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Henry Kissinger speaking to the President in 1973, on White House tapes released this week.
i read those transcripts, and they were surprising and distasteful to me.
However, these were meant to be private conversations and we don’t know the context of them at all.
Apparently, Richard Nixon had very little good to say about Blacks and Italians, too, so we Jews are in good company.
I don’t think you should rate a man by what he says in private, or what he thinks, particularly out of context.
You need to look at his actions:
Kissinger and Nixon were most definitely responsible for making possible the exodus of Jews from the Soviet Union in the 1970’s, using diplomacy and trading Jews for grain, when the USSR had a famine. What they thought of those Jews they freed is really of little consequence. Let my people go!
And don’t forget Operation Nickel Grass, that over a four-week period in 1973 hundreds of jumbo U.S. military aircraft delivered more than 22,000 tons of armaments to Israel to help win the Yom Kippur War.
You need to look at Kissinger’s contributions in the context of his entire career.
honestly, dear TMB, now you’re extrapolating from one conversation between two specific politicians and using it to tar all Jewish politicians. Isn’t that a stretch?
TMB – Kissinger is an extreme example. One could even make a case that he hates being Jewish so much that he’s not really playing with a full deck. (We know now that Nixon wasn’t.) He also didn’t grow up in the US, so it’s hard to compare him to American born politicians. Believe it or not, it’s not against the law (or halacha either) to be a Democrat. It doesn’t automatically make a politician anti-Jewish. To make a case for that you have to quote specific issues.
Kissinger is a bad egg, and the world would have been better off if he had decided to become a dentist.
Rorsr: You have it right on. That particular quote by Kissinger (About the gassing of Soviet Jews not being an American, but a Humanitarian problem.) was taken (meaning “Read”) out of context. Because when you read the entire quote it gets a totally different –and positive– meaning. What Henry Kissinger was saying, is, that when such a calamity happens (as it did during WWII.) it is not only an American problem but one of the world.
tmb: Jews in public office will be proving their gentilehood as often as they can, even at cost of Jewish blood. We are better served by gentile friends, than by Jews in office.
ronrsr: honestly, dear TMB, now you’re extrapolating from one conversation between two specific politicians and using it to tar all Jewish politicians. Isn’t that a stretch?
Thank you, Ron. At one time I held public office. I don’t think I tried to prove my “gentilehood” at all.
I did not see Pres. Nixon as being antisemitic. Apathetic yes, but no real hatred (nor real love) for Jews. He was just looking after his own interests, just like all politicians (including Kissenger).
He said, when Golda Meir visited, that he did not want to invite any Jews that voted for the Democrats. That was plain politics. He was saying that he wanted Jews that voted for him to join them. On the other hand, he did not seem to want Irish nor Italians nor Blacks there at all.
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