On Richard Dawkins’ Statement

From Daniel Finkelstein on Times Online blog comments, via Melanie Phillips, a statement by atheism evangelist Richard Dawkins that recently made the waves:

When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place.

The comments for that post have focused on the question whether Dawkins is anti-Semitic (=Jew-hating), with many commenters saying on the lines of, “It’s not anti-Semitic to point out the Israel Lobby’s influence on American politics”. What is my take? Is Dawkins a Jew-hater? Is this another example of a “Progressive, rationalist” (the self-styled king of rationalism, no less) succumbing to the irrational tide?

My take consists of two parts:

1. In all honesty, I don’t know. A record of more such statements by Dawkins is necessary in order to determine the truth.
2. It is worse for us Jews if the answer is, “No”. Much, much worse.

If this man Richard Dawkins is not a Jew-hater, but has merely given in to the wind of the age; if this professed paragon of rational thinking has but jumped on a bandwagon; if this writer of numerous essays stressing the importance of believing things on the basis of evidence alone, never on the basis of tradition or revelation or faith, has not seen any problem with voicing a stance that has not been subjected to any kind of rigorous evidential examination; if the flame of anti-Zionism has gripped such an ostensible cedar of sanity—

—then the final hour is upon us!

I cannot cease stressing this point, nor can I emphasize it too much, that the issue is not, and has never been, Jew-hatred per se, but its coming into acceptability. I cannot stop pointing out that the alarm bells should not be sounded over ravings and rantings about “crooked-nose Jews” voiced by speakers at an Aryan Nations convention, but should be sounded over slick, rational-sounding, intellectually-formulated essays, articles and remarks about “Zionists leading the world to war” and “Jewish colonialist settlers perpetrating a genocide of the Palestinians”. Acceptability must always, always be the operative word, the criterion to watch for. Respectability of such sentiments, so that a self-described “guardian of reason” like Dawkins has no qualms about making them, ought to have the Jewish klaxons blaring worldwide.

If Richard Dawkins is not a Jew-hater, then his making of that statement means those sentiments now flow freely in the bloodstream of everyday discourse. What more, then, can now have already embedded itself in the structures of everyday discourse?

Could it be the idea that Israel is a mistake that needs to be corrected is already part of mainstream thought?

Could it be the idea that Zionism is an inherently racist and unjust political movement that needs to be “wiped out from the pages of time” is already part of mainstream thought?

Could it be the idea that every Jewish man, woman and child in Israel is a land-thief and oppressor whose killing (God forbid) is absolutely justified is already a part of mainstream thought?

And could it be the idea that any Jew who supports Israel is a Zionist agent is already a part of mainstream thought?

How much more could be lurking under the surface, beyond the slight hint that Richard Dawkins, if indeed he is not an anti-Semite, has uncovered for us?

How much more evidence do we need against the canard, “Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism”? How much more redressings of sentiments from the 1930’s in anti-Zionist garb, in the clothing of “criticism of Israel”, do we need in order to realize this is the real deal? How much more? How long?

Brothers and sisters, how long do we give a moral blank check to the New Anti-Semitism, this new torch of the old hatred, now carried by the alliance of Crescent with Sickle and Crescent?

How much will some of us try to apologize, in the form, “No, I assure you, I do not support Israel’s policies!”, or worse, even hold competitions with each other as to who is the more pro-“Palestinian”?

When will we all come to the understanding that we are condemned for not accepting the Marxist Cacangelium, which sees all Judaism pre-Marx as naught but a foreshadowing of that Cacangelium, now made null and void (chas v’shalom) by it? That “in Zionism’s fall we Jews fell all”? That, because of what we did in 1947–9, during the war in which the Jewish State was born against all odds (thanks be to God), “their (=the ‘Palestinians’’) blood be upon us and our children”? And that, unless we become “complete Jews” by accepting the all-new, internationalist vision that Marxism preaches, we will be justly condemned to burn in the fires kindled by the proxy enforcers of the Marxists’ wrath—the Muslims? That is the narrative!

Neither apologies nor concessions, neither compromises nor capitulation, neither gestures of goodwill nor outright selling of our birthright, neither “showing respect for the other side’s story” nor going into treasonous standing with the other side—nothing will sate the demand of the Jew-haters, which is total: “Leave us alone to ignore the truth you have been bringing for over 3,000 years”, the truth that HaShem is the God.

It was inevitable for anti-Zionism to become the newest form of Jew-hatred, for Zionism represents the last stage in Jewish truth-bringing: the reactivation of Jewish Law. Jewish truth-bringing had hitherto been concerned mainly with the philosophical truth: that there is one deity and not many; that He is a Person and relates to all His creations personally; and that the universe is His creation and not an eternal entity, nor a spontaneous emergence from nothing. But now comes Zionism, the beginning of deliverance, in which all the Jewish laws that had been put on hold for 2,000 years are being reactivated, one by one. Laws which go against the institutional lawlessness of both Marxism and Islam—against immorality enshrined in law just as things were in Sodom and Gomorrah. Now comes the time for the final truth: It is God, not man, who makes the rules.

The United Nations building will be burned to the ground, as were Sodom and Gomorrah back in the day. This corrupt organization, mired in scandals, totally ineffective in stopping true oppression, serving as a platform for the most unjust rulers of the world to legalize their injustices, has no right to exist. Politically Correct “law”, having criminals roaming free on the streets while the innocent have to seclude themselves in their homes in fear, will be abolished, for it has no right to exist. All that which usurps God’s law will vanish, for by nature it has no right to exist.

The UN represents the interests of its constituent members. A bad idea from the start.

If this man Richard Dawkins, this fanatical caller for rationality, can lend his pen to the service of a reworking of an ancient conspiracy theory, then all faith in human-conceived “rationality” needs to be abandoned. The human mind, be it that of even the most sane and balanced person, can always be carried over by the wind of the time like a straw in the wind.

In naught but HaShem and His Torah is there salvation from that predicament.

Repent. For the end looks near.