ГУЛаг Палестины

scream such a thing. The 60 Minutes viewer is left with the impression that Rabbi Bleich was

reporting something that he witnessed, but his wording commits him to nothing more than

contemplating a hypothetical case.

(10) Lenin's Jewish ancestors. After interviewing the editor of Lviv's daily For a Free

Ukraine, 60 Minutes cuts to Rabbi Bleich saying "There's an article that came out just two weeks

ago where they tried to prove that Lenin was really Jewish...." The impression created is that

this article was published in For a Free Ukraine, and that For a Free Ukraine is a major

newspaper in Western Ukraine's major city.

In fact, however, "there's an article that came out" does not precisely inform us where the

article was published. Perhaps it was published in Ukraine's equivalent of a supermarket

tabloid. Perhaps it wasn't published at all, but only circulated in pamphlets. Perhaps it's

just a rumor and nobody can produce such an article. But even if published in For a Free

Ukraine - so what?

A higher standard of journalism than that exhibited by 60 Minutes would have reported who was

the author of this article, what position he holds in Ukrainian society, how good were his data

and his arguments, where was the article published, about how many people may have read it, does

anyone believe it, does it alter anybody's attitudes toward contemporary Jews even if they do

believe it? - But of course such questions weren't answered, and we are left able to conclude no

more than that Rabbi Bleich wishes us to believe in the existence of a virulent Ukrainian

anti-Semitism.

The Bleich statement is representative of a large number of statements in which events are

referred to obliquely, indirectly, vaguely - and on this basis, the viewer is invited to jump to

some strong conclusion. "I get the impression from people...." says Mr. Safer. Now there's a

lazy substitute for investigative reporting! What people? Why can't we see these people for

ourselves? Perhaps they are just a couple of cronies of Mr. Safer's whose company he prizes

because they are as bigoted as himself. And what do we care what one or two of Mr. Safer's

friends think? 60 Minutes should show its viewers the data on which these people are basing

their conclusions and let the viewers draw their own conclusions. But this is not what 60

Minutes did - its broadcast was short on data and long on instructions on how to feel.

(11) Morley Safer, genetic theorist. Mr. Safer tells us that "The Church and Government of

Ukraine have tried to ease people's fears, suggesting that ... Ukrainians, despite the

allegations, are not genetically anti-Semitic."

Here we see a new escalation in the level of irrationality with Mr. Safer now divulging to us

the existence of the allegation that Ukrainians are genetically anti-Semitic. For an

anti-Semitism which Mr. Safer failed to document, he now suggests a cause from the fairyland of

pseudoscience, and suggests furthermore that the Church and Government of Ukraine have dignified

this charge by denying it. That Ukrainians are pronouncedly anti-Semitic, Mr. Safer takes as a

given requiring no corroborative evidence, and so he shifts attention to speculating as to how

they could have gotten that way.

Perhaps Morley Safer will appreciate how bizarre and inflammatory his statement is when its

direction is reversed: "The World Jewish Congress has tried to ease the growth of

anti-Semitism, suggesting that Jews, despite the allegations, are not genetically predisposed to

usury." Now if Mr. Safer had heard that on Ukrainian television, he could have brought it back

as very good evidence not only of Ukrainian anti-Semitism, but of Ukrainian irrationality as

well - but he didn't hear any such thing during his visit to Ukraine, and he brought back

nothing. To encounter that degree of hatred and that level of irrationality, you have to leave

Ukraine for the United States and tune in to 60 Minutes.

(12) Church of Ukraine. But even while rebutting Mr. Safer's main point, I have been carelessly

adopting his slovenly terminology. "Church of Ukraine"? What "Church of Ukraine"? There is no

"Church of Ukraine" any more than there is a "Church of Canada" or a "Church of the United

States." Ukraine has more than one variety of Orthodox church, more than one variety of

Catholic church, more than one variety of Protestant church; and Ukraine has as well a full

slate of non-Christian religions. It even has agnostics and atheists just like a real

country.

Thus it is not only in his big lies, but also in his small misstatements that Mr. Safer reveals

to us that his perception of Ukraine is uninformed, indeed wholly stereotypical. To him,

perhaps all Ukrainians conform to some archetypal image - wielding a saber, hard-drinking,

pogrom-prone, and Christian (to the question "What kind of Christian?" we almost expect Mr.

Safer to ask "You mean Ukraine has more than one kind?"). And so when Mr. Safer speaks, he does

not report what he has recently observed in Ukraine, but rather reads off from his internal

image. He goes to Ukraine not to study it, not to report on its reality, but merely to provide

a backdrop for the proclamation of his own preconceptions, of his own prejudices so deeply

rooted that confirmation scarcely seems necessary, of his own stereotypes so apparently

unchallengeable that the anticipation that they might be in error does not enter consciousness.

(13) Peasants with nuclear weapons. Mr. Safer states: "Uneducated peasants, deeply

superstitious, in possession of this bizarre anomaly: nuclear weapons capable of mass

destruction thousands of miles away!"

This is one piece of information that I did find both newsworthy and disquieting. Although it

requires us to lay aside data indicating that American education is inferior to Ukrainian, we

ca

deeply superstitious - one look at their weatherbeaten faces and deep wrinkles and I was

convinced.

The information is so alarming and the threat to world stability so great that I expect Mr.

Safer must have immediately telegraphed President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine to inform him that

the uneducated and deeply superstitious peasants had seized control of Ukraine's nuclear

weapons, and to urge him to recapture the weapons and place them back under the control of the

educated and less-deeply-superstitious peasants.

Who can argue with Mr. Safer's syllogism here? - Old and wrinkled people are uneducated and

deeply superstitious. Here is an old and wrinkled person who may or may not be Ukrainian.

Therefore, it is dangerous for Ukraine to have nuclear weapons. Out of respect for Mr. Safer's

personal vulnerability, I will refrain from demonstrating the retargetability of this syllogism.

But to be fair to Mr. Safer, he did not really say that the peasants were in possession of the

nuclear weapons - what he actually said was that they were in possession of an anomaly. This is

an unfamiliar concept, and I ca

someone is in possession of an anomaly? Perhaps what it means in this case is simply this

that Mr. Safer sensed that even the uncritical 60 Minutes viewer at whom he was aiming his story

wasn't going to believe that the Ukrainian peasants had gotten control of the nuclear weapons,

and so the thing to do was to speak gobbledygook - to suggest that they did but without actually