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The South Africa segments were very good. But you’ve got to do something about all the technical chatter on the air. It seemed like there were 20 minutes of discussion of John’s sound problems. If someone has a microphone problem, or skype problem or anything similar, there needs to be some back channel way to resolve it without the audience hearing it. Maybe by using the live chat. If the person hosting the show absolutely has to get involved and can’t talk he should take a break and play some music. There is nothing more tedious than listening to people try and resolve technical issues on the air.

John H. Nugent
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59 Coral Avenue, Winthrop, Massachusetts 02152 USA
(617) 846-0575 pager (617) 339-2644

Friday, March 8, 2002

Robert Leikind, Director,
New England branch,
Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith
126 High Street
Boston MA 02110

Dear Mr. Leikind:

I am writing you today because, like all of us, Jewish and Gentile, I am very worried about the international situation. The many reports recently in the Washington Post and in Time about nuclear terrorism vis-à-vis Washington and New York must terrify anyone who does not believe that the wisest course of action is to be an ostrich with his head in the sand.

I believe fervently that there must be a way to dialogue to avert the cataclysmic threats to the West, specifically to Americans, to Jewish people, to New York City and Washington, D.C. (It is needless to point out that radiation from New York would drift also over Boston with the prevailing winds.) My younger daughter Erika lives in a close-in suburb of Washington. My former personal physician, Jewish, now lives in Tel Aviv, having married an Israeli. She moved there with much trepidation – now I think every day about what she is experiencing.

I am quite confident you have me down in your files based on past affiliations under the category of “anti-Semite.” But I hope that over time you can re-categorize me, and reconsider me as a possible helpful person. I would like you to see me as what I am – a critic. And a critic can be a kind of friend to your long-term best interests as well as mine.

As you know, the philosopher Hegel said there could be a thesis — an idea — then an anti-thesis, and finally a synthesis. A person can go through a phase of “philo-semitism” (indeed, all my very best friends in school were Jewish), a phase of anti-Semitism, and finally an appreciation that there are both nationalistic and also profoundly humanistic and idealistic strains in Judaism, as in almost every other movement on this planet. And this is indeed the synthesis of my thinking.

And I want to be on the side of the many Jewish people who are sincere servants of mankind. The medical researchers whom I know personally. The utterly likable and artistic, kind and intelligent professionals (some of my accent students). The teachers at modest salary of the handicapped in special-needs classes who are Jewish and who are not “in it for the money.” The Peace Corps volunteers. The environmental and consumer product safety advocates. A whole array of progressive people whom I know personally.

The fault of anti-Semites is that while they are assiduous in digging out the nefarious characters in Judaism, and calling them “typical,” they have no theory at all to explain the many humanitarian ones.

I would like to state that, while not having the book before me any longer, the 1950s work, The Controversy of Zion by Douglas Reed, a former (London) Times correspondent, reflects some of my thinking. In it he writes that Judaism has always had a nationalistic element but also an element which saw the “Chosenness” of the Jewish people as a mission to be a “light unto the Gentiles” and a great civilizing force for mankind.

I prefer to think that in writing you today I am writing to that latter kind of Jewish people. And I want to offer my ideas and a possibility of cooperation.

I will just say this by way of preface:

If Al Qaida, or Saddam Hussein, or Iran, or any other anti-American and anti-Jewish terrorist source succeeds in causing the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans, or indeed of millions of Americans, there could be strong, terrible and unfair anti-Semitic consequences. Obviously, you are aware of this. On the day after 9/11, in fact, I met two gentlemen from the local synagogue in Winthrop, who were standing outside the temple or walking along the beach here, wearing a star of David on their lapel, and engaging people in conversation. Clearly, they were trying to gage reactions. Clearly, the Jewish community is concerned. Americans have always been isolationistic in their leanings. Will not many Americans blame the “Israeli lobby” if millions of Americans die?

So I am going to humbly offer you my idea and a possibility of assistance. You might find it useful to have a “former anti-Semite” as a person standing up and saying, “As many Jews as are right-wing nationalists, there are many more who are believers in mankind, and are working for peace.” There might be a special kind of credibility if someone with my background speaks out in favor of the “spiritual Jews” as against the cliché of the Mossad, Michael Milken, Ariel Sharon, and what Billy Graham referred to as « the Satanic Jews » (according to a recent Boston Globe report on recently released Nixon White House tapes). If the revered Billy Graham, counseler to presidents, thought so, then clearly the ADL still has things to worry about, latent things ready to re-emerge.

I would like to draw your attention, probably unnecessarily, to the fact that everywhere in the world there is an upsurge in left-wing resentment of Israel. (I refer to a recent article from Le Monde, hardly a fascist paper, dated March 5, 2002, claiming the Mossad had some semi-specific foreknowledge of 9/11.) Of course, the right wing everywhere has always been nativist and anti-Semitic. But now there is, behind closed doors, a universal feeling in the social-democratic countries such as Canada and Western Europe that Israel has become a kind of right-wing state, and that it is dragging the West into an all-out, cataclysmic confrontation with Islam. I have specific knowledge of Canadian alienation from Israel.

So the danger, as I see it, is that in the end, we could witness the United States and Israel agains the world. And I would not even be too sure about the United States staying the course forever. And what safety for Israel is there, a country 35 miles wide, in an age of NBC weapons ? Against the suicide bombers and the tens of thousands of Arabs and Pakistanis who have studied various kinds of engineering in Western universities ?

Ultimately, I believe there is a solution. And the solution is proven, it worked, the United States did it, and the fruits of this success are all around us every day.

THE EMPIRE OF REFORM. As you well know, the denazification and demilitarization of Germany and Japan after World War Two was on the whole very successful. Whatever lingering nationalistic feelings are still extant in theose countries, I feel confident in saying that 1) nationalism is a feature of all human societies, and an aggressive, suspicious « herd instinct » is observable among many other mammals; and 2) probably there are more fascists and Neo-Nazis in the United States than in these two pacified countries put together.

Furthermore, we know that even in Israel and in the U.S. there are fanatics on the Jewish side. Woody Allen has lampooned excessive Jewish fears about Gentiles. There are both balanced and imbalanced attitudes on all sides. Let’s accept as a given that we can never fully eradicate nationalism, intolerance and suspicion. It exists in the animal world and in the human world universally. But Germany and Japan prove that countries can change. Or rather that they can be changed by force majeure and by working with people of good will already present in a given country who want their own regimes overthrown and replaced by democracy and prosperity.

What I believe we saw in the ten years of outright American military occupation of Germany and Japan was that such occupation, the punishment and purging of bad elements, re-education, and new military alliances were quite capable of both neutralizing the older generation with its old attitudes and creating a new generation raised in the spirit of democracy.

I have spent years in contact with the younger German and Japanese generations, and I can assure you that they are far more averse to violence and authoritarianism, even to charismatic leaders, than many Americans ! Look at how many Americans join authoritarian cults, buy guns, become extremists ! No, I believe that the democratization policies envisioned and implemented by the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations did a very good job of creating better societies, constitutions, economies and trading partners for the post-war world. It is a true success story.

The reason for mentioning this is, first of all, to restate the obvious – countries can change, or rather, can be changed if another power, a dominant power, goes in with the « full court press, » to use the vernacular, and occupies and stays for the long term to change them.

The second reason I mention the American occupation-and-reform policy which originated with FDR is that since the time particularly of Eisenhower and the ascendance of the Dulles brothers, Allen and John Foster, at the CIA and the State Department, the United States unfortunately has gotten into the « friendly dictator » and « friendly regime » business. We have largely gotten out of the democratization business – especially when it comes to non-White, non-European countries. And now the whole world, to speak in general terms, fears and/or hates us, and sees America as a powerful hypocrite which says one thing and does another, with its own supremacy and financial interests paramount.

As you can see, before I go on, my personal perspective has become much more progressive-leftist than you may be aware.

Now the problem for America, Israel and the Jewish people world-wide is that we are all seen as being together as the « the bad guys. » The right wing world-wide has always felt this way, and now the left is joining them, too. (I am aware that as far back as Karl Marx, some of the left has always been anti-Semitic, including some Jews.) The truly ominous hatred is comng from the Third World and within that obviously from the Dar-al-Islam, the Muslim world. We will see what side China comes down on in all of this – but I am sure China will decide to look out for its own best interests, and a long, debilitating war of the West and Israel against Islam might suit certain Chinese nationalists just fine.

I am proposing therefore with all the urgency I can muster that America, Israel, and the world Jewish community, through its leaders, visibly get back on the side of the angels. And that we learn from what actually worked in the past in creating prosperous, democratic friendly allies.

The most obvious problem is the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma.

The solution is in the Kingdom of Jordan, applying the democratization lessons mentioned above.

As you so very well know, the young King Abdullah was educated here in Massachusetts, at Philips Andover Academy (where Bush father and son also graduated), and he is profoundly Westernized, by all appearances, inwardly and outwardly. Jordan is of course adjacent to the Jewish state, to the State of Israel.

This is what I propose :

1) to morally take the high ground, the world Jewish community should fund, with double the meager economic value of « Palestine » in 1946, the creation by the United States of a revamped American protectorate called « the Kingdom of Jordan and Palestine. »
2) the United States should send in troops, advisers, and specialists to create a kind of Arabic, democratic, bourgeois country, by invitation of the young king, with a constitutional monarchy, and no military, just a police force as in Costa Rica.
3) As a special gesture, in addition to paying for the loss of Palestine by its former people, Israel should dispatch thousands of young experts as volunteers to Jordan and Palestine to help them build a dynamic new economy, a kind of Israeli Peace Corps.
4) The United States should establish a formal NATO-like alliance with the State of Israel, guaranteeing its military safety.
5) Likewise, the United States should declare that the Kingdom of Jordan and Palestine is an ally of the United States, and that the United States will assure its borders and safety. U.S. military bases will be stationed there.
6) The entire West Bank and Gaza will be purchased for a sizable sum by the world Jewish community, paid out over time, in view of the disputed title to the land going back thousands of years. The fund will go to the Kingdom of Jordan and Palestine under direct U.S. financial supervision for the building of schools, factories, roads, bridges, airports and other infrastructure. All of the West Bank and Gaza will become part of the Jewish state and all the Arabic population will be very strongly persuaded by powerful economic factors and lack of citizenship rights in an enlarged Israel to move out of the dead-end Palestinian entity to the growing, prosperous young Arabic democratic commonwealth under U.S. tutelage.
7) After creating a showcase Arabic democracy, the United States, with Israeli advisers, will announce a long-term policy offering nation-building skills, on the basis of a total economic and military package, in the same manner, to other countries, and gradually spread democracy throughout key areas of the world. Thereby, America and Israel willalso help revamp their image, and be seen as forces for good. And they will give the lie to those who call them racist and anti-Arab or anti-Third World.
8) Countries which attack Israel or the United States must be defeated and undergo assimilation into the democratic system, as did Germany and Japan after WWII. We will make clear to the poor and the middle class in every Third World country that they have everything to gain and nothing to lose by assisting us in a post-war reform situation.
9) America is « out » of the friendly dictator business. We are seeing now in Afghanistan that when you bring back the warlords, Al Qaida escapes, opium is replanted, and chaos returns. Even the burkhas are staying. America either goes in all the way against foes, with occupation-and-reform, or we stay out all the way.
10) U.S. and Israeli policy toward all potential foes should be, «If you attack us, we will decapitate your regime, punish you personally, and make your country a democracy. You will be assimilated to our system. » To oppressed peoples : « America and Israel will liberate you and stay as your friends until your democracy is firm and stable. » It is a clear offer. It does not force democracy on anyone unless they attack first.
11) In harmony with Professor Samuel Huntington’s book, The Clash of Civilizations, democracy should be on the steady offensive, not the defensive, at all times. Otherwise, like Rome, the British Empire or the Soviet Union, this kind of civilization will disappear. In many cases, as dictators, neither attacking nor retreating, finally die or are overthrown, their countries will peacefully fall into our lap, as did Spain after Franco.
12) The most courageous internal Jewish move would be to rein in the greed of certain Hollywood entertainment moguls who persist in peddling gratuitous sex and violence. (I am not talking about movies which are tasteful and non-exploitive, or which show violence in all its horror, such as Saving Private Ryan.) This animalistic filth is turning off the left and progressives world-wide, Canada, Europe, Japan, etc., and it is fueling anti-Americanism especially in the Islamic world and in the Confucian, East Asian cultures. How can we promote our culture when far too much of it is frankly from the gutter ? Let’s have some Jewish self-policing on this, please !

This is a bold vision, yes, and its implementation will take courage and attention to an infinite number of details. The occupation and remaking of Germany and Japan was also planned out in detail, at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. But I think we are at a very dangerous impass, and there is no alternative except annihilation. Perhaps I can publicly advocate this program, with your blessing. My attitude about the Jewish world as a non-Jew ? Maybe Realpolitik would dictate this : « Can’t live with them, can’t live without them ! » Jews are an integral part of Western civilization. They have played an enormous positive role. Let’s move forward with a positive program which deals with the underlying problems, and makes America, Israel and the Jewish people once again the good guys in the eyes of almost all the world. Otherwise we all will lose.

Then we can deal militarily with a much smaller number of incorrigible terrorists, and not try to quash an uprising by the whole Third World.

I would like to quote from Abraham Lincoln on an occasion when a Northern abolitionist lady decried his remarks indicating the possibility of reconciliation with the South after winning the Civil War : « Madam, do I not destroy my enemies by making them my friends ? »

Please contact me if you believe there are ways that we can discuss positive steps together. Of course, I would not be suitable or valuable for a philo-semitic speaking tour claiming that « all Jews are wonderful » and all anti-semitism is based on mental illness and jealousy. (From the look of Bill Grimstad’s old collection of anti-semitic statements by famous Western minds throughout the ages, it would seem that anti-semitism is not just among the mentally ill or the low-achievers.) In fact, one of my students, a Russian Jewish psychiatrist, said he would find philo-semitism as much of a mental aberration as anti-semitism. While we do belong to groups, we are all also individuals.

My usefulness is that I am a friend without illusions to all sides, including my own former associations. Both now and in dire circumstances which may come, my credibility as a friendly critic and a critical friend to one and all is the most important thing I can offer. (I have no illusions about Muslims, either. I found the remark in the Boston Globe very trenchant a few months back – the Muslim countries will never succeed until they educate their women. Uneducated women cannot raise intelligent children !)

But I am very eager to lend whatever small credibility I might have to help save all the good people, Jews, Gentiles, Christians and Muslims, from grim things which are probably ahead. Let’s agree that there is some fault, some extremism, on all sides, in all our communities, and we MUST cooperate now in idealism and humility.

Very, very sincerely yours,

John H. Nugent