The Jews

by Hilaire Belloc

Thirdly, the position is modified according to the presence, in varying degrees of strength in different communities, of certain international forces even more powerful than the Jews themselves. The four principal of the international forces are:—

(1) The Catholic Church;

(2) Islam;

(3) The forces of international Capitalism; and

(4) The international reaction against it of the industrial proletariat.

We must in the first line of this inquiry make an important premise. The fact from which we proceed, namely, the uneasy feeling that the Jews are getting control and the determination not to tolerate that control, will be denied by the Jews themselves. It is denied sincerely—I have entered upon too many discussions with them and heard too many of their protestations to doubt that; and if the denial were valid, not only the particular survey I propose in this chapter, but the whole of the argument of this book, would fail. For if there is a Jewish question to-day, and if it is present in the acute form in which we all know it to be present, it is not due merely to the contrast and friction between the Jews and their hosts, but especially to this feeling of domination.

But the Jewish belief in this matter is not valid, sincerely as it is held. To the great majority of Jews it will, of course, seem common-sense. What has the unfortunate poor Jew in the slums of our great cities to do with controlling the modern world? How in his eyes can the phrase have any meaning at all? If you pass from him to the comparatively small Jewish middle class, you would hear a denial almost equally vigorous. The Jewish scientist will tell you that he is concerned with his researches and laughs at the idea of interfering with his neighbours; the Jewish historian that he is concerned with his documents, that nothing is further from his thoughts than interfering with people outside his trade; the little Jewish shopkeeper will tell you that he is in active competition with his non-Jewish neighbours and by no means always successful in that competition; the Jewish lawyer will tell you that he is concerned with the system of law in which he happens to be immersed—the Napoleonic Code, the English Common Law or what not—and that any idea of his personally wanting to control the vast non-Jewish majority among whom he lives is moonshine: and so it is.

The great Jewish banker, though he is fully aware of his power, would tell you that in his daily business he comes up against forces to which he is subject, and has competitors who are at the best neutral, and more commonly hostile, to Israel; and even the man who is to-day more powerful—if that be possible—than the Jewish banker, I mean the Jewish monopolist, and especially the Jewish monopolist in metal, though he would be extremely annoyed to have the extent of his control exposed, will feel that it is due to his superior abilities and in no way designed for mastery.

All these individual replies are true; but if you make of them a composite and general reply, if you put it as a reply of all Israel to all the world outside, crying, "I have no desire for supremacy; I never act in such a fashion that my domination can be felt or shall increase; the motive is not present, even subconsciously, among my people"—then that general reply would be false.