It is rather uncontroversial to call Osama bin Laden an anti-Semite. He is the easy case. But since many people in the West are queasy about attaching the label of anti-Semitism to almost anybody, regarding the charge of anti-Semitism as itself proof of prejudice, let me begin by describing bin Laden's view of history less inflammatorily -- not as anti-Semitic, but as Judeocentric. He believes that Jews exercise disproportionate control over world affairs, and that world affairs may therefore be explained by reference to the Jews. A Judeocentric view of history is one that regards the Jews as the center of the story, and therefore the key to it. Judeocentrism is a single-cause theory of history, and as such it is, almost by definition, a conspiracy theory. Moreover, Judeocentrism comes in positive forms and negative forms. The positive form of Judeocentrism is philo-Semitism, the negative form is anti-Semitism... In the inflamed universe of negative Judeocentrism, there is a sliding scale of obsession. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, seems at times to view the world entirely through the prism of a Jewish conspiracy, and he regularly breaks new ground in the field of state-supported Holocaust denial. In Cairo, the activities of Jews, Israeli and otherwise, are a continual source of worry. Many of the monarchs in the Gulf countries, by contrast, will sometimes exploit anti-Jewish feeling for political reasons, but they do not seem to be personally obsessed by Jews. They are too worldly for that. In Europe, too, one finds great variations in the expression of Judeocentrism. There are still traces of Holocaust-induced philo-Semitism in places like Germany; but there are also figures such as Clare Short, the former British cabinet minister, who recently blamed Israel for global warming....

In more recent times, figures such as Patrick Buchanan, Louis Farrakhan, and David Duke have updated the notion and explained America's woes -- Buchanan cleverly, Duke crudely, Farrakhan insanely -- as the work of the Jews. (In 1990, as the first Bush administration was building up to war against Iraq, in order to expel Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait, Buchanan stated that "Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory.") Perhaps the best and most succinct expression of this school of American Judeocentrism was offered by Mel Gibson when he explained, upon his arrest for drunk driving, that "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." It is an odious tradition, and I do not see how any thoughtful or decent individual would wish to belong to it. (I say thoughtful because the theory has no analytical value, and decent because the theory has harmful consequences.) But the tradition has now found a couple of unexpected new tribunes. The Judeocentric understanding of America's foreign policy is now the special province of two ostensibly reputable scholars, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University.

Anyone who doubts that there's something pathological about Mearsheimer should read this description of how he gets physically agitated when he rants about AIPAC. There's more going on here than dispassionate analysis and argument.

References:
* Iran, Much of the World Kind of Anti-Semitic [MR]
* No Really, Most Divestment Campaigns Are De-Facto Anti-Semitic [MR]
* Jimmy Carter: The Only Reason It Seems Like I Ignore Darfur And Obsess About Israel Is Because Darfur Isn't A Genocide [MR]
* British Foreign Minister: AQ Popularity Not Really Israel's Fault But We Should Obsess About Israel Anyway (Plus: That's Not Even The Dumbest Thing He Said!) [MR]
* The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy [TNR]

Previously:
* What Institutional European Anti-Semitism?
* Anti-Semitism as Anti-Zionism
* If Anti-Zionism Isn't Supposed to Be Anti-Semitism, Someone Should Probably Tell the Anti-Zionists

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit