Eric Alterman on Sheldon Adelson

(David Bernstein)

Eric Alterman has a bizarre column  in The Nation on billionaire Gingrich-backer Sheldon Adelson.  The column purports to be a celebration of the fact that "no one" is using a combination of Adelson's Jewishness, money, somewhat shady reputation, and hawkishly pro-Israel views for anti-Semitic purposes. The column, however, really seems to be a passive-aggressive attempt by Alterman to goad his readers into loathing Adelson precisely for being a rich, somewhat shady, Jewish businessman with hawkishly pro-Israel views.

The disingenuousness of the column became obvious when I reached this line: "Nobody has noted—at least not in public—that [Adelson's] agenda happens to be the one to which Jews accused of 'dual loyalty' or of being 'Israel-firsters' are alleged to have dedicated themselves."

Even though I (unlike, I think it's safe too assume, Alterman) don't regularly frequent websites that traffic in attacking people for being hawkishly pro-Israel (much less for being rich or Jewish), I've seen plenty of attacks on Adelson on precisely the grounds that Alterman claims "nobody" is mentioning.  As confirmation, a Google search for Adelson Gingrich Israel-firster brings up 527 pages [and checking the first dozen-plus, it's all attacks on Adelson of the sort "nobody" is making]; assumedly there are a lot more of a similar ilk that don't use the relatively obscure "Israel-firster" language.

UPDATE: Alterman is not, of course, making the blatantly anti-Semitic suggestion that Nation readers should loathe Adelson because he's a Jew.  Rather, he's suggesting that Adelson is the kind of Jew Nation readers should loathe.  It's perhaps akin to when Clarence Thomas's critics accuse him of being an "Uncle Tom" or use similar race-tinged insults; they're not arguing that one should loathe Thomas because he's Black, but because of the kind of Black he is.  It's certainly not KKK-style racism, and indeed those who engage in such slurs typically think of themselves as champions of anti-racism (as I'm sure Alterman, as an observant Jew, does with regard to anti-Semitism) but it's ugly nevertheless.

FURTHER UPDATE: I'm not completely content with the "Uncle Tom" analogy, which is more like a Jew calling a fellow Jew "self-hating" (which is also ugly rhetoric).  A more precise analogy is provided by a commentor: A conservative black columnist writes a column about a shady, black hip-hop artist/producer  giving tons of money to a liberal presidential candidate to promote an agenda of affirmative action. The columnist suggest that the rapper was the type of black person that a racist would love to invent, and that he disagreed with the rapper's political agenda, but go on to note that he was "thrilled" that the criticism of the rapper generally did not invoke racist themes, and suggests that maybe racism wasn't such a big deal.