It seems that many people are shocked by the latest tapes recently revealed in which President Nixon and Henry Kissinger are heard talking about Soviet Jews and rejecting the possibility of United States intervention on behalf of the incarcerated Soviet Jews. Kissinger said something like if the Soviets would put the Jews into gas chambers, it would not be an American concern... to which Nixon agreed saying they could not just go blow up the world for them..
I don't know what the shock is about. The United States always has been interested only in issues that concern the United States. That's it. Right or wrong, and I dont know how wrong it is, that is the way it is and that is the way it always has been. Soviet Jews were not a US interest, and there is no reason they should have been. A humanitarian interest perhaps, as no minority should be subject to the torture and genocides that were under discussion, but not a US interest.
People seem to forget that the US only steps in and meddles around the world when they feel it is in their best interests. And I dont think the reason is necessarily anti-Semitism, but rather every country, including the US, acts according to what they determine to be in their best interests.
as a noahide, i was not shocked by the statement of nixon or any leader of the 70 nations. but i was stunned that kissinger could speak thus. blessings.
ReplyDeleteNixon does not annoy me. It is Kissinger, who is a Jew, and came from Germany. If he had not been taken from Germany by his parents, he may have been gassed by the Nazis. Of course, he was speaking as Scretary of State not as a Jew.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of his visit to Saudi Arabia, when the king welcomed him saying, that he was not welcoming him as a Jew, but as a human being, to which Kissinger replied that it was OK, and that some of his best friends were human beings!!!
As Meir, I say that the shock is about a fellow Jew (well, kind of) displaying his political correctness (of the time) in such a blood curdling way.
ReplyDeleteRafi,
ReplyDeletePretty good assessment, but not too insightful, considering the full quote (taken from Ha'aretz):
The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.
Yes, it's a pretty insenstive thing to say, but remember that this was being secretly taped, and it wasn't something being said for public consumption. Thus, I don't see why he's being faulted for being blunt.
The thing I don't understand is why he thought that Jews being gassed in Russia only maybe would be a humanitarian concern.
It's the language - firstly that Kissinger specified gas chambers, which didn't exist in Russia. Furthermore instead of phrasing that sounds like, "We Americans don't give a *** what happens to the Jews there," it would have been enough to say "America can't and shouldn't intervene in every domestic issue of other countries."
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