IS THERE A CURE FOR ANTI-SEMITISM'
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phenomenon represented by the kulaks and the role of an internal class
"enemy" justifying the extinction of millions of people in order to make
way for the classless society. Here, too, you have a level of ideological
abstraction which is one of the most frightening aspects of twentieth–
century totalitarianism.
Norman Podhoretz:
Here you've finally said something I disagree
with. I think anti-Semitism is, strictly speaking, more irrational than the
massacre of the kulaks. There was a revolutionary theory behind that
massacre, an utterly ruthless and hideous theory, similar to the one that
led to the genocide in Cambodia. The idea was that unless you got rid
of this class you couldn't build a new system. So there was some
"rational" basis for eliminating the kulaks. By contrast, it's very difficult,
if indeed possible at all, to find anything comparably "rational" in the
case of anti-Semitism. When Hitler embarked on his program of geno–
cide, the Jews, represented by him as a tremendously powerful threat that
had to be eliminated, were so far from being powerful that they were
unable to prevent a third of their people from being massacred with
ease. And it was irrational, as Hannah Arendt pointed out long ago, for
Hitler to divert transport in 1944 that was badly needed for the war ef–
fort, in order to deport the Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. The idea that
the helpless Hungarian Jews were a greater threat to Germany than the
armies against which it was fighting was crazy.
Qllestion:
Mr. Podhoretz, just as you said that it is incumbent upon Jews
to criticize black anti-Semitism, isn't it also incumbent upon Jews and
upon all progressive people to condemn white racism also?
Norman Podhoretz:
Well, I'm not a progressive person, so I'm not
sure if I can answer your question. The subject of this particular panel is
anti - Semitism, and I notice that when anyone tries to talk about anti–
Semitism or to condemn anti-Semitism, instantly other forms of bigotry
or hatred are brought in to keep it company, as though the focus on
Jew-hatred - I think Saul Bellow is right to insist on that way of de–
scribing this phenomenon - somehow isn't enough by itself, and needs
to be broadened to include other things in order to be made re–
spectable. I want to talk, now, about anti-Semitism and not about other
forms of hatred, each of which is a different kind of problem. I don't
think you can usefully dump them all into a single pot called bigotry or
racIsm.
Qllestion:
If anti-Semitism is here to stay, what can we do about self-
