Johan Galtung an Anti-Semite? I Don’t Think So!

TRANSCEND News, TRANSCEND MEMBERS, ANALYSIS, PALESTINE - ISRAEL, EXPOSURES - EXPOSÉS, 7 May 2012

Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service

Is Johan Galtung, a leading figure in peace research and peace practice, an anti-Semite?  I have known him for twenty years, and I’m sure that he is not.  But he has spoken in such a way as to give some credence to this charge, which complicates the issue.

The burden of Galtung’s argument is that there is increasing danger that, as the American Empire continues its decline and Western economies deteriorate further, Jews will be seen as the source of these failures and scapegoated as they were in interwar Germany.  Johan is in touch with the growing anger and desperation of working-class and middle-class people in the U.S. and in Europe – a state of frustration which is already producing a resurgence of right-wing nationalism and rise of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, especially in nations in which Jews play a prominent role in the news media, investment banking, and higher education.  The cure for this ominous malaise, he thinks, is to solve the structural problems that are impoverishing working people and throwing nations into debt, as well as generating useless foreign wars and interventions.  Meanwhile, as an antidote to anti-Semitism, he advocates discussing the Jewish role in society openly instead of maintaining current taboos.

Three of Galtung’s recent assertions are particularly worth mentioning, since the manner in which they were presented, particularly in a recent speech in Norway, has convinced many people that they not merely anti-taboo but anti-Jewish.

People should read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and consider its implications for Jewish security.

Galtung’s recommendation that people read this notorious anti-Semitic forgery, which asserts the existence of a Jewish plot to take over the world and run it from Jerusalem, was bound to produce astonishment, confusion, and anger in many of his listeners.  I understand what he meant by this, however, since he discussed it at a recent meeting in Virginia that I attended.  First, he noted the rising rage in Europe over austerity programs introduced in response to the sovereign debt crisis.  Then, he remarked on the prominence of Jewish-owned companies like Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, et al. in the field of investment banking.  Finally, he called attention to the fact that the main theme of the Protocols is that Jews will achieve control over the world’s nations by plunging them into debt and taking advantage of this indebtedness to advance their own interests.

Was Galtung reviewing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion favorably?  Of course not!  He understands very well the role that this work played in the thinking of the Nazis and subsequent anti-Semitic movements.  His point, as I understand it, is to encourage Jewish Americans and others to understand their possible vulnerability to this sort of propaganda in the light of the public role played by prominent Jewish investment bankers, financiers, and traders in typical Wall Street machinations.  Presumably, having understood this role, Jews can attempt to counteract it by working to change the existing system in the same way, say, that J Street is working to change the existing Middle East policy system by combating the machinations of AIPAC.

The problem, in my view, is not that Galtung is wrong either in his critique of the current system or in his perception that, should the economy tip over again, Jews could well be scapegoated.  The problem is twofold:

(a) The role played by Jewish interests in the current financial system can easily be overstated.  George Soros is Jewish; Warren Buffett is not – and what difference does it make anyhow?  This is something that requires investigation, if one wants to investigate it, rather than issuing conclusory statements that may lead some people to assume the essential correctness of the Protocols. 

(b) As Johan knows very well, the system that is making the poor poorer, the rich richer, and everyone more insecure, is predatory capitalism, which would exist in its current form with or without Jews.  His formulation of the problem, however, may lead listeners to reach a conclusion which he does not share: that the system is essentially “Jewish.”  In short, the cure for anti-Semitism, in the way that he is administering it, may unintentionally exacerbate the disease.

Particularly in the United States, Jews dominate the news media and use their position to advocate narrowly pro-Israel (anti-Iranian, etc.) policies.

Mearsheimer and Walt made a similar point in their 2007 book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.  My own view is that it conveys a partial truth about the American news media and U.S. Middle East policy.  But there are two problems with this sort of statement, parallel to those noted above in the case of the Protocols.  First, while Jews occupy many important positions in the media world, it is easy to overstate their “control.”  The list of news organizations in which they play minor roles, if any, is very long, and there is a nasty tendency to consider organizations like the Washington Post “Jewish” because a Jewish family once owned them, even though they have been run for decades by Gentiles.  Moreover, an outfit like Time-Warner is responsible to its directors and shareholders, not just to management officials who may be Jewish.

More important, the notion that a pro-Israel stance on the part of many media outlets is mainly a result of Jewish influence rather than other factors is another hypothesis that remains to be proved.  Is Fox News, say, or CNN controlled by some cabal of unidentified Jews?  Or are their views responsive to other interests, such as those of military-industrial corporations, the national security establishment, pro-Israel evangelicals, etc.?  As Stephen Zunes wrote of Mearsheimer and Walt’s book, “There is something quite convenient and discomfortingly familiar about the tendency to blame an allegedly powerful and wealthy group of Jews for the overall direction of an increasingly controversial U.S. policy.  Indeed, like exaggerated claims of Jewish power at other times in history, such an explanation absolves the real powerbrokers and assigns blame to convenient scapegoats.”

In my view, there is nothing wrong with Johan Galtung inviting us to consider the role of Jewish media owners and executives in shaping attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy.  As he says, that sort of inquiry could generate the kind of healthy debate that the Mearsheimer-Walt book did, and perhaps help American Jews to avoid being scapegoated, say, for a disastrous future war against Iran.  Down with the taboo!  But the assertion that “Jewish control” explains the news media’s editorial and reportorial biases can be seen as a form of scapegoating in itself.

Israel’s Mossad may have some connection with the Norwegian mass murderer, Anders Breivik.

Anybody who knows Johan Galtung understands that he sometimes “shoots from the hip,” offering grounded intuitions to provoke listeners or readers to think about previously unimagined possibilities. Sometimes, these “educated guesses” seem inspired, as when he speculated, based on his understanding of terrorist psychology and ideology, that the probable target of UA Flight 93 commandeered by al Qaeda was the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia.  Occasionally, they seem merely cranky.

Galtung has already conceded that his statement about Mossad and Breivik was a mere hypothesis.  One can see why he might have made this connection, since Mossad, one of the world’s most powerful and efficient intelligence organizations, is believed to have played a role in various anti-Islamic movements on several continents, and Breivik has declared himself a passionate Zionist.  Of course, this does not prove anything.  If it were not for Johan’s statements about Jewish media moguls and the Protocols, one would simply label the Mossad-Breivik comment a Galtungian intuition perhaps deserving further research.  As it is, however, many observers are labeling it evidence of anti-Jewish paranoia.

I think that Galtung’s main difficulty, in all this brouhaha, has been to speak carelessly and somewhat peremptorily about highly sensitive matters, previously taboo, that require much care and precision of speech in order to avoid arousing post-traumatic fears and giving an impression of insensitivity to people’s basic needs.  One does not overturn a well-entrenched taboo by engaging in the verbal equivalent of flag-burning.

Johan Galltung is not an anti-Semite – a term whose misuse has robbed it of much meaning.  (“An anti-Semite used to be someone who didn’t like Jews.  Now it means someone Jews don’t like.”)  He remains as devoted as ever to the cause of peaceful conflict transformation.  I think that this will become clear as he takes the opportunity to explain his views in the coming weeks.

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Richard E. Rubenstein is a professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 7 May 2012.

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2 Responses to “Johan Galtung an Anti-Semite? I Don’t Think So!”

1. Shaid Kayani says:

   12 May 2012 at 10:19

   What Mr. Galtung has said, normally nobodt dares to say. Why? Because jewish power has grown into mafia type power.
   If anybody dares to criticise any barbaric kkilling of civilian Palsetineans, he or she is automatically called anti-semite. The book, the Israel lobby and US foreign policy.I have read the book. And there is nothing in it that I disagree. Where the writers give the clear evidance of Jewish bully power in every field of American llife and especially towards the middleEast.
   Then Jimmy Carter´s book, which is one 1 the best testimony of the problem. So, who ever speak out about Israel is called anti-semite. Which is cynic and unfair. And just shows how the the Israel´s lobbies are so powerfull that they ignore others right to defend or criticise anything about Israel. The vast majority of the people of this world think that Israel is a danger for the world peace. Because Israel has invaded Lebanon, how many times? Jordan, Egypt, syria? Irak when destroyed it´s nuclear plant. And the entire world knows that the inavsion of Irak by the Bush & company was planned in Tel aviv. Exactly the very similar manouvring is going through, to attack and invade Iran. Is this not a crime against humanity. Every unnecessay killing of innocent life is a crime against humanity. And more than a million Irakis has been killed. I have written and told that the next place where jewish will be in trouble will be in America. The normal citizen of America are waking up.

2. Dragunski says:

   16 May 2012 at 08:00

   Dr. Rubenstein:

   I realize that you are defending an old colleague, but you really must open your eyes. This guy is out of the closet. And his methods have been debunked. I cannot believe how far you are willing to bend over to justify Galltung’s statements.

   You may have to rethink your entire academic discipline.

   Yours,

   Dragunski