That’s the headline on the Independent story. As an Irish citizen rather than a British subject (contrary to popular belief, monarchical states don’t have citizens), I don’t have a dog in this fight. But the interview confirms two things we knew already. One is that the British Royal family is a dysfunctional tribe on an Olympic scale. The other is that British tabloid culture is vicious, racist, and xenophobic to a pathological degree. Poor Meghan is in the same boat as Diana Spencer was in all but one respect: she has been able to persuade her husband to dump the charade before it was too late.*
What you do is what the whole universe is doing at the place you call here and now.
HS
In Britain, efforts to keep Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn out of power over accusations of antisemitism have had the alarming effect of conflating criticism of Israel or anti-Zionism with hatred of Jewish people. You have described these tactics as a disgrace, and said they insult the memory of Holocaust victims. I’d like you to comment on how erroneous charges of antisemitism ultimately hurt Jews, and why expanded definitions of the term (which, for example, consider certain advocacy for Palestinian rights as anti-Jewish bigotry) can be problematic.
NCThe classic statement of this position is by the distinguished Israeli statesman Abba Eban, highly regarded particularly in England as a British gentleman (Cambridge graduate, cultivated accent, etc.). In 1973, when he was Israeli foreign minister, Eban wrote an interesting article in a leading liberal Jewish journal [Congress Bi-Weekly] in which he explained that “One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all. Anti-Zionism is merely the new anti-Semitism.”That defines the task very explicitly. Here “anti-Zionism” means criticism of policies of the State of Israel. He made that quite clear by adding: “Let there be no mistake: the new left is the author and the progenitor of the new anti-Semitism.”The New Left in fact was overwhelmingly Zionist, but beginning to be mildly critical of some of the policies of the occupation and illegal settlement over which Eban was presiding. Eban also identified two arch-criminals: I.F. Stone and me, “whose basic complex is one of guilt about Jewish survival” and therefore are beyond the range of rational discussion. His wild accusations about the “New Left,” worth reading, are equally ludicrous — as he certainly knew, being literate.
…*
Fifty years ago, the distinguished Israel statesman Abba Eban wrote that “One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all. Anti-Zionism is merely the new anti-Semitism.”As the examples he gives make crystal clear (e.g., the committed Zionist I.F. Stone), by “anti-Zionism” he means criticism of the policies of the government of Israel and some sympathy for Palestinians.
That principle has become a last-ditch defense of apologists for Israel crimes under the occupation. Any critic, any proponent of Palestinian rights, can be tarred as an anti-Semite. This weapon has recently been wielded to great effect against Jeremy Corbyn in a campaign of vulgar deceit and slander that is shocking even beyond the disgraceful norm.*
I have a theory about this hubris. Great wealth does strange things to people — and to those around them. It’s a combination of aphrodisiac and reality-distortion field. Immensely rich (or powerful) people think they are rich (or powerful) because they’re very special. And the people around them think that if someone is immensely rich or powerful they must be smart. And so there’s a kind of positive feedback loop that intensifies with time.
That’s bad enough when the wealthy are middle-aged. But when the money arrives at a point when the recipient is barely out of short trousers — as, for example, with some of the Silicon Valley crowd, then not only do they think they’re geniuses, but so too do those around them, not to mention the journalists who fawn upon them. Live like that for a while and you go bananas.
That’s why political leaders go crazy after a while. They’re surrounded by people who admire them, or look as if they do.
I once had an interesting demonstration of this. …*
Summing up, to be truly efficient, we need optimal inefficiency. The shortest path may be a curve rather than a straight line. Charles Darwin understood that. When he encountered a tough problem, he made a circuit of a trail, the sandwalk that he'd built behind his house. A productive path can be physical, like Darwin's, or a virtual one, or an unforeseen detour from a path we had laid out. Too much efficiency can weaken itself. But a bit of inspired inefficiency can strengthen it. Sometimes, the best way to move forward is to follow a circle.
