Neo-Barbarism

instapundit (aka Glenn Reynolds):

SAME AS IT EVER WAS. SAME AS IT EVER WAS. Michael Ledeen: 21st Century Antisemitism: How Did We Get Here? My response: Identify the barbarians. Crush the barbarians. Repeat as needed, and anti-semitism won’t be a problem. It’s when, in some sort of nostalgie de la boue, you instead exalt barbarism, that you’re in trouble

This is correct. The hatred of Israel, Israelis, and Jews is always, always traceable to barbarians. Barbarians function at the level of starving hyenas, morally and intellectually. The lawlessness of the American Left is a perfect replica of this, as it feigns moral righteousness while lying about virtually everything and attacking those who have actual, written, documented legal principles, as well as actual, written, documented moral principles.

Leeden:

"Mr. Cohen understands the essence of antisemitism. It isn’t just hatred of Jews, it’s a vision of the whole world, at the center of which it puts the Jews. Each little step, from the campaign against the ritual slaughter of animals for kosher meat, to the efforts to ban circumcision (often crafted to ensure that Jews can’t do it, but Muslims can), gets them closer to their goal of eliminating the Jews from the world.

So we must fight each step.

And “we” isn’t just a Jewish subject. One of his finest essays, on Iran, is eloquently titled “First They Came For the Bahai’s…” and it contains a prescient warning to the Christians. Having failed to defend the Bahai’s, the Christians (whether in Iran or around the world) failed to defend their own:

The reaction of western church leaders to the brazen demonization of Christianity in Iran has been typically nervous…there is a clear reluctance to identify Iran’s strategy for what it is: the first stage of a campaign to eradicate Christianity from the country.

Here Mr Cohen somewhat understates the gravity of the situation, as the Islamist campaign against Christians isn’t at all limited to the boundaries of Persia, but is raging all over the place. Iraq, now largely an Iranian protectorate, seems to have eliminated all its Christians, and the new Caliphate is issuing ultimata to them.

You might think it paradoxical that a book about antisemitism should provide such clear guidance about Christian-hatred, but actually it’s entirely logical.

Another reason to make sure that Some of My Best Friends is one of your basic books."