Malign Equivalence and LEWACTWO Edwards

With Friends Like These: The Jewish Critics of Israel, by Edward Alexander (Editor). 1992

This Israel-Centered Focus Has Inadvertent Implications for Polish-Jewish Relations. Implications of the Leftist Doctrine of Malign Equivalence

Author Edward Alexander lumps the modern critics of Israel with past Jews who actually had advocated persecution of Jews. For instance, he comments about Johannes (formerly Josef) Pfefferkorn, the Jewish convert who exhorted his German countrymen to “drive the old Jews out like dirty dogs and baptize the young children’ and “take their goods and give them to those to whom they belong.” (p. 26).

THE HOLOCAUST EXPLOITED

Marie Syrkin confesses, “Many Jews have reservations about the sometimes unseemly exploitation of the Holocaust and may agree with Adorno that, for so immense a calamity, silence is fittest.” (p. 271).

POLITICS OF SELF-FLAGELLATION: NOT ONLY JEWS PRACTICE IT

Edward Alexander quotes Yehoshua Sobol, who was quoted as saying that Arabs are unwilling to accept the Jewish state because it is essentially “barbaric”. (p. 47). However, not mentioned is the fact that parallel views can be found among the LEWACTWO, who argue that Jews have a right to be anti-Polish because of Polish anti-Semitism.

Werner Cohn writes that, “There is an old ultra-left doctrine of malign equivalence according to which all worldly government is equally evil.” (p. 125). Other unmentioned examples of this are the LEWAKS, who equate Bereza Kartuska with the Nazi German and Soviet Communist concentration camps, and who assure us that the (presumed) Polish responsibility for Jedwabne now make Poland “complicit in the Holocaust.” Part of the LEWACTWO goes as far as linking and relativizing the Endeks and the Nazi Germans.

QUOTING THE OTHER SIDE: EVERYBODY DOES IT

Some of the authors in this book point out that Arabs and neo-Nazis often quote Jews who criticize Israel. However, this is nothing remarkable. It is standard practice to quote somebody from the other side in order to score a point. For instance, Jews and LEWAKS commonly cite Pope John Paul II in order to silence Polish criticisms of Jews. This is despite the fact that Pope John Paul II had never endorsed the Jewish attacks on Poland that are so prevalent today.