Perhaps Alisa Rosenbaum should have explained why the U.S. should help Israel after the Lavon affair and USS Liberty. To help the uncivilzed sheiks or our Israeli “allies” who have shown that they welcome the opportunity to plot treachery against us, hmmm?

It’s the classic excuse. They hate us for what we are, not what we do.

Yes, “modern” is a code word for “Jewish”. I believe that’s the standard line in Ivy League history courses, such as my class with Prof. Gluck featuring “The Politics of Cultural Despair” by Fritz Stern:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Stern

The focus of much of Stern’s work is attempting to track the development of the rise of National Socialism in Germany and its characteristics. Stern has traced the origins of Nazism back to the 19th century völkische movement. In Stern’s opinion, the virulently anti-Semitic völkische movement was the result of the “politics of cultural despair” experienced by German intellectuals who were unable to come to grips with modernity.

Smells like “collectivism”. And she dares make negative statements about arabs qua arabs. If you hadn’t attributed this to Rand I would have guessed Auster wrote it. Or for that matter it could have been any philo-semitic anti-jihadi hypocrite who asserts that criticizing jews is unacceptable.

It was Hazlitt who got Ms.Rosenbaum interested in the free market, and she then began to promote Hazlitt’s and von Mises’s ideas.

Not that I don’t concur on the general theme.

An interesting quote from the “anti-racist” Rosenbaum:

Ayn Rand on Israel (Ford Hall Forum lecture, 1974)

Q: What should the United Sates do about the [1973] Arab-Israeli War?

AR: Give all the help possible to Israel. Consider what is at stake. It is not the moral duty of any country to send men to die helping another country. The help Israel needs is technology and military weapons—and they need them desperately. Why should we help Israel? Israel is fighting not just the Arabs but Soviet Russia, who is sending the Arabs armaments. Russia is after control of the Mediterranean and oil.
Further, why are the Arabs against Israel? (This is the main reason I support Israel.) The Arabs are one of the least developed cultures. They are typically nomads. Their culture is primitive, and they resent Israel because it’s the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent. When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are. Israel is a mixed economy inclined toward socialism. But when it comes to the power of the mind—the development of industry in that wasted desert continent—versus savages who don’t want to use their minds, then if one cares about the future of civilization, don’t wait for the government to do something. Give whatever you can. This is the first time I’ve contributed to a public cause: helping Israel in an emergency.

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