In response to George Will’s indictment of the anti-semitism coming out of Europe (“‘Final Solution,’ Phase 2”), European Commissioner for external relations (huh?) Chris Patten carefully crafts this silly rejoinder (“Stop Blaming Europe”), published as an Op-Ed piece in today’s Washington Post:
Anti-American prejudice in Europe is repugnant. It comes as a shock to me to find in a country I love and admire the mirror-image of this — a visceral contempt for Europe. Hunting for reasons for this, do we have to come back to poor Israel? A senior Democratic senator told a visiting European the other day: “All of us here are members of Likud now.” So any criticism of the policies and philosophy of Likud condemns one as an anti-Semite?
No. Just the anti-semitic criticisms, cockring.
Tell you what, Chris. Let’s make a deal. We’ll stop blaming “Europe” (the arrogance! — an unelected somethingcrat presuming to speak for so many people, people who doubltless find him as much a twit as we do) once “Europe” (read: more unelected twits) stops its incessant blameworthiness. How’s that?
[update: LGF finds Patten a bit overbearing, too]
Mr. Patten failed to point out that the activities of the KKK in the US throughout all its history failed to prduce mass murders the way the Nazis did in the 30s and 40s. The only thing the KKK has inspired were a lot of just criminal prosecutions, but the Nazis gave us a war.
I can understand hating Patten for being a part of the Neo-monarchs at the EU, but his piece was a relatively benign can’t-we’all-get-along kind of thing. The Will piece was repugnant. And bizarre. Moreover, I wasn’t really sure what aspect of the Chris Patten op-ed you found specifically anti-Semitic. He points out that not all Israelis are pro-Likud, yet you lambast him for questioning Sharon. The pretty stong consensus–not just in Europe, but around the world–is that the Palestenians have a case here. Is there no good faith case to be made in support of Palestenian statehood that doesn’t involve anti-Semitism? Or maybe you have some information about Patten’s seething hate for Jews: a Kurt Waldheim-esque moment of some sort?
I didnt’ find any of it anti-semitic, Jack. Patten asks the rhetorical question, “So any criticism of the policies and philosophy of Likud condemns one as an anti-Semite?”—to which I responded, “No. Just the anti-semitic criticisms.”
What I took issue with was Pattens condescending tone. To even <i>suggest</i> that Jews can’t distinguish criticism for Likud from genuine European anti-semitism is offensive; I didn’t lambast Patten for questioning Sharon (though such “questioning” has become tedious—Sharon is democratically elected and his policies popular, so questioning Sharon is questioning the Israeli people).
I don’t think essays pressing the notion of equivalency and written by EU mouthpieces are “benign,” at all. I think they’re disingenuous and dangerous, because they lend legitimacy to bad faith arguments.
You write, “The pretty stong consensus–not just in Europe, but around the world–is that the Palestenians have a case here”—which would mean something if liberal democracy and the rule of law were common to most of the world, and not the exception. Just because the majority of the world thinks one thing doesn’t make it right.
“Anyway, what should we conclude about Europe from this pustulation? When a couple of years back there was an outbreak of arson attacks against African American churches in the United States, should we have leaped to the conclusion that the Ku Klux Klan was heading for the White House?”
This was a fraud. There was no wave of Church Burnings.
At any rate, Patten fails completely to address the issue of anti-Semitism in Europe, preferring to attack Likud. The entire column is worthless because he never addresses the subject. Typical Euroweenie.
Delightfully mature and considered commentary all round. Congratulations!
Oops. Appears we were a bit too straightforward for “Euroweenie>”
He’d prefer we hem and haw and rub our chin—and ultimately come to no conclusion at all, save for the obligatory, head-nodding “it’s a complicated matter” pronouncement.
*snore*