I find it odd that the Liberal/Elite/Mainstream Media™ Los Angeles Times dug up a far-right-wing politico to opine on Mel Gibson ("Slurring More Than His Words"), the former darling of the far-right. That Zev Chafets found Gibson's drunken anti-Semitism a platform with which to wield a twisted form of bigotry against liberals (who dislike the politics of Neocons) as anti-Semites was not so odd. It's what Neocons do.
Chafets, a New York Daily News columnist (need I say more), who has called those who want the Iraq war to end a "a bad peace movement," has made a living besmirching anyone to the Left of far-Right, wrote in reference to Gibson using the term "Jews," that "Even rookie anti-Semites know you never use the 'J' word. Correct euphemisms include 'Zionist,' 'Likudnik,' 'Israeli' and, in liberal circles, neocon. If Gibson had told the cops that Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle were behind all the world's wars, he would have walked away from the incident in Malibu unscathed."
It's besides the fact the Wolfowitz and Perle have participated eagerly in U.S. war efforts, but the nerve that in the midst of writing of an attack on his religion Chafets chose to attack "liberals" as anti-Semitic for their use of the term "neocon."
This has been the tact of the Neocons when wishing to enlist Jews on the Right to select a ready scapegoat so they might vote against their best interests. That Jews themselves have been used as scapegoats for so many hate-instigated movements through history is insult enough, but for Chafets not to recognize that there may be more than a few self-loving Jewish liberals who are not anti-Semites, displays a deft ignorance of his subject. In fact, knowing so many in the liberal Hollywood community, "self-loving" would be far more accurate than "anti-Semite."
And perhaps the Jewish roots of neocons Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush are known only to Chafets.
There are Jews of all make-up, but for one to feel the need to feed hate upon his own kind by playing victim, that is the worst kind of anti-Semitism and a shonda.
Steve Young is author of Great Failures of the Extremely Successful and his newest novel, "15 Minutes" (HarperCollins), hits the bookshelves TODAY.