The
Doctrine of ‘Superior People’: The Bond between Israel and World Zionism
Introduction
The single greatest feat of Israel and
its overseas missions has not been material success, or the military conquest
of millions of unarmed Palestinians, it has been ideological – the widespread
acceptance in the US of a doctrine that claims ‘Jews are a superior people’.
Apart from small extremist rightwing
sects who exhibit visceral anti-Semitism and denigrate everything Jewish,
there are very few academics and politicians willing to question this
supremacist doctrine. On the contrary, there is an incurable tendency to
advance oneself by accepting and embellishing on it.
For example, in August 2015, US
Vice-President Joseph Biden attributed ‘special genius’ to Jews, slavish
flattery that embarrassed even New York’s liberal Jewish intellectuals.
Israel’s dominant role in formulating
US Middle East policy is largely a product of its success at recruiting,
socializing and motivating overseas Jews to act as an organized force to
intervene in US politics and push Israel’s agenda.
What motivates American Jews, who have
been raised and educated in the US to serve Israel? After all, these are
individuals who have prospered, achieved high status and occupy the highest
positions of prestige and responsibility. Why would they parrot the policies of
Israel and follow the dictates of Israeli leaders (a foreign regime), serving
its violent colonial, racist agenda?
What binds a majority of highly
educated and privileged Jews to the most rabidly rightwing Israeli regime in
history – a relationship they actually celebrate?
What turns comfortable, prosperous
American Jews into vindictive bullies, willing and able to blackmail, threaten and
punish any dissident voices among their Gentile and Jewish compatriots who have
dared to criticize Israel?
What prevents many intelligent, liberal
and progressive Jews from openly questioning Israel’s agenda, and especially
confronting the role of Zionist zealots who serve as Tel Aviv’s fifth column
against the interest of the United States?
There are numerous historical and
personal factors that can and should be taken into account to understand this
phenomenon.
In this essay I am going to focus on
one – the ideology that ‘Jews are a superior people’. The notion
that Jews, either through some genetic, biologic, cultural, historical,
familial and/or upbringing, have special qualities allowing them to achieve at
a uniquely higher level than the ‘inferior’ non-Jews.
We will proceed by sketching the main
outline of the Jewish supremacist ideology and then advance our
critique.
We will conclude by evaluating the
negative consequences of this ideology and propose a democratic alternative.
Jewish Supremacism
Exponents of Jewish Supremacism
(JS) frequently cite the prestigious awards, worldly successes and high honors,
which, they emphasize, have been disproportionately achieved by Jews.
The argument goes:
- While Jews represent less than 0.2% of the world population,
they have produced 24% of the US Nobel prizewinners; over 30% of Ivy League
professors and students; and the majority of major US film, stage and TV
producers.
- They cite the ‘disproportionate number’ of scientists,
leading doctors, lawyers and billionaires.
- They cite past geniuses like, Einstein, Freud and Marx.
- They point to the founders of the world’s great
monotheistic religions – Moses and Abraham.
- They lay claim to a unique learning tradition
embedded in centuries of Talmudic scholarship.
- Jewish supremacists never miss a chance to cite the ‘Jewish
background’ of any highly accomplished contemporary public figures in the
entertainment, publication, financial fields or any other sectors of life in
the US.
Disproportionately great
accomplishments by a disproportionate minority has become the mantra for
heralding a self-styled ‘meritocratic elite’…. and for justifying its
disproportionate wealth, power and privileges – and influence...
Challenging the Myths of Jewish
Supremacists
There are serious problems regarding
the claims of the Jewish Supremacists.
For centuries Jewish ‘wisdom’
was confined to textual exegesis of religious dogma - texts full of
superstition and social control, as well as blind intolerance, and which
produced neither reasoned arguments nor contributed to scientific and human
advancement.
Jewish scholarship of note occurred
among thinkers like Spinoza who revolted against the Jewish ghetto gatekeepers
and rejected Jewish dogma.
Notable scientists emerged in the
context of working and studying with non-Jews in non-Jewish institutions – the
universities and centers of learning in the West. The majority of
world-renowned Jewish scholars integrated and contributed to predominantly
non-Jewish (Moslem and Christian) and secular institutions of higher learning.
Historically, highly talented
individuals of Jewish origin succeeded by renouncing the constraints of
everyday Jewish life, rabbinical overseers and Jewish institutions. Most
contemporary prestigious scientists, including the frequently cited Nobel Prize
winners, have little or nothing to do with Judaism! And their contributions
have everything to do with the highly secular, integrated culture in which they
prospered intellectually – despite expressions of crude anti-Semitism in the
larger society.
Secondly, Jewish Supremacists persist
in claiming ‘racial credit’ for the achievements of individuals who have
publically renounced, denounced and distanced themselves from Judaism and have
dismissed any notion of Israel as their spiritual homeland. Their universal
prestige has prevented them from being labeled, apostate or ‘self-hating’.
Albert Einstein, often cited by the Supremacists as the supreme example of ‘Jewish
genius’, denounced Israel’s war crimes and showed disdain for any tribal
identity. In their era, Marx and Trotsky, like the vast majority of emancipated
European Jews, given the chance, became engaged in universalistic
organizations, attacking the entire notion that Jews were a ‘special people’
chosen by divine authority (or by the latter-day Zionists).
Thirdly, Supremacists compile a very
selective list of virtuous Jews, while omitting areas of life and activity
where Jews have disproportionately played a negative and destructive role.
After all is it Jewish ‘genius’
that makes Israel a leading exporter of arms, high tech intrusive spy systems
and sends military and paramilitary advisers and torturers to work with death
squad regimes in Africa and Latin America?
Among the winners of the Nobel Peace
Prize are three Israeli Prime Ministers who waged wars of ethnic cleansing
against millions of Palestinians and expanded racist ‘Jews only’ settlements
throughout the occupied Palestinian territories. These include Menachem Begin
(notorious career bomber and terrorist), Yitzhak Rabin (a militarist who was
assassinated by an even more racist Jewish terrorist) and Shimon Peres.
Among Jewish American Nobel ‘Peaceniks’
is Henry Kissinger who oversaw the brutal and illegal US war in Indo-China
causing 4 million Vietnamese deaths; who wrote the ‘template for regime change’
by overthrowing the democratically elected government of Chilean President
Allende and condemned Chile to decades of police state terror; and who
supported Indonesia’s destruction of East Timor!
In other words, these Nobel recipients,
who Supremacists cite as ‘examples of Jewish Supremacy’, have sown terror and
injustice on countless captive peoples and nations – giving the Nobel Peace
Prize a dubious distinction.
Among the greatest billion dollar swindlers
in recent US history, we’d find a disproportionate percentage of American Jews
– curiously not mentioned by the Supremacists in their usual litany: Bernard Madoff
pillaged over $50 billion from his clients, Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and
Marc Rich are well-known names adding the distinction of ‘Jewish genius’ to a
list of financial mega-felons.
Among the less respectable notables
whose material successes have been tarnished by personal weaknesses – we have
the billionaire and pedophile pimp, Jeffry Epstein; IMF President, rapist and
debaucher Dominic Strauss Kahn, entrepreneur and ‘nudist’ Dov Charney, New York
Governor and ‘repeat customer’ Elliot Spitzer, Congressman and exhibitionist
Anthony Weiner and the fun-loving sports impresario who brought down FIFA, the
piratical Chuck Blazer. Curiously, none of these extraordinarily successful
notables have been cited as examples of Jewish Supremacy.
As we contemplate the millions of war
refugees driven from the Near East and North Africa, we should credit the role
of US neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideologues and policymakers – a
disproportionate percentage of whom are Jews. Millions of Chilean workers
suffered as Milton Friedman and his Chicago Boys ‘advised’ Chilean
Dictator Augusto Pinochet on dismantling the welfare state (even if it required
the murder of trade unionists). Ayn Rand (Alyssa Rosenbaum) and her fanatical
free market epigones have savaged all progressive social legislation and turned
the most retrograde forms of selfishness into a religion of ‘superiority’!
The disastrous US war against Iraq was
largely organized, promoted and justified by a disproportionate percentage of
US Jews (Zionists), including leading policymakers in the Bush and Obama
administration – Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams, Dennis Ross,
Martin Indyk, David Frum, Shulsky, Levey, Cohen, Rahm Emanuel, etc… They
continue to push for war against Iran and should be seen as the ‘godfathers’ of
the tragedies of Iraq, Syria and Libya where millions have fled.
The biggest financial crisis since the
Great Depression was largely due to the financial policies of Federal Reserve
chairman Alan Greenspan. The trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street by Ben
Shalom Bernacke and Stanley Fischer, while Janet Yellen ignored the plight of
millions of Americans who lost their homes because of mortgage foreclosures. In
sum, Jewish Supremacists should proudly take credit for the American Jews who
have been disproportionately responsible for the largest economic and
foreign policy failures of the contemporary period – including the horrific
suffering these have entailed.
Back in the more normal world of crime,
Russian-Jewish mobsters dominate or share supremacy with the Italian Mafia in
New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami and scores of cities in between. They
display their unique genius at extortion and murder – knowing they can always
find safe haven in the ‘Promised Land’!
On the cultural front, the finest
Jewish writers, artists, musicians, scientists have emerged outside of Israel.
A few may have immigrated to the Jewish state, but many other intellectuals and
artists of note have chosen to leave Israel, repelled by the racist, intolerant
and repressive apartheid state and society promoted by Jewish Supremacists.
Conclusion
The record provides no historical basis
for the claims of Jewish Supremacists: What has been cited as the
disproportionate ‘Jewish genius’ turns out to be a two-edged sword -
demonstrating the best and the worst.
Claiming a monopoly on high academic
achievement must be expanded to owning up to the Jewish authors of the worst
financial and foreign policy disasters – they too are ‘high achievers’.
Donations from financial billionaires,
all ‘geniuses’, have financed the war crimes of the Israeli state and made
possible the expansion of violent Jewish settlers throughout occupied Palestine
– spreading misery and displacement for millions.
In fairness, the most notorious Jewish
swindler in contemporary America was even-handed: ‘Bernie’ Madoff swindled Jews
and Goys, Hollywood moguls and New York philanthropists – he wasn’t picky about
who he fleeced.
The latest fashion among Jewish
Supremacist ‘geneticists’ is to extoll the discovery of uniquely special
‘genes’ predisposing Jews to experience the ‘holocaust’ and even inherit the
experience of suffering from long dead ancestors. Such ‘scientists’ should be
careful. As Jazz artist and essayist, Gilad Altzmon wryly notes, ‘They will
put the anti-Semites out of business’.
Ultimately, Jews, who have assimilated
into the greater society or not, who inter-marry and who do not, are all
products of the social system in which they live and (like everyone else) they
are the makers of the roles they decide to play within it.
In the past, a uniquely disproportional
percentage of Jews chose to fight for universal humanist values – rejecting
the notion of a chosen people.
Today a disproportionate percentage of
educated Jews have chosen to embrace an ‘ethno-religious’ Supremacist dogma,
which binds them to an apartheid, militarist state and ideology ready to drag
the world into a global war.
Never forget! Racialist supremacist
doctrines led Germany down the blind ally of totalitarianism and world war, in
which scores of millions perished.
Jews, especially young Jews, are
increasingly repelled by Israel’s crimes against humanity. The next step for
them (and for us) is to criticize, demystify and stand up to the toxic
supremacist ideology linking the powerful domestic Zionist power configuration
and its political clones with Israel.
The root problem is not genetic, it is
collective political dementia: a demented ideology that claims a chosen elite
can forever dominate and exploit the majority of American people. The time will
come when the accumulated disasters will force the Americans people to push
back, unmasking the elite and rejecting its supremacist doctrines. Let us hope
that they will act with passion guided by reason.
Note:
James Petras's latest books include:
- James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer (2014), Extractive Imperialism in the Americas: Capitalism’s New Frontier, published by Brill (Leiden/Boston) (Studies in Critical Social Sciences Series).
- James Petras (2014), The Politics of Empire: The US, Israel and the Middle East, published by Clarity Press, Atlanta.
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