Leon Wieseltier is convinced that Andrew Sullivan is an anti-Semite. Having known Andrew for some time, I find this baffling in the extreme, and reading Leon’s essay hasn’t cleared up the confusion. There are a number of passages that merit head-scratching, e.g.,

Worst of all, the explanation that Sullivan adopts for almost everything that he does not like about America’s foreign policy, and America’s wars, and America’s role in the world–that it is all the result of the clandestine and cunningly organized power of a single and small ethnic group–has a provenance that should disgust all thinking people.

There is, of course, a great deal that Andrew does not like about America’s foreign policy, America’s wars, and America’s role in the world, and my sense is that he is far more likely to blame a belief system he describes as “Christianism” as the ultimate source. (Moreover, Andrew is very concerned about the baleful influence of the military-industrial complex, a view that might have some merit.) Andrew and I have a longstanding disagreement on the meaning and relevance of “Christianism” in American life. But I have no doubt that he sees it as central to understanding the post-Reagan evolution of the U.S. right, in foreign policy and in many other domains as well.

As someone who greatly admires both Leon and Andrew, I have to say — not addressing Andrew’s deep interest in “Christianism” as a source of what he sees as the apocalyptic worldview of the U.S. right is a great oversight that powerfully undermines the rest of the argument, making it hard to take very seriously.

I should note that Andrew and I don’t agree on Israeli affairs. My general inclination is to defer to writers and thinkers I consider credible and fair-minded, like Michael Oren, now serving as the Israeli ambassador to the U.S.; Michael Scott Doran; and the historian Efraim Karsh. I also make an effort to read critics of Israel, like Rashid Khalidi of Columbia, to avoid finding myself in an echo chamber. To the extent I have gut instincts on the issue, I’m inclined to think that Israel faces very difficult decisions when it comes to balancing its security needs with humanitarian considerations, and I have no reason to believe than I’d be any better at striking the right balance given the circumstances. Moreover, I tend to accept the argument Michael Scott Doran made in his Foreign Affairs essay on “Palestine, Iraq, and American Strategy“: “although Palestine is central to the symbolism of Arab politics, it is actually marginal to its substance.” And so the Arabist conviction that “resolving” the Israeli-Palestinian crisis (it’s not clear to me that the resolutions that critics of the Israeli government have in mind would resolve much of anything, hence the quotation marks) would solve the broader problem of Islamist extremism strikes me as seriously wrongheaded, an argument that Leon makes in the essay.

It is certainly true that Andrew often couches his criticism of Israeli policies in the context of Jewish values. He also condemns evangelical conservatives by referencing Christian values. Granted, Israel is a state and evangelical conservatives are evangelical conservatives. But I think that this tendency is of a piece with Andrew’s general efforts to take religious values seriously. Leon characterizes Andrew’s references as a kind of condescension, which disregards the fact that Andrew sees Jewish values as an essential part of his own Christian tradition. Again, this is terrain I can’t claim to understand, so I’m treading lightly.

Leon opens the essay by arguing that Andrew’s decision to quote the following line from W.H. Auden merits suspicion.

“Trying to explain the doctrine of the Trinity to readers of The New Republic is not easy.”

After a lengthy and fascinating discussion of the context behind Auden’s remark, he states, in essence, that Andrew is indulging in anti-Semitic prejudice. I have another theory. As a former editor of The New Republic, and as a religious believer who operates in a very secular environment, I’m guessing that Andrew thought the quote was kind of a funny reflection in a “the more things change, the more they stay the same vein.”

It’s a little presumptuous of me to use Leon’s first name. He was one of my bosses many years ago, and I think of him as a very gracious person who has served as a mentor to many dear friends. It would feel funny to refer to him as “Wieseltier,” though perhaps I should out of deference.