Inept, kooky and yes, antisemitic

Eliot Cohen on the Walt / Mearsheimer Essay
in the Washington Post

.... Inept, even kooky academic work, then, but is it anti-Semitic? If by anti-Semitism one means obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews; if one accuses [Jews] of disloyalty, subversion or treachery, of having occult powers and of participating in secret combinations that manipulate institutions and governments; if one systematically selects everything unfair, ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group and equally systematically suppresses any exculpatory information -- why, yes, this paper is anti-Semitic.

.... If this sounds personal, it is, although I am only a footnote target for Mearsheimer and Walt. I am a public intellectual and a proud Jew; sympathetic to Israel and extensively engaged in our nation's military affairs; vaguely conservative and occasionally hawkish. In a week my family will celebrate Passover with my oldest son -- the third generation to serve as an officer in the United States Army. He will be home on leave from the bomb-strewn streets of Baghdad. The patch on his shoulder is the same flag that flies on my porch.

Kol hakavod to Prof. Cohen.

I must admit I am slightly reassured by the fact that one can still oppose antisemitism in the pages of the Washington Post. At Harvard University, opposition to antisemitism is considered so "extreme" that faculty had best not speak of it.

Harvard's original motto was Veritas Pro Christo Et Ecclesia, "Truth for Christ and his Church."

John Harvard's right hand is resting upon an open Bible. (Photo Douglas Yeo, 2002)

The motto has since been updated to the less religious (hence more politically correct) Veritas -- "Truth." I would say the time has come for the University to consider yet another update, so that their motto might more accurately reflect the intellectual climate of Harvard in the early 21st century.

Might I suggest, Veritas Non Grata?