Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel, by Joshua Muravchik. 2014

Refreshing Candor on Jews, Communism, the Events of 1968 in Poland, and “Anti-Semitism” as a Shaming and Silencing Weapon

I focus on matters that go far beyond the State of Israel and its conduct.

FRANKNESS ABOUT JEWS IN COMMUNIST LEADERSHIP POSITIONS

Unlike those who deny or pooh-pooh the relationship of Jews and Communism, or simplistically dismiss is as a “Jewish desire for a better world” [Who doesn’ t?], author Muravchik does not. He comments, ” For reasons about which many have speculated, Jews have been disproportionately represented in the radical Left in all its shades, from Karl Marx to the leading Bolsheviks surrounding Lenin, to the more moderate Mensheviks whose leadership whose leadership was even more uniformly Jewish.” (pp. 194-195). [Note: The differences between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks should not be exaggerated. In addition, most of the erstwhile Mensheviks effortlessly became Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution.]

THE TRUTH BEHIND THE 1968 REMOVAL OF JEWS FROM HIGH POSITIONS IN COMMUNIST-RULED NATIONS

Consider the events if 1968. One set of thieves (Jewish Communists) had its privileges and booty taken away by another set of thieves (non-Jewish Communists). And we are supposed to feel sorry about this. For more on Jews in 1968, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/jews-1968-definitive-work-zebrowski/

Lost in all of this is the pivotal significance of Israel’s spectacular victory, over the Soviet-backed Arab states, in the June 1967 War. Muravchik knows better. He writes, “But the crushing defeat Israel had inflicted on a pair of Soviet clients armed with Soviet weapons was a huge blow to Soviet prestige. In the Cold War contest for the allegiance of third world countries, the USSR had overnight suffered a steep slide in its appeal. And, to boot, the Soviet state no longer appeared all-powerful to its own downtrodden subjects, above all its Jews.” (p. 17). It is not difficult to see how it also had strengthened the hand of Jews in leadership positions in Communist nations, prompting calls for their removal based on their ” cosmopolitanism ” and ” Zionism” .

ANTISEMITISM! A SILENCING AND SHAMING TOOL

Muravchik traces the career of Austrian politician Bruno Kreisky, who had been born to well-to-do secular Viennese Jewish parents. (p. 86). Kreisky eventually came out against Jewish interests. Muravchik evaluates this negatively as follows, “Whether the motive was political or psychological, Kreisky seemed to relish using his Jewish lineage as a shield allowing him to take on the Jewish world with a fierce pleasure that would have been impossible for a gentile politician.” (p. 91).

In making these remarks, Muravchik is alluding to the obvious: The charge of anti-Semitism is the standard device for controlling the narrative about Jews.