While some historical anti-American themes are quite different from anti-Jewish stereotypes--for example, America seen as anti-intellectual--most are startlingly identical. European critics saw both groups as brutally materialistic, fanatically devoted to money-making and profit. Similarly, both were portrayed as bearers of a corrosive modernism subverting cherished ways of life and existing nations. Equally, both were accused of seeking world conquest, through conspiracies, seizing direct control, or imposing their system through cultural contamination.

These themes are better known regarding antisemitism but also apply to anti-Americanism. In the nineteenth century the United States became the world's greatest political example, as in the twentieth century it became the globe's greatest power. In its ideological influence abroad America would be to the nineteenth century what the Communist Soviet Union was to the twentieth: an alternative to everything that existed, which attracted some and repelled others. As such, it was easy to view the United States as the negation and threat to all existing Western civilization, destructive of order and the enemy of traditional values.

As a revolutionary experiment, the United States was a new type of country, without monarch, aristocracy, strong traditions, official religion, or well-defined classes. It regarded itself as superior to existing European systems and its success would jeopardize them all. Many European writers, politicians, and ideologues saw the United States as a travesty to be despised or as a threat to be discredited. And if others among them liked what America was doing, that task became all the more urgent. Though surface aspects of these arguments shifted over time, Europe continued to see itself as the repository of high culture, high standards, coherent ideologies, and intellectual merit. Rather than critique the unbridled capitalism of America from the right, the later European view would apply the same arguments from the left. And shortcomings in their own society were often blamed on the imitation or influence of America.

In short, America--like the Jews--became for its enemies the symbol of modern capitalism and modern culture. Many of the most classic statements of antisemitism were made consistently by the advocates of anti-Americanism. Take, for example, the charge of greed and materialism, so closely linked to hatred of the new socio-economic system that replaced the traditional aristocratic-peasant dominated system.

Two centuries ago, the French traveler Perrin Du Lac complained that to Americans, "A brook, were it worthy of the muse of Virgil...is nothing to them but so much pure water, so of no value."[1] A leading European defender of America, the French nobleman Alexis De Tocqueville, claimed that Americans only "perceive the mighty forests that surround them [when] they fall beneath the hatchet."[2]

A few decades later, it was the Germans' turn. The dramatist Karl Gutzkow wrote, "It is unbelievable how easy the American can change ideas into money."[3] The poet Heinrich Heine, sounding like his contemporary Karl Marx talking about the Jews, explained, "Worldly utility is their true religion and money is their God, their once all-powerful God,"[4] Friedrich Rulemann Eylert spoke of Americans' "lying, deception, and unlimited greed" as "the natural and inescapable consequences of the commercial spirit...that like a tidal wave inundates...American society. Every harmless passion and all moral sentiments are blunted in the daily pursuit of money."[5]

The basic cultural critique of America prevalent today was also largely in place by the 1830s, long before the onset of mass production, Hollywood, or television. The United States was a mass culture based on the lowest common denominator. Instead of standards being set by an aristocratic and privileged class of intellectuals and artists, it society catered to the vulgar mob, with low values, bad manners and a grubby materialistic outlook.

For many European writers and thinkers, America represented everything they detested in modern life, everything they feared about the future, everything they detested in what was happening to their own countries. In a sense, though it was rarely expressed directly, the Jews represented the internal enemy and the United States was the external threat in cultural and political terms. Radicals and conservatives expressed this thought in different ways. The left portrayed the Jews as capitalists and the United States as a force for reaction and fascism; the right claimed the Jews were dangerous revolutionaries and the United States had much in common with the threat of communism and socialism.

While this tendency should not be exaggerated, these were persistent, continuous themes that influenced whole generations of Europeans down to the present day. One can even find parallels to contemporary Islamist movements among some right-wing Catholics, like Abbe Henry Delassus, whose book, Americanism and the Anti-Christian Conspiracy posited an American-Jewish alliance to destroy Christianity and take over the world.

And thus the loathing of America and of Israel carry with it this theme of opposition to change, modernity, and dozens of things feared and hated by people of diverse political viewpoints in many different countries.

With the end of the Cold War signifying both the disappearance of the Communist/Soviet threat and the reality of the United States as the world's sole superpower, traditional anti-American themes have reemerged. The 200-year-old nightmare of America dominating the world with its power, values, and culture now seems possible for the first time in history. It is not surprising that there should be such a resurgence of anti-Americanism, both directly and couched in terms of "globalization."

As hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, political slander is the tribute dictatorships pay to democratic rivals. Or, to put it another way, one can use a famous legal saying: If the facts are on your side, pound the facts; if the law is on your side, pound the law; if neither is on your side, pound the table.

Promoting anti-Americanism and antisemitism is a very effective way for those with poor cases to pound the table. It does far more than distract people from thinking about their own problems. Those using these tools also have the advantage of diverting attention from the perpetrators who are their real problem.

The Iraq war is a remarkable lesson about such matters, showing how the world works in terms of informational battles, elite opinion, and media behavior. One revelation form the experience was the American discovery that things thought to be true because they applied only to Israel were now shown to work almost equally against the United States.

Problems attributed to an Israeli weakness in international public relations also hold true for the mighty American system. Attitudes attributable to antisemitism are paralleled by the effects of anti-Americanism. Large sectors of the European and Middle Eastern media--and sometimes the American media--cover Israel.

What was revealed so effectively were the deeper, systemic, problems of how governments, media, and intellectuals function and view the world that can strike against any well-intentioned democratic state defending itself. In the context of the factors discussed above are such matters as the following:

Being a democracy battling a dictatorship earns you little or no special credit and can be an outright disadvantage. The assumption of the dominant sector in the intellectual class--which runs much of academic, the media, and all verbal, opinion-forming sectors of society--is that democracies lie about as much as dictatorships, especially if the dictatorship claims "progressive" credentials. All "truths" are equal, and some more equal than others.

Forcing its own intellectuals and media to voice a single line makes the dictatorship sound popular abroad. Since all Iraqis or Palestinians say the same thing it must be true. In contrast, a democracy's dissenting voices about its real or imagined shortcomings can be used to undermine its assertions. To make matters worse, these are the claims of a "people" versus those of a "government." You can imagine what the opinion-making class is more likely to believe, and the populist credentials of the dictatorships are artificially amplified.

In addition, since no critical information comes out of the dictatorship, the only way we know it does anything wrong is by its enemies' assertions. And all these data, no matter how well-documented--from Israel on Arafat's backing of terrorism; from the United States on Saddam's repression and concealment of weapons--can be dismissed as partisan.

Then, there is the fair-minded "neutrality" of those who shape opinion in the media, academia, and elsewhere. "Patriotism" is identified as a right-wing belief and is replaced by its opposite: to doubt, criticize, slander, or at least avoid agreeing with your country's position,n seems political courageous and morally noble. "Why should we assume the United States is telling the truth? Let's give equal weight to Saddam Hussein's version."

As a result, if a democratic state makes a mistake--an Israel or U.S. attack that inadvertently killed civilians--they are denounced as something close to war criminals. But if their adversaries torture people to death, employ terrorism, and do a dozen other things, the response is "Well, how do we really know this happened?"

At any rate, the democratic states must meet a higher standard. Their mistakes matter and they are held accountable for each and every one. Dictatorships, however, are given the benefit of the doubt or in effect forgiven by the racism of low expectations.

Now, consider some parallels: