Monday, November 02, 2009

The weakest generation: Are effete WASPs atoning for "anti-Semitic" faux-pas through Israel blank checks, acquiescence to US wars for Israel?

(The American Conservative) -- After thumbing through The Israel Test, blogger Matthew Yglesias speculated that Gilder may be a kind of WASP who “likes Israel in part because he wishes American Jews would leave him alone and go live there instead.” This interpretation strikes me as insufficient. Perhaps a better one can be derived from Gilder’s final chapter, in which he paints a portrait of his artistically and financially successful ancestors and the upper-class WASP world in which he was raised. The focal point is an incident that occurred when he was about 17. While trying to impress an older girl, his summer tutor in Greek, he blurted out something mildly anti-Semitic. The young woman dryly replied that she was in fact “a New York Jew.” Gilder was mortified. He relates that he has never quite gotten over the episode. It is the kind of thing a sensitive person might long remember. Variations on this pattern are not uncommon in affluent WASP circles to this day: guilt or embarrassment at some stupid but essentially trivial episode of social anti-Semitism serve as a spur for fervent embrace of Likud-style Zionism. Atonement. It would not be surprising if a similar process helped to shape George W. Bush’s mentality...Cont'd...LINK

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