LIONEL ABEL
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sentences. First he writes that my disagreements with George
Steiner "are not as great as they appear," and then that behind them
"there is a profound difference of orientation ." Shouldn't Professor
Finch resolve his disagreement with his own judgement before tak–
ing issue with mine?
And do I have to prove to a professor of philosophy that two
and two make four? Had any group genuinely representing human–
ity offered its aid to the Jewish concentration camp survivors after
the war, I think most Jews would have been glad to be served by it,
and many might have preferred to be so aided , rather than struggle
for Palestine. But the humanity Professor Finch assumes is more
than a word said not even one word to the camp survivors . The
humane feelings expressed by individuals or groups at special and
transient moments , is about all we can really be singling out when
we use the word "humanity." We may even assume there is such an
entity, but we cannot assume that it has any particular power.
Humanism, a creed Professor Finch evidently prefers to Judaism
and Christianity , rests on these religious beliefs , and without their
support is soon transformed into nihilism.
There was some point in opposing nationalism when there was
an internationalism one could support; I have in mind not some
agreeable current of opinion, but actual political entities , capable of
bringing people into the streets shouting slogans . I have in mind the
Second and the Third Internationals . These really existed. But as we
saw, when the crunch came , the Second International divided itself
along nationalist lines, and the Third International became the
foreign policy instrument of Soviet Russia . Does Professor Finch
think there is some Fourth International, an "International of Good
Men," to use the phrase of Isaac Babel , which he and I could join?
And I do not agree that nationalism and militarism are the evils
of our time. Hannah Arendt, with whom I often disagreed on other
matters, thought the evil of our times was totalitarianism, which
Professor Finch does not even mention. But let us say there are
many evils. I submit that nationalism is not one of them. Na–
tionalism and military valor saved the British Isles from Hitlerism .
Nationalism, allied with Catholicism , has saved the Poles from the
worst kind of Stalinism . And nationalism, allied with the Moham–
medan faith, has saved the Afghans from enslavement to the Soviet
machine.
About "shouting in the streets." The Palestinians do not shout
in the streets . They explode, in buses, on planes, and in shopping
