(Jewish Group) Kissinger at 100: 'If it were not for the accident of my birth, I would be antisemitic.'

[Behind the Aegis]

How readers may choose to commemorate the birthday of Henry Kissinger, who turns 100 on May 27, may well depend on their previous readings about the former Secretary of State and National Security adviser.

Those who appreciated Niall Ferguson’s hagiographical two-volume biography will applaud Kissinger’s role as the first Jewish secretary of state and his success in helping to achieve détente with Communist China and the Soviet Union.

By contrast, political writers Seymour Hersh and especially Christopher Hitchens have pointed to a series of alleged war crimes by Kissinger in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Chile, Cyprus and East Timor marked by decisions made with apparent blithe unconcern for human suffering and loss of life.

Law experts insist there is scant chance that Kissinger will ever be tried as a war criminal, although some of his close political associates, including the Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, did undergo that experience. Kissinger’s policies were, after all, concocted in the White House, and the historic legal immunity of that building for myriad crimes has become familiar to Americans over the past four years.

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Sadly, I think his quote is true of too many Jews today, with some not even allowing their being Jewish to halt their anti-Semitism. Such is the power of gaslighting, privilege, and internalized anti-Semitism, and overall culture.