THE DEVIL THAT NEVER DIES
The Rise and Threat of
Global Antisemitism
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Little, Brown & Company; 485 pages; $30
Mr 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. Mr 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.
Three aspects of Mr Qaradawi's pro-Hitler commentary are noteworthy. The first is that he is Muslim, and from West Asia. Christian Europe, and not West Asia, has been the historic breeding ground for what Mr Goldhagen, in his earlier, landmark book, Hitler's Willing Executioners, labelled "eliminationist anti-Semitism." The second is that Mr 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 Mr 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 Mr 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.
This is a fine point to make. Unfortunately, Mr Goldhagen undermines himself by 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," he writes. "The devil is not a he but an it. The devil is anti-Semitism."
Much of Mr 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 Mr Goldhagen appears to have done much of his research, but there is real utility to his efforts. 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."
Mr 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.
"The calumnies against Jews have been the most damaging kind," he 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 Mr 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 doesn't argue that criticism of Israeli government policies is necessarily anti-Semitic. But he is appalled by the hypocrisy of the international 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 organisations, 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 per cent as much."
He makes a valid point, but the hectoring tone and the hyperbole undermine the message. Hyperbole also leads to inaccuracy. He writes at one point, "Consider the mass murder in 1999 at a Los Angeles Jewish Community Centre, 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 JCC, because no one at the site was murdered.
Mr 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.
©2013 The New York Times News Service
The Rise and Threat of
Global Antisemitism
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Little, Brown & Company; 485 pages; $30
More From This Section
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.
Mr 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. Mr 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.
Three aspects of Mr Qaradawi's pro-Hitler commentary are noteworthy. The first is that he is Muslim, and from West Asia. Christian Europe, and not West Asia, has been the historic breeding ground for what Mr Goldhagen, in his earlier, landmark book, Hitler's Willing Executioners, labelled "eliminationist anti-Semitism." The second is that Mr 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 Mr 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 Mr 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.
This is a fine point to make. Unfortunately, Mr Goldhagen undermines himself by 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," he writes. "The devil is not a he but an it. The devil is anti-Semitism."
Much of Mr 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 Mr Goldhagen appears to have done much of his research, but there is real utility to his efforts. 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."
Mr 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.
"The calumnies against Jews have been the most damaging kind," he 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 Mr 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 doesn't argue that criticism of Israeli government policies is necessarily anti-Semitic. But he is appalled by the hypocrisy of the international 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 organisations, 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 per cent as much."
He makes a valid point, but the hectoring tone and the hyperbole undermine the message. Hyperbole also leads to inaccuracy. He writes at one point, "Consider the mass murder in 1999 at a Los Angeles Jewish Community Centre, 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 JCC, because no one at the site was murdered.
Mr 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.
©2013 The New York Times News Service