tionalist understanding of the humanrncondition and of pohtical hfe. It hasrnfrontally assaulted the root assumptionsrnof the left, particularly those regardingrnthe universalization of political models,rnthe doctrine of human rights, and thernuse of public administration to achievernsocial change. It has also challenged thernneoconservative position—embraced byrnNeuhaus—that there have been two civilrnrights movements, a moderate Christianrnone followed by a derailed and radicalizedrnone. In fact, Neuhaus’s publicrnfulminations against the Institute werernaimed at Chronicles’ position on immigration,rna position that has been adoptedrnby National Review and many other centristrnconservative groups that remain inrncommunion with the neoconservativernempire. Gerson is wrong on the facts ofrnthe case, but ultimately he may not care.rnPaul Gottfried is a professor of humanitiesrnat Elizabethtown College in Pennsyl-rnHaters andrnSelf-Hatersrnby Jacob NeusnerrnThe Jewish Wars: Reflections byrnOne of the Belligerentsrnby Edward AlexanderrnCarbondale: Southern Illinois UniversityrnPress; 206 pp., $29.95rnEloquent and courageous, EdwardrnAlexander takes the theme of anti-rnIsraelism and anti-Zionism and transformsrna mere topical debate into profoundrnreflections on the meanings ofrnself-hatred and bigotry; on Jews’ hatredrnof themselves and on Gentile anti-rnSemitism in its most contemporary version.rnThese occasional essays, written inrnthe specific context of immediate controversies,rntranscend their occasions asrnAlexander pursues a single themernthrough diverse variations.rnJewish self-hatred is the more surprisingrnsubject, since, as a topic of public exposition,rnJews’ intense dislike of theirrnown Jewishness, and the psychologicalrnand cultural consequences of that dislike,rnhave found only a few important expositors.rnOne was Theodore Lessing, thernCzech Zionist murdered by the Nazis,rnwho in 1930 invented the term “Jewishrnself-hatred” and defined its pathology;rnthe other, Kurt Lcwin, whose writings onrn”leaders from the periphery” and otherrnaspects of ethnic self-hatred, in the latern1940’s, proved prescient for the nextrnhalf-century of American Jewish life.rnNow Alexander has shown how the relationshiprnof American Jews to Israel—involvingrndemands that Israel display a degreernof self-abnegation unparalleled byrnany other nation—and Israeli Jewish selfhatredrnhave shaped debate on Israelirnpolicy.rnHe writes in the aftermath of thernArabs’ remarkable propaganda victory inrnthe Intifada, which dramatically accordedrnto the Palestinian side the moral authorityrnof victim and stigmatized the Israelisrnas oppressors. The Israeli leftrnturned against its own country—ignoringrnthe wisdom of Bcrl Katznelson, thernconscience of Socialist Zionism, who inrn1936 wrote, “Is there another people onrnearth whose sons are so emotionally andrnmentally twisted that they consider everythingrntheir nation does despicablernand hateful, while every murder, rape,rnand robbery committed by their enemiesrnfills their hearts with admiration andrnawe?” In his classic essay, “Antisemitism,rnIsraeli style,” Alexander proceeds to rehearse,rnchapter and verse, the violentrnself-hatred characteristic of Israelis’ criticismrnof their own country and its policies.rnA single—remarkably sick—examplernsuffices: the invocation of the blood libelrnof medieval times, which held that Jewsrnuse Gentile blood to make Passover matzot,rnin a poem on the Lebanon war byrnYizhak Laor. Dedi Zucker, commentingrnon the murder of Jews burned to death inrntheir car by a fire bomb thrown by Arabrnterrorists, said on the fourth day ofrnPassover, “Palestinian brothers, the Jewishrnsettlers need Ofra Moses’ blood.rnThey are drinking it.”rnThe equation of Jews with Nazis—rnwhich began with British officers inrnPalestine who spoke, in the midst of thernholocaust, of Jewish Palestine as “thernJewish Nazi state”—forms a staple ofrnIsraeli left-wing writing. Alexander’srnaccount records no story sorrier than thatrnof the government-supported Haifa MunicipalrnTheater, which made a specialtyrnof “the Jew as Nazi” plays. When theyrnperformed these in Germany they receivedrnuproarious applause from all butrnthe local Jewish communities, whichrncondemned their plays as pure anti-rnSemitism.rnFrom among the Americans, Alexanderrnsingles out Leonard Fein, David Novak,rnMichael Lerner, Noam Chomskyrn(the Jews’ answer to Timothy Leary),rnand any number of others who qualify, inrnone way or another, for classification asrnself-hating Jews: meaning Jews who demandrnthat the Jews be better than everybodyrnelse and condemn them for thernslightest failure to conform to this fictiverngold standard, and who, where the staternof Israel is concerned, leap to the barricadesrnto condemn the slightest Israelirnaberration but never find fault with anyonernelse. Any passing cloud that shadowsrnthe Jews’ light to the Gentiles betokensrnthe next Flood, and we are nornlonger Noah but Sodomites.rnThe introduction of the Nazirnmetaphor into public debate on Israelirnpolicy derives from anti-Semitic Gentilesrnas much as from Jews. It is one thing torncriticize what Israelis do or do not do; itrnis quite another to evoke Adolf Hitler asrnthe generative symbol. In this connectionrnConor Cruise O’Brien has said, “Ifrnyour interlocutor can’t keep Hitler out ofrnthe conversation . . . feverishly turningrnJews into Nazis and Arabs into Jews—rnwhy then, I think, you may well be talkingrnto an anti-Jewist.” Alexander takesrnon a whole wolves’ lair of anti-Jewists:rnEdward Said, Alexander Cockburn,rnArchbishop Tutu, Nelson Mandela,rnPatrick Buchanan (with special attentionrnto his Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippurrnsermons to the Jews of some years back),rnand many others. A single essay capturesrnit all: “Why Jews must behave betterrnthan everybody else: the theory and practicernof the double standard.”rnAlexander sets himself not onlyrnagainst a massive movement in contemporaryrnpolitics—the Jews’ own surrenderrnof conscience and character to the carernof their worst enemies—and the Westernrnwodd’s reversion to its long history ofrnJew-hatred. He also stands against anotherrnvile incubus of culture and sensibility.rnAs a professor of English who actuallyrnbelieves that literature edifies, hernnumbers among his enemies not onlyrnthe multiculturalists but the lit-critrnmovement, with its betrayal of literaturernand its barbaric prose. To underscore thernissue, Alexander himself writes elegantly,rnimparting to his prose a dignity and craftrnthat his enemies’ writing—cited abundantlyrn—strikingly lacks. (One of hisrnprincipal targets, Edward Said, writes likernOCTOBER 1996/27rnrnrn