Why Washington must let Deborah Lipstadt go into battle against antisemitism
V HANLON’S RAZOR is not a device that Hanlon uses to shave in the mornings. It is a modern philosophical saying: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” It is attributed by the internet, that inexhaustible fund of malice and stupidity, to Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He is alleged to have coined it in 1980.
Joe Biden of Scranton, Pennsylvania, might have recourse to Hanlon’s Razor when he contemplates what has happened to his nomination of Deborah Lipstadt as the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism.
Lipstadt is a world-famous professor of Jewish history.
She beat David Irving in court and has been portrayed on screen by Rachel Weisz. Who could be better qualified as Ambassador to the Antisemites? Her passage through the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee should have been as smooth as Hanlon’s chin. But no.
Lipstadt’s nomination is only one of hundreds that the Republican committee members are stalling. It’s not entirely stupid, at least politically. The other razor, William of Occam’s one, says we should go for the simple explanation. The Republicans are working towards the midterms in November and anything that makes Biden’s side look weak or incompetent serves their cause.
This isn’t deliberate antisemitism: it’s just politics.
Lipstadt is a political nominee. She’s a Democrat and she isn’t backwards in coming forwards with her political opinions. The Idaho Republican, James Risch, is the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In November, Senator Risch told the Jewish Insider website that Lipstadt has “said enough things on Twitter that it needs to be reviewed carefully — particularly about members of the committee, which is always quite sensitive”. Risch is a strong supporter of Israel. Last May, when the IDF and Hamas were fighting, Risch introduced a Committee motion condemning the rise in antisemitic attacks across the globe. He also used his spot on the Foreign Relations Committee to hold up $75million in aid that the Biden administration wanted to give to NGOs in Gaza. Risch insisted that the recipients be vetted and the aid not be given to terrorists.
Risch is on Lipstadt’s side when it comes to antisemitism. But Lipstadt is very much against Risch’s side on everything else. That shouldn’t be a reason to delay her approval.
Washington needs more people with Lipstadt’s intellectual heft and standing. And Lipstadt has proven she can dish it out, DC-style. Last March, Ron Johnson, a Republican member of the committee, said he was more scared of Black Lives Matter protesters than the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol. This was both stupid and malicious. Lipstadt accused him on Twitter of “white supremacy”.
In 2011, Lipstadt said American and Israeli politicians who invoke the Holocaust in contemporary politics were engaging in “Holocaust abuse” and “soft-core denial”. Yet in 2020, she defended the Jewish Democratic Council of America after it issued an ad comparing Donald Trump to Hitler. Hyperbole, perhaps, but this is America in an age of extremism.
In 2017, after the White House’s statement on Holocaust Memorial Day omitted to mention Jews, Lipstadt accused Donald Trump of “Holocaust denial” and suggested that the statement “may be a conscious attempt by people with antisemitic sympathies to rewrite history”.
Lipstadt was right to criticise this appalling error and, given the record of some members of Trump’s circle, within her rights to suspect malice, rather than stupidity.
Lipstadt made those political remarks as a free American and a private citizen. The Republicans, who claim theirs is the party of individual freedom, don’t want to give her a platform. That’s politics but, like much of what goes on in DC, it’s bad for America. Incitement and violence against Jews are rising in America and across the world, and liberal democracy is on the razor’s edge. No one is better qualified than Lipstadt for this job. The Republicans should let her get to work.