Jew-Haters Everywhere

It always surprises me that Jews have been able to get ahead in the United States. This is, after all, a country that's almost unique in the western world in that even in the 21st century it seems to include so many anti-semites in prominent places. Indeed, a frightening large proportion of prominent American Jews have their political views motivated by a racist loathing of their co-religionists and co-ethnics. Joe Klein, for example and again here is a big-time Jew-hater as you can see in not-at-all hysterical remarks from Commentary and the Anti-Defamation League that are in no way cynical political interventions masquerading as deeply implausible accusations of anti-semitism.

On the larger subject of so-called "dual loyalties" I think the psychological model of someone sitting at home scheming, twirling his moustache and saying "this idiotic military venture will be a disaster for the United States, but a brilliant victory for Israel!" is a little implausible. But the whole broader neoconservative ideological framework is obviously fraught with implications for Israel -- one reason to prefer wild thrashing about at a miscellaneous and ever-shifting cast of Arab-and-or-Muslim "bad guys" rather than a focused and disciplined campaign against al-Qaeda would be that the former implies that Israel's enemies and America's enemies are fundamentally one and the same.