A rather strange, oblique, and unexplored statement about Zahi Hawass, the subject of Michael Slackman's Saturday Profile, sticks out:
"[H]e has been taken to task for his critical statements about Jews. He insists, though, that he is not anti-Semitic and that his remarks were aimed only at Israeli Jews and their treatment of the Palestinians."
Putting aside the uncomfortable, though frequent, truth that, today, the best indication someone is an anti-Semite are his assurances that he is not, the purpose here is not to expose Hawass but, rather, to challenge Slackman.
The statements quoted above are almost as out of context here as they were in the article. They followed a remark about Hawass' love for publicity. This pursuit of attention "does not always win him friends," remarks Slackman, and that is the lead-in to Hawass' views on Jews, to put it too charitably.
The quote about Jews is a non-sequitur. The reader never learns what Hawass' statements were nor gains any more illumination about them in the course of the article.
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You're right. This is one odd non-sequitur. What is most exasperating about Mr. Hawass' anti-Semitism is that Slackman allows Hawass to rationalize it through his love of publicity and his antipathy towards Israeli-Jews, rather than Jewry worldwide.
ReplyDeleteI somehow doubt that his anti-semitic remarks would support that. And in fact, they don't. Hawass believes that "JEWS" (not Israeli Jews), control the world to their own malicious ends:
http://jwest.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/is-zahi-hawass-an-anti-semite/
Zahi Hawass: For 18 centuries they were dispersed throughout the world. They went to America and took control of its economy. They have a plan. Although they are few in number, they control the entire world.
Well, thanks for not doing your job Slackman.
You are unwilling to hold Arabs accountable for their extremism, treating them as your Third World moral inferiors.