One of the most encouraging developments in Jewish life over the course of the last century is the way the Catholic Church has evolved from a position of open hostility toward Jews to one that repudiated anti-Semitism and recognized the legitimacy of Zionism and the state of Israel. The work of the Second Vatican Council and popes such as John XXIII and John Paul II have largely erased a lamentable legacy of hate and replaced it with one that is based on mutual respect. But as is the case with the secular left, some precincts of the Catholic left remain infected with the virus of anti-Zionism.
A prime example of this sort of thinking is found at Commonweal, a liberal Catholic publication where Margaret O’Brien Steinfels blogs. Steinfels has been waging a steady campaign against Israel at the dotCommonweal blog whose central theme as been to oppose pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear program as well as support for the efforts of rabid anti-Zionist extremists like Mondoweiss editor Phillip Weiss and turncoat Israel critic M.J. Rosenberg. While Stenfels mocks those who consider Weiss’ absurd rants as well as her own jibes to be anti-Semitic, any time spent perusing her posts makes it clear that despite Commonweal’s supposed liberalism, what is produced on their blog sounds a lot more like the work of a latter day Father Charles Coughlin than any of the recent popes.
While Steinfels is a knee-jerk Israel-hater (her idea of a joke is to suggest that Republicans move the capital of the United States to Jerusalem), her main interest these days is similar to other foes of Israel: stopping Israel or, more to the point, pro-Israel Americans from taking action to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. She even wrote with approval of the statement of support for Iran nukes of the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement that held its recent meeting in Tehran. She also wrote with sympathy about Iran’s historical grievances against the United States and the deaths of Iranian scientists who are working on creating a bomb that could make good on the regime’s threats to wipe Israel off the map.
Some of Steinfels’ recent work is merely all-purpose Israel bashing such as a post highlighting the 1982 Sabra and Shatilla massacre of Palestinians. The massacre was a failure on Israel’s part, but nowhere in her piece titled “Our Closest Ally,” does she mention that the militiamen who killed the Palestinians were actually Catholics. Her mention of it in this matter brings to mind the belief on the part of many Israelis at the time that this lamentable episode from the Lebanese Civil War (which was, alas, a case of the Catholics revenging themselves on the Palestinians for past massacres) was a blood libel against Jews. Indeed, what motive other than delegitimizing Jewish contemporary self-defense could there be in resurrecting an incident from a war that was prompted by Lebanon allowing terrorists to use its southern region to be a base for attacks on Israelis?
Commonweal’s liberal agenda on domestic issues is well known. So is its edgy attitude toward the Vatican. One isn’t surprised to find anyone on the left lacking enthusiasm or even sympathy for Israel’s struggle for survival. But I find the willingness of this prominent liberal Catholic publication to get into bed with apologists for the Iranian regime and rabid anti-Zionists is, to say the least, curious. Yet when left-wing Catholics become indistinguishable from right-wing Catholics like Pat Buchanan, you know there is only one explanation: Jew-hatred has a way of bringing all sorts of nasty people together.
As a Catholic, I can tell you that Commonweal has always been a far left organ, and is not representative of the overwhelming majority of us. Actually, as a child, I remember my Father calling the publication "anti–Catholic"
I suppose that the Catholic faith is not very well controlled from Rome. Or Rome would have basted this neo-Nazi group and Patrick Buchanan look a likes. Jews have their KAPOs also. A sick and dangerous situation. These groups are virtually identical to spies in war time. We should have no mercy on them, and destroy them any way we can.
A lot of people, especially critics of Catholicism in and out of the Church, promote the myth that the Pope is a dictator who imposes his will on Catholics.
Funny. With the exception of couple white trash freaks who are totally fooled, no one falls for the savage warmongering Israel-firsters.r nWithin 15 years, that sub segment of voters will be irrelevant anymore.r nThe Zionist supremacists should prepare soon….LOL
As a right winger and fervent supporter of Israel I am offended by the blanket insult in this piece. I do not care if you indict as a whole the Cathlic left, but please be more discriminating when condemning right wingers.
Dear Commentary: I think that you are being a bit unfair to Ms. Seinfels. Yes, she opposes an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities–but so do a lot of Israelis; it is far from being an open-and-shut case that an Israeli strike on Iran would serve Israel's long-term interests. As for the 1982 massacres in Lebanon, I well remember being deeply touched at the time when thousands upon thousands of Israelis demonstrated demanding that these massacres be investigated–the demonstrators forcefully said (and it was an enormous tribute to Israel and its people) that they will not tolerate massacres done in their name. Take care. Sincerely and Respectfully, Ernest Evans
How about her embrace of Mondoweiss, who perpetuates Jewish conspiracy theories, and whose disgust for the Jewish religion is matched only by his disgust for Israel, his disgust that Jews and supporters of Israel enjoy full political rights in the United States, and his disgust for the truth? This seems to me a bigger problem than her embrace of Juan Cole's false charge ar recently as July 12 that Israel is engaging in colletive punishment of Gaza by maintaining a "blockade on the civilian population of Gaza [that] is evil, creepy and illegal in international law."
Can you cite specific text, published in Mondoweiss stories, that advances Jewish conspiracy theories ? I'd be curious to have a look. n nMeanwhile, Commentary has repeatedly published articles in favor of John Hagee and his Christians United For Israel group. Below is writing from a book Hagee published in 1997, that was republished in 2000, in an edition advertised as having sold over 1.1 million copies: n n "The Federal Reserve has never been audited, and yet it totally controls the value of money in this country…While most of the stockholders are members of the so-called Eastern Establishment, allegedly the four largest stockholders are not even Americans but members of the Rothschild family of Europe. n nGod says in the book of Haggai, 'The silver is mine, and gold is mine.' He is not controlled by the Eastern Establishment, He's not controlled by the Rothschilds…" n– John Hagee, Day of Deception (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997) p. 51.
The left is a monster. Pray it can be controlled.
does an American have to be a Zionist?
um, does an American have to be an anti-Semite? you do, oh wait you may be an American but you aren't even you.
Good point; we do not know if Yitzhak_Shapira is an American, or even a he. About all we do know is that Yitzhak_Shapira is not named Yitzhak or Shapira, is not Jewish, and hates just about everything having to do with Jews, Israel or Judaism. n nbesht2003, let me take this opportunity to wish you a gmar chasimah tovah. nYitzhak_Shapira, let me take this opportuntiy to wish you far geharget. May you grow like an onion, with your head in the ground. (Which would involve pulling it out from its usual location, but at least the result would be cleaner and smell better.)
Well said. n nShapira: Consider changing your name to Baumbergsteinowitsky. Even more clearly Jewish sounding, or at least have an avatar of someone wearing a kippah.
How convenient for you that the failings of Jews and Israel turn out to be negligible, since only anti-Semites would see any reason to acknowledge them.
No surprise here. I know the type personally. The same theological "progressives" will talk about "dialogue" with Islam. I ask them: after you take textual criticism, historical criticism, and social criticism off the table –to appease their Muslim interlocutors– what's left to talk about? How much you hate the Jews? I take comfort in the fact that Commonweal and its readers, are part of the aging cohort whose strong identification with liberalism –as opposed to the Faith– means that they are dying out. Like the progressive religious orders, they mostly don't have spiritual children, for who would make a lifetime commitment to a group that is indistinguishable from the Democrat party? As for dinosaurs like Buchanan, apart from a few confused "front-porch" types, he has little following.
I am American, retired prof., 30+ years in Germany. I find problems with the anti-Israelism thesis if applied to"true" Catholic circles in Germany. But there is developing in Germany a "non-anti"-anti-Israelism (which could free some latent anti-Semitism or blurr it). Very briefly, the evolution follows a pattern: 1) Premise: German generation of today is not "personally" guilty for the Holocaust (which is true of the post WW II born); 2) the guilt of the older generation inclined it, and rightly so, to support Israel uncritically as a form of supporting Jews per se.; 3) the Holocaust, etc. should not be forgotten, BUT the guilt for the massacre of Jews no longer holds for "non-critical" support by the current generation; 4) "responsiblity" (no longer coupled with "guilt") for the past is still obligatory; 5) fulfilment of said duty must now lead to a critical revision of policies directed at Israeli gov. (which has its focus of rejection in Netanyahu), 6) acceptance of Israel vs. Palestians as THE problem; 6) acceptance of the the thesis that Israeli surpression of Palestinians is at the heart of the matter (here Netanyahu, not "officially" the Jews, is of focus of anti-Israel diatribes, which can sound anti-Semitic, though not overtly so); 7) sceptical evaluation of Iranian threat (in the case of G. Grass Israel is the provoking problem); 8) efforts to push solutions disfavorable of a threat to Israeli existence fulfil the "responsiblity" obligation.
Add to that a perverse inversion that leads to the compulsion to draw false analogies between the Holocaust and Israel's response to the Arab efforts to commit genocide against it and against Jews. This in turn leads to a false conciousness that faithfulness to the memory of the Holocaust requires people of good will to oppose every effort of Israel to protect its existence and its citizens, for failure to do so would mean standing by silently without preventing Israel's supposed 'Holocaust" against the Palestinian Arabs. n nAnd this false analogy has a self-comforting aspect, because it allows the children of those who perpetrated genocide against the Jews to pat themselves on the back for their own moral superiority, while transferring blame back to the victims and children of the victims of their parents.
Exactly right. No forgiveness for the Jews for the crime of surviving and bearing witness to the inhumanity of man (especially Germans).
While self-righteous, holier-than-thou hypocrites like Madame Steinfels admire their own moral beauty in the mirror against the alleged ugliness of Jews, the Syrian govt is slaughtering its own people –and the rebels too are slaughtering civilians, those who belong to the wrong sects, such as Christians, Ismailis, Shiites, Alawites, etc. The total estimated is about 24,000 dead after 1 1/2 years of civil war. And the Syrian govt now slaughtering its own, its fellow Arabs, supported the Nazi-like Hamas and Hizbollah in their murders of Jews. But Madame Steinfels is too busy looking at her mirror.
Glad somebody noticed. O'Brein-Steinfels has been posting this garbage for years, every crude anti-Semitic theme in the book. Go to the blog page and click on her name in the contributors' list on the right. Just the titles of her posts will make you puke. Almost nobody ever protests, certainly nobody on the masthead. (A couple of women do; Gerelyn Hollingsworth should get at least a bush in the Garden of the Righteous.) n nA few positives: Commonweal's circulation is about 25,000 and declining, average reader age is pushing eighty. O'Brein-Steinfels' posts get virtually no reader comments; most left-wing Catholics are clearly embarrassed by them.
There's something rather odd about Mr. Tobin's attempt to shoehorn Margaret O'Brien into the mold of an anti-Semite, in light of Commentary's past enthusiastic promotion of Pastor John Hagee's Christians United For Israel; Hagee has promoted nearly every sort of anti-Jewish slur, stereotype, and conspiracy theory known to history, including the claim that Jewish bankers are manipulating the world economy (and the U.S. economy too), to the detriment of common folk. That was perhaps Adolf Hitler's favorite type of anti-Jewish conspiracy theory, which Mr. Hagee has distributed a variant of in bestselling books and videos broadcast around the world. n nAttempts to characterize as "anti-Semitic" legitimate criticism, such as Margaret O'Brien's article referenced in this Commentary op-ed, dilute the meaning of anti-Semitism and so make it harder to combat. This, in turn, does a grave injustice to victims of true anti-Jewish prejudice, from any era. – Bruce Wilson