I keep an issue of the New Yorker that dates back to 2006, which focused on the media, because its beautiful cover included Al-Hayat's name and logo, nicely positioned between those of YouTube above it and the New York Times below. I also keep it because the issue ran a report on renowned British journalist and author Christopher Hitchens, who started out as a liberal leftist, and ended up being a rightist, to the point that his colleague Alexander Cockburn in the liberal the Nation said, after Hitchens joined the Likudnik the Weekly Standard, that he is a “Lying, Self-Serving, Fat-Assed, Chain-Smoking, Drunken, Opportunistic, Cynical Contrarian”. Hitchens is an atheist who, in 2007, published a book attacking all three monotheistic religions with emphasis on Judaism as the source of all religious evil. Last year, he published an autobiographical entitled ‘Hitch 22'. I usually collect his articles, especially those published after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and I find myself agreeing with him one out of ten times. Nonetheless, he is successful and prolific. He has strong positions on radical Islam and the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, and he is worth following. Hitchens studied at Oxford and was a leftist student in the sixties, and opposed the Vietnam War. He joined with a group of leftist students the Labor Party in 1965, and was expelled by Prime Minister Harold Wilson in 1967, most likely for opposing the war. Hitchens remained in the leftist camp until 1989, when he began reconsidering his ideas after a fatwa was issued by Ayatollah Khomeini sanctioning the murder of Salman Rushdie, after the latter published The Satanic Verses. His estrangement [with the left] culminated in 2001 in the wake of the terrible terrorist attacks that struck New York and Washington, after which he became a proponent of external intervention and a critic of ‘Islamofascism'. He advocated the war on Iraq as enthusiastically as the neoconservatives did, and continued to do so, obstinately in my opinion, because he also criticized torture, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. He became an American citizen in 2007, having lived in Washington D.C. since 1981, but did not forfeit his British nationality. I chose for the readers the following examples of his intellectual quarrels and sharp stances: Hitchens attacked Bill Clinton because of his scandals, and called for Henry Kissinger to be tried as a war criminal. He even attacked Mother Theresa, whom he accused of being a friend of tyrants. He once had a public squabble with his brother Peter, who is also a writer, but a conservative and devout Anglican. A sharp debate ensued between them on the pages of newspapers and magazines, before they buried the hatchet and joined hands in making TV appearances. Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Hitchens debated the prominent liberal thinker Noam Chomsky, over the issue of the nature of radical Islam and how to deal with it. The debate between them took place on the pages of the liberal magazine the Nation, after which Hitchens left the latter, criticizing the editorial board and its readers because they stood against him. While he defended Paul Wolfowitz, the man behind the plan for the Iraq War, after he acknowledged the suffering of the Palestinian people, he sharply criticized Daniel Pipes when the Bush administration nominated him in 2003 for membership of the U.S. Institute of Peace. He said that Pipes is further to the right of Ariel Sharon, as Pipes is opposed to the roadmap even though the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel can be solved by peaceful means. He also attacked him for saying “the so-called Palestinian refugees”, or in other words, his denial of their dispossession. I note in Hitchens's favor that, despite his support for Bush's wars, he endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, and attacked John McCain as a demented man, and said that Sarah Palin is ridiculous, a professional liar, and a disgrace to the nation. Hitchens shifted from left to right in his ideology, and from opposing wars and foreign intervention to supporting them. However, the only matter that remained constant through half a century of activity is his criticism of Judaism. He believes that God's commandments to Moses were devoid of mercy and compassion, and that these commandments do not protect children, and do not mention rape and slavery. He also sharply criticizes Judaism's rejection of Greek civilization, and deeply regrets that in the conflict between Athens and Jerusalem, the latter prevailed. Near the end of last year, I read an article by Hitchens in Slate magazine attacking rabbi Ovadia Yosef who wants all gentiles to be servants for Jews. A Jewish website attacked Hitchens as a result, and accused him of classic anti-Semitism. Perhaps I would not have chosen to go over Hitchens's ideas with the readers, were it not for new developments in this regard. I was reminded of accusations of anti-Semitism against him, as I read an article in the New York Times by Roger Cohen, entitled “the real Jew debate”. In the article, Cohen complained about how criticizing Israel is readily dismissed as anti-Semitism. Then last June, Hitchens was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, and he fears that the disease may have spread to his intestines and that he may not live long. I also followed a visit he made to Beirut with some friends in February last year, and its account is worth narrating, and so I shall continue with it tomorrow. [email protected]
