Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute interviews Harvard scholar Ruth Wisse about the disturbing response to Hamas attacks on Israel.
I find that what is happening is overwhelming. And, of course, there’s no comparison. But I am just as frightened about what is happening to America as I am at this moment about what is happening in Israel. The situation in Israel is much dire because, of course, there the antisemitism comes in this form of a barbarism that, in some ways, exceeds anything that we’ve seen in our lifetime.
But what’s happening here is really frightful because, to get to the point, antisemitism really has nothing to do with the Jews. It points at the Jews, it blames the Jews, it uses the Jews as its vehicle. But antisemitism is about the antisemites, those who need this, those who have formed this ideology, who constitute this movement, who use this movement. And it is one of the most destructive movements that we know of because it destroys every society that actually uses it.
And it’s a political tool that serves its users very well in the short run. And we can talk about all its functions, and why it becomes so popular and why it becomes so effective. But the more effective it becomes, the more debilitating it is because, of course, what it is is a deflection of real problems in a society. And instead of solving those problems, instead of addressing those problems, those who embrace antisemitism are really using it to blame the wrong party and to gin up violence against the wrong party. In other words, it’s a deliberate definition of real problems. And the longer it is allowed to proceed and the more successful in its own sense it becomes, the more horrifically it destroys its society. So really, I would say that America is in very, very bad shape if this can take hold to the degree that it has in such a really short period of time.
