Political Memes

Nah, ignoring Kissinger's repeated defenses of antisemitic words and behaviors over his career just because he happened to have a Jewish mother is way more of a disservice to the Jewish diaspora imo.

Like, let's put this quote in context,

The quote on X appears in a section of the book describing Kissinger's attitude toward his Judaism and how his faith was viewed by Nixon. According to Kissinger, Nixon felt Jewish people "put the interests of Israel above everything else" and "that their control of the media made them dangerous allies."

Isaacson wrote that following Israel's violation of a 1973 ceasefire with Egypt, "Kissinger grumbled at one WSAG meeting, 'If it were not for the accident of my birth, I would be anti-Semitic.'

"In other moments of exasperation, he would note that "any people who have been persecuted for two thousand years must be doing something wrong.'"

So, yeah, this is Kissinger saying, "Man, Israel's such a pain in my ass right now, I totally get why people hate Jews." That's just a straight up defense of antisemitism and was a shitty thing to say/think.

And it's not like this was a just a joke that landed badly, Kissinger did not give a shit about Jewish suffering.

Among his statements, one from March 1973 caused a stir when it was published in 2010. Taped in conversation with Richard Nixon soon after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, Kissinger disdained the notion of pressuring the USSR about persecuted Soviet Jews, saying: “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”

In 2011, hitherto secret U.S. State Department documents from late 1972 were likewise published, revealing that Kissinger was irked by the concern expressed by American Jews about the fate of Soviet Jewry, calling the former “self-serving…bastards

The man was a rat bastard fascist whose experience surviving the Holocaust just convinced him he wanted to be on the other side of the gas chamber doors.

Quite frankly, the ADL commemorating him makes my blood boil. To be clear, they do some absolutely vital work combatting and monitoring hatred in the US, and I have been angered by the straight-up conspiracy theories about them. They are undoubtedly a scapegoat of a diverse swath of political movements. But between this (and Greenblatt’s recent defense of Musk), I cannot endorse them.

It seems like it’s easier to pick some prominent (often Jewish) person or organization to scapegoat than to actually confront the depths of American foreign policy, police brutality, etc. There’s no point to policing people’s anger towards Kissinger. He deserves much worse. But I cannot be fully comfortable with where it leads.

Listen to the Behind the Bastards Podcast on him. After the war he was a prosecutor in Germany for the de-nazifaction. He strongly identified with Nazi officers and would let them off easy.

Here's the thing, Jews can be antisemitic too, it's internalized antisemitism. Even if he was still just saying "it's the Jews' fault for not having good PR" that's not a good thing to say either. The onus shouldn't be on Jewish people to convince others not to be bigoted and genocidal towards them. Not being bigoted and genocidal towards any group of people should be a given.

What's one of the worst things he did, in your opinion? Also I don't think exact quotes can be misinformation.

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