves into territory well past the
borders of - Ahmadinejad-style anti-Semitism. Endorsing the Holocaust
puts a person in a whole different moral category.
Three aspects of Qaradawi's pro-Hitler commentary are noteworthy. The
first is that he is Muslim, and from the Middle East. Christian
Europe, and not the Middle East, has been the historic breeding ground
for what Goldhagen, in his earlier, landmark book, ''Hitler's Willing
Executioners,'' labeled ''eliminationist anti-Semitism.'' The second
is that Qaradawi -- whose vile opinions would have been heard, in the
pre-Internet, pre-satellite-television age, by pockets of extremist
followers in marginal places -- now has a worldwide audience.
The third troubling aspect of Qaradawi's comment is that it did not
result in his removal from Al Jazeera. Nor did it seem to diminish his
influence. The most effective and disturbing argument Goldhagen
musters in this new book is that the resurgence of rhetorically and
sometimes physically violent anti- - Semitism over the past dozen years
or so is shocking in part because it does not seem to shock. Horrific
accusations leveled against Jews across the Middle East and in Europe
fail to excite the anger or disbelief of the non- - Jewish masses and
non-Jewish elites alike.
This is a fine point to make. Unfortunately, Goldhagen undermines
himself by, among other things, allowing his anger to get the best of
him. ''The Devil That Never Dies'' is written in a hyperventilating
style, starting with its title. ''The devil, after a period of
relative quiescence, has reappeared, flexes his muscles again, and
stalks the world, with ever more confidence, power and followers,''
Goldhagen writes. ''The devil is not a he but an it. The devil is
anti-Semitism.''
Yes, we got that. As a general rule, heavy breathing is unnecessary,
and even counterproductive, when a writer's subject is atrocity, and
much of Goldhagen's book is a compilation of atrociousness: seemingly
endless passages recount the awful things said about Jews over the
past several years. Most of these statements are easily found on the
Internet, where Goldhagen appears to have done much of his research,
but there is real utility to his efforts -- comprehensive catalogs of
hate possess a kind of depressing power. I did not recall, for
instance, that the Hamas leader Khaled Mashal said: ''Before Israel
dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. Allah willing, . . . we will
make them lose their eyesight, we will make them lose their brains.''
Goldhagen does other useful things. He makes a strong case that
anti-Semitism is a unique prejudice, in its staying power, in its
ability to shape-shift, in the unlikely coalitions that spring up to
advance its message (left-leaning Western gay activists aligning with
gay-persecuting Muslim fundamentalists, say). Anti-Semitism is also
rare in its ability to make otherwise smart people believe fantastical
and idiotic things. No other religious or ethnic group has ever been
blamed for both capitalism and Communism simultaneously, for example.
''The calumnies against Jews have been the most damaging kind,''
Gold - hagen writes. ''Jews have killed God's son. All Jews, and their
descendants for all time, . . . are guilty. . . . Jews desecrate God's
body, the host. Jews parented the Antichrist. . . . Jews sought to
slay God's prophet Muhammad. Jews are the enemies of Allah. Jews kill
Christian children and use their blood for their rituals. Jews kill
Muslim children. Jews wreak financial havoc in the countries in which
they live. Jews have started all wars.'' And so on.
That last item is aimed not only at Mel Gibson, but at Stephen Walt
and John J. Mearsheimer, authors of ''The Israel Lobby,'' which
Goldhagen describes as the ''best cloaked major anti-Semitic tract in
English of the last several decades.''
One of Goldhagen's strongest arguments has to do with selective
outrage as a leading indicator of anti-Semitism. He does not try to
argue that criticism of Israeli government policies is necessarily
anti-Semitic. But he has appropriate contempt for those who argue that
Israel is a reincarnation of Nazi Germany, and he is appalled by the
hypocrisy of the inter - national community, which judges Israel by a
separate, and higher, standard than it does other countries.
He cites Turkey as a telling example: ''In a rational world, the
Turks' systemic and large-scale violence against and suppression of
Kurds' legitimate rights and national aspirations, not to mention the
Turks' genocide of the Armenians, and mass killings of Greeks and
others, not to mention their invasion, dismembering and occupation of
half a sovereign country, Cyprus, in 1974, . . . might have brought
upon Turkey the world's condemnation and generated in international
organizations, including the United Nations, a preoccupation with its
predations and the production of intensively negative beliefs and
passions, including prejudice . . . similar to and perhaps far
exceeding that against Jews. But it has not -- not even 1 percent as
much.''
Goldhagen's strengths and weaknesses are on display in this previous
(typically dense and over-intricate) paragraph. He makes a valid
point, but the hectoring tone and the hyperbole -- how did he reach
the conclusion that Turkey is criticized 1 percent, and not 2 percent,
as much as Israel? -- undermine the message. Hyperbole also leads to
inaccuracy, which is particularly unfortunate in a book whose subject,
at its essence, is lying. He writes at one point, ''Consider the mass
murder in 1999 at a Los Angeles Jewish Community Center, where a
vicious anti-Semite opened fire with an automatic weapon, injuring
five people.'' It was not, of course, ''mass murder'' at that Los
Angeles J.C.C., because no one at the site was murdered.
But the shooting attack in Los Angeles was bad enough. So too is the
excoriation of Israel by countries with terrible human rights records.
And so too are efforts, by Muslim fundamentalists and far-right
politicians, to make Europe uninhabitable for its last Jew, and to
blame certain American Jews for bringing war upon their country.
Goldhagen's book has its uses, but today we need something decidedly
better: a book on anti-Semitism that combines original reporting,
accessible writing and a sense of restraint.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/books/review/daniel-jonah-goldhagens-devil-that-never-dies.html
October 13, 2013 Sunday
Late Edition - Final
New Chapter, Old Story
By JEFFREY GOLDBERG.
Jeffrey Goldberg is a columnist for Bloomberg View, a national
correspondent for The Atlantic and the author of ''Prisoners: A Story
of Friendship and Terror.''
THE DEVIL THAT NEVER DIES The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism
By Daniel Jonah GoldhagenIllustrated. 485 pp. Little, Brown & Company.
Enhanced Coverage LinkingLittle, Brown & Company. -Search
using:Company ProfileNews, Most Recent 60 DaysCompany Dossier$30.
In ''The Devil That Never Dies,'' Daniel Jonah Goldhagen reports that
there has been a worldwide rise in lethal anti- - Semitism. If he had to
pick a role model for the new generation of Jew-haters, he might
settle on an elderly Sunni cleric named Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Qaradawi, who is based in Qatar, is an important spiritual adviser to
the Muslim Brotherhood, but his fame and influence derive in large
part from his popular show on Al Jazeera, the satellite television
channel owned by the ruling family of Qatar. Al Jazeera has global
reach: bureaus in many world capitals and an American cable news
network. Qaradawi, the host of ''Islamic Law and Life,'' has been the
network's most famous on-air personality.
He is anti-American, sometimes bitterly so, but his anti-Israelism
takes on extreme coloration. In 2009, in a sermon broadcast by Al
Jazeera, he expressed an opinion of breathtaking vituperation.
''Throughout history,'' he said, ''Allah has imposed upon the Jews
people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment
was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them
-- even though they exaggerated this issue -- he managed to put them
in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing,
the next time will be at the hand of the believers,'' which is to say,
Muslims.
For the past several years, we have been witness to the antics of the
recently retired Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who made
himself into the world's most famous Holocaust revisionist.
Ahmadinejad denied the historical truth of the Holocaust while
creating conditions for another, an egregious thing to do. But one
thing he did not do was praise Hitler.
Qaradawi, in his sermon, pays lip service to the ideology of denial,
but his pathological hatred of Jews moves into territory well past the
borders of - Ahmadinejad-style anti-Semitism. Endorsing the Holocaust
puts a person in a whole different moral category.
Three aspects of Qaradawi's pro-Hitler commentary are noteworthy. The
first is that he is Muslim, and from the Middle East. Christian
Europe, and not the Middle East, has been the historic breeding ground
for what Goldhagen, in his earlier, landmark book, ''Hitler's Willing
Executioners,'' labeled ''eliminationist anti-Semitism.'' The second
is that Qaradawi -- whose vile opinions would have been heard, in the
pre-Internet, pre-satellite-television age, by pockets of extremist
followers in marginal places -- now has a worldwide audience.
The third troubling aspect of Qaradawi's comment is that it did not
result in his removal from Al Jazeera. Nor did it seem to diminish his
influence. The most effective and disturbing argument Goldhagen
musters in this new book is that the resurgence of rhetorically and
sometimes physically violent anti- - Semitism over the past dozen years
or so is shocking in part because it does not seem to shock. Horrific
accusations leveled against Jews across the Middle East and in Europe
fail to excite the anger or disbelief of the non- - Jewish masses and
non-Jewish elites alike.
This is a fine point to make. Unfortunately, Goldhagen undermines
himself by, among other things, allowing his anger to get the best of
him. ''The Devil That Never Dies'' is written in a hyperventilating
style, starting with its title. ''The devil, after a period of
relative quiescence, has reappeared, flexes his muscles again, and
stalks the world, with ever more confidence, power and followers,''
Goldhagen writes. ''The devil is not a he but an it. The devil is
anti-Semitism.''
Yes, we got that. As a general rule, heavy breathing is unnecessary,
and even counterproductive, when a writer's subject is atrocity, and
much of Goldhagen's book is a compilation of atrociousness: seemingly
endless passages recount the awful things said about Jews over the
past several years. Most of these statements are easily found on the
Internet, where Goldhagen appears to have done much of his research,
but there is real utility to his efforts -- comprehensive catalogs of
hate possess a kind of depressing power. I did not recall, for
instance, that the Hamas leader Khaled Mashal said: ''Before Israel
dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. Allah willing, . . . we will
make them lose their eyesight, we will make them lose their brains.''
Goldhagen does other useful things. He makes a strong case that
anti-Semitism is a unique prejudice, in its staying power, in its
ability to shape-shift, in the unlikely coalitions that spring up to
advance its message (left-leaning Western gay activists aligning with
gay-persecuting Muslim fundamentalists, say). Anti-Semitism is also
rare in its ability to make otherwise smart people believe fantastical
and idiotic things. No other religious or ethnic group has ever been
blamed for both capitalism and Communism simultaneously, for example.
''The calumnies against Jews have been the most damaging kind,''
Gold - hagen writes. ''Jews have killed God's son. All Jews, and their
descendants for all time, . . . are guilty. . . . Jews desecrate God's
body, the host. Jews parented the Antichrist. . . . Jews sought to
slay God's prophet Muhammad. Jews are the enemies of Allah. Jews kill
Christian children and use their blood for their rituals. Jews kill
Muslim children. Jews wreak financial havoc in the countries in which
they live. Jews have started all wars.'' And so on.
That last item is aimed not only at Mel Gibson, but at Stephen Walt
and John J. Mearsheimer, authors of ''The Israel Lobby,'' which
Goldhagen describes as the ''best cloaked major anti-Semitic tract in
English of the last several decades.''
One of Goldhagen's strongest arguments has to do with selective
outrage as a leading indicator of anti-Semitism. He does not try to
argue that criticism of Israeli government policies is necessarily
anti-Semitic. But he has appropriate contempt for those who argue that
Israel is a reincarnation of Nazi Germany, and he is appalled by the
hypocrisy of the inter - national community, which judges Israel by a
separate, and higher, standard than it does other countries.
He cites Turkey as a telling example: ''In a rational world, the
Turks' systemic and large-scale violence against and suppression of
Kurds' legitimate rights and national aspirations, not to mention the
Turks' genocide of the Armenians, and mass killings of Greeks and
others, not to mention their invasion, dismembering and occupation of
half a sovereign country, Cyprus, in 1974, . . . might have brought
upon Turkey the world's condemnation and generated in international
organizations, including the United Nations, a preoccupation with its
predations and the production of intensively negative beliefs and
passions, including prejudice . . . similar to and perhaps far
exceeding that against Jews. But it has not -- not even 1 percent as
much.''
Goldhagen's strengths and weaknesses are on display in this previous
(typically dense and over-intricate) paragraph. He makes a valid
point, but the hectoring tone and the hyperbole -- how did he reach
the conclusion that Turkey is criticized 1 percent, and not 2 percent,
as much as Israel? -- undermine the message. Hyperbole also leads to
inaccuracy, which is particularly unfortunate in a book whose subject,
at its essence, is lying. He writes at one point, ''Consider the mass
murder in 1999 at a Los Angeles Jewish Community Center, where a
vicious anti-Semite opened fire with an automatic weapon, injuring
five people.'' It was not, of course, ''mass murder'' at that Los
Angeles J.C.C., because no one at the site was murdered.
But the shooting attack in Los Angeles was bad enough. So too is the
excoriation of Israel by countries with terrible human rights records.
And so too are efforts, by Muslim fundamentalists and far-right
politicians, to make Europe uninhabitable for its last Jew, and to
blame certain American Jews for bringing war upon their country.
Goldhagen's book has its uses, but today we need something decidedly
better: a book on anti-Semitism that combines original reporting,
accessible writing and a sense of restraint.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/books/review/daniel-jonah-goldhagens-devil-that-never-dies.html