cians thought to be friendly to Arab interests and helped to defeatrntwo Illinois members of Congress, Charles Percy and PaulrnFindley, for championing negotiations between the Israelis andrntlie PLO. Even more shamelessly, AIPAC has exploited misplacedrnAmerican Christian guilt over the holocaust when lobbyingrnfor U.S. military support for Israel. If the source had notrnbeen a right-wing journalist, many Jews on the left would havernagreed with Pat Buchanan’s descriphon of how the “brandingrniron of anti-Semitism” has been wielded.rnBut the best days for AIPAC and other American Zionistrngroups may be in the past. In recent years, Jewish liberals havernattacked Zionist intransigence for denying the injustices committedrnagainst the Palestinians. Although the New Republicrncontinues to follow old party lines. Moment, Tikkun, and otherrnAmerican Jewish magazines both favor the Israeli-Palestinianrnpeace process and proclaim the justice of Palestinian demandsrnfor statehood. They argue—with some justification—that it isrndishonest for Jewish liberals to champion other victims of Westernrnimperialism while slighting Arab minorities expelled byrnJewish settlers. These second thoughts have surfaced alongsidernefforts within Israel to rethink the Zionist origins of that country.rnPartly influenced by a growing recognition that Arabs werernliving in Israel when European Jews arrived, this reassessmentrnreflects other considerations as well: Israelis would rather Israelrnbe a normal nation-state inhabited by their own nationality thanrna Middle Eastern extension of world Jewry or a colony of Miami-rnDade County.rnWhile the idea of a worldwide Zionist conspiracy seemsrnless and less believable, the older conspiratorial viewrnabout concerted Jewish malevolence may be making inroadsrnagain. This is traceable, perhaps, to the form that Jewish separatismrnis taking. While, as Peter Novick shows in The Holocaustrnin American Life, there is a continuing obsession among Americanrn(and, even more, European) Jews with the holocaust, thernset of interests attached to that obsession continues to change.rnWell into the 1980’s, that preoccupation was connected to supportrnfor Israel and was used to make Christians feel responsiblernfor the relatives of people they had supposedly victimized.rnOnce intermarriage became common, holocaustomania alsornprovided a pseudospiritual link between Jewish agnostics andrntheir gentile spouses reaching out to a persecuted minority.rnAll of this, however, soon developed into something morernunpalatable, namely, the recasting of the holocaust as the ultimaternsymbol of evil in the present cultural wars. It came to representrnthe omega point toward which our “prejudiced” heritagernwould lead us unless politically correct managers and educatorsrnpointed us in the opposite direction. The national press andrnJewish organizations argue that we are headed down the slipper}’rnslope toward the Third Reich unless we relentlessly crusadernagainst homophobia, sexism, and Christian intolerance.rnThe most shocking expression of it I have encountered was a recentrndisplay at the local Barnes and Noble, sponsored by B’nairnB’rith and the National Gay and Lesbian Alliance. Next to ThernDiary of Anne Frank and other holocaust-related literature werernHeather Has Two Mommies and further instructional studiesrnproduced by the advocates of “alternative lifestyles.” This readingrnmatter, explained the accompanying poster, was essential tornthe crusade “to end hate right now.”rnIn fact, the holocaust’s association with fashionable agendasrnhas become so clear that even critics of this arrangement try notrnto notice, if only for digestive reasons. When Congressman JerryrnNadler of New York perceives the “whiff of fascism” amongrnGeorge W. Bush’s supporters in Florida, when Alan Dershowitzrntells us that homosexuals—like Jews —were exterminatedrnunder Hitler (as opposed to Poles, who were only “selectivelyrnmurdered”), or when an elderly Jewish woman in DadernCounty compares the (presumably Republican) poll officialsrnwho put her in line to vote to the guards at Auschwitz, I try (usuallyrnto no avail) to ignore these predictable idiocies. Needless tornsay, gulags do not serve the same propagandistic function asrnNazi death camps—that is, as metaphors for political incorrectnessrncarried to an extreme. In France and Italy, under communistrnleadership, the political left has denied the historicity ofrncommunist atrocities, while backing tlie efforts of Jewish organizationsrnto showcase the holocaust.rnThis highlighting of “fascist crimes” is tied to the punishmentrnof “crimes of opinion” committed by presumed holocaustrndeniers and journalists who challenge multicultural immigrationrnpolicies. Holocaust entrepreneurs have joined communistrndeputies to impose a steady diet of la politique commemorativernupon the French people—official plaques and civic holidaysrnthat memorialize the deportation of Jews from France (most ofrnthem refugees from other countries) b the Vichy government.rnAs noted by Eric Conan and Henri Rousso —two impeccablyrnleftist French journalists who, nonetheless, fear that things mayrnbe getting out of hand—the fetes nationales set up to commemoraternthe liberation of France from the Nazis have less and lessrnto do with national heroism or national suffering and have becomernguilt trips laid on the French for what the Vichy governmentrndid —not as the government of an occupied countr)’ butrnas the representative of Catholic European society. Small wonderrnthat the nationalist right in France risks criminal prosecutionrnto complain about Jewish communist efforts to dishonor larnpatrie. Wliile such callous acts did occur, the attempt to blamernall non-leftist Frenchmen is both boorish and dishonest.rnThe alacrity shown by Jewish organizations that use the holocaustrnto promote political correctness and multiculturalism isrnnot, as far as I can see, aimed at dominating gentile society. AllrnJewish liberals I have known believe that the United States andrnother Western countries are swarming with hostile Christiansrnand that the Religious Right is as dangerous as the Nazi movementrnbefore Hitier came to power. Altiiough I am not often onrntheir side, I fully share the amazement of Norman Podhoretzrnand Elliott Abrams, who, after looking at the attitudes of AmericanrnJews regarding the prevalence of antisemitism in the countr)’,rnwondered aloud whether they shared the same reality.rnThe Religious Right, a screed put out by the Anti-DefamationrnLeague in 1994, illustrates this mindset. Abe Foxman and thernrest of his equally anxious executive committee think that thernReligious Right’s “assault on tolerance and pluralism” signals arnwidespread antisemitic and homophobic Christian culture. PiousrnAmericans who favor prayers in public schools or creches inrnpublic places or who try to place restrictions on abortion are notrnfellow Americans with whom the left has honest differences.rnThese zealots are the forerunners of antisemitic theocracy andrnexemplify (note the originality of this characterization) thern”paranoid style in American politics.” One telltale proof of thisrnstle is the tactiessness of Christian “extremists” who comparernabortion to Nazi inhumanities. Unlike gays, blacks, FrenchrnStalinists, and impatient geriatric Jewish liberal voters in southernrnFlorida, opponents of abortion have no right to overusernholocaust analogies.rn24/CHRONICLESrnrnrn