#WTH Sorry is not enough

There must be consequences for antisemitism

In 1996, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen wrote a book entitled Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. A complex history, the short summary is in the title itself — far from opposed to Hitler’s genocide against the Jews, the average German during World War II ranged from indifferent to enthusiastically complicit. Were there exceptions? Absolutely. But German tolerance for the systematic murder of six million Jews was widespread. If you have doubts, read The German War: A Nation Under Arms 1939-1945.

When Goldhagen’s book came out, the doyen of Holocaust scholars, Yehuda Bauer, ripped him to shreds, scolding that “antisemitism was by no means prevalent among the German population... the overwhelming majority of Germans were indeed antisemitically inclined, but frowned upon extreme measures such as burning buildings, destroying property, and pogrom-like beatings.” To paraphrase, then, most Germans thought the Jews had something coming, but perhaps being gassed en masse wasn’t their idea of how to address what was delicately called “the Jewish problem.”

One sees this parsing for what it is, perhaps, an olive branch to those who sat by, but didn’t pull the triggers. And in many ways, we can understand how the desire to exculpate millions of Germans marks a path forward and away from the terrible memories of what came before. But it is still wrong.

As my comrades who adore Hamas and all that it stands for insist, silence is complicity.

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Last week, after Kevin Roberts, the president of the venerable Heritage Foundation, spoke out against his “friend” Tucker Carlson’s critics, savaging their denunciation of the firebrand broadcaster’s platforming Hitler nostalgic Nick Fuentes, a reporter contacted me asking for a comment. I demurred. It was not, I said, my place to be among the first to criticize the leader of a fellow conservative think tank. Others would do the job. And they have, indeed, more eloquently than I can.

Here’s a terrific piece by Eli Lake in The Free Press.

Here’s another from my colleague, The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg.

Here’s National Review. And the Wall Street Journal.

But my desire to remain silent should also be seen, I say with some guilt, as a desire to hide behind others. Why should I criticize when others will do the job as well? This is craven. It is wrong.

Of course, a new Holocaust is not upon us, nor is Kevin Roberts (nor Carlson nor Fuentes) a new Hitler. Fanboying and cosplay as Nazis is morally reprehensible and embarrassingly pathetic, but it is not a war crime. That said, the disguise of outraged and uninvolved bystander also deserves criticism.

You see, I’ve been lucky not to have often been a knowing victim of overt antisemitism. Sure, I know that the neocon label means Jew. I know that the Israel-firster label, once favored by Leftie hecklers, is antisemitic in its intent. I know that the word “globalist” often means Jew to the Rightie polemicists. And of course, working on the Middle East as I have, I’ve passed many an hour talking to enthusiastic antisemites and their fawning supporters. (Yes, my friend from the Baghdad conference, I know you denounced me for wearing my Star of David on display around my neck. And you a Christian, too. Tsk tsk.)

But the antisemitism we globalist neocons and our fellow paleos face is hardly debilitating. And so, we call out the haters casually, chide their sponsors, and move on. We — I — have done so for too long. We are complicit in the environment that allowed the murder of two young Jews in Washington. The attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue. The firebombing of PA Go. Josh Shapiro’s house. It’s time to fight.

It’s time to have the same gumption as Ted Cruz, who said of Roberts, “Now is a time for choosing. If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very cool and that their mission is to defeat ‘global Jewry,’ and you say nothing, then you are a coward, and you are complicit in that evil.” And Mitch McConnell, who said, “The ‘intellectual backbone of the conservative movement’ is only as strong as the values it defends. Last I checked, conservatives should feel no obligation to carry water for antisemites and apologists for America-hating autocrats. But maybe I just don’t know what time it is.”

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I appreciate my friends at Heritage who have tweeted our their firm opposition to antisemitism, somehow hoping that this signal of their virtue obviates their complicity in the boss’s antisemitic dog whistles and apologia for his mate Tucker. I understand that normal people need their jobs and income, and that many at THF feel that they were there before Roberts, and will outlast him and his Carlson sycophancy. Were it only that simple.

Similarly, for my friends on Heritage’s board, I understand that an effort to oust Roberts failed over the weekend. But is that it? Will you remain on that board? Do you agree with Roberts? Have you explained what it will take to keep your good name on the roster at this once great institution?

What will it take for Roberts to feel he has done wrong? Resignation would be the honorable course. But honor is a rare commodity in DC. A full repudiation of Carlson, and not the half hearted and shaming apologia that targeted only Fuentes would be a thin, but at least nominally regretful, step. A full apology to all who joined Heritage’s erstwhile but deeply sincere project to combat antisemitism, Project Esther, is imperative.

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Some of you will chide me for going after the minnows on my side when JD Vance (and more tacitly, Donald Trump) continue to tolerate Carlson and other Jew haters. And my answer is that you are partly right. We must take on all the “willing” backers of antisemitism on our side. Vance, who last week implied that Jews controlled previous presidents (“When people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the president of the United States, they’re not controlling this president of the United States,”) cannot hope to win the White House while cowering in Tucker’s shadow.

To put this another way, those of us who study terrorism understand that the number of actual terrorists is finite. As we saw in Gaza, in Syria, in Iraq, and elsewhere, there are murderers and then there are the crowds who support them, give them safe haven, give them money, give them moral support. These were Goldhagen’s willing accomplices to Hitler, the willing accomplices to Hamas in Gaza, and yes, the friends, neighbors, and colleagues who sit by while a would-be leader of the Right falls in with Nazi apologists.

Outrage is not enough. There must be consequences. We must not be complicit.