I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

Whether or not Dawkins is an anti-semite is utterly irrelevant.

Irrelevant to whom? I think it’s highly relevant.

The rest of your comment I agree with, and I made similar points in the penultimate paragraph of this post.

But I don’t think it’s “irrelevant”, when discussing someone’s words, to consider (among other things) to what extent they reflect his state of mind. I think it’s just sensible.

And you’re right that his comment is a gift to real anti-Semites. I made that point myself, and have already said, several times, that I’m not defending his remark.

But racists are not the only people having fun with this all over the internet: plenty of people are jumping on it to damn him as a bigot. Given that he almost certainly isn’t one, I don’t think this either fair or helpful.

Duff provides a convenient illustration of this point in his latest comment.

First, he is not “a renowned scientist”, never having actually produced any original work himself apart from the ‘meme’ notion that so delights undergraduates from the lesser ‘universities’. He is merely ‘famous’, or what we call today, a ‘celebrity’, for repackaging other men’s ideas, flogging them world-wide and making ‘loadsa’ money. I admire his ‘chutzpah’, although I gather he might not approve of that word!

And if believing that we are all controlled by little globules of protein makes one a “rationalist”, then show me the way to the nearest mosque!

Yes, TDK. And that only encourages me to believe that he – a world renowned scientist and rationalist – doesn’t actually believe it.

Given that the opponents of Israel are the first to point out that anti-Semitism is not analogous to anti-Zionism, it is more than unfortunate that he uses “Jewish lobby” in place of “Israeli lobby”. Since he’s arguing about the power of religion – it is central to his argument. His argument is pointless if you substitute “pro-Israel lobby” for “Jewish lobby”.

The second problem is that Dawkins doesn’t say merely “there is a Jewish lobby that influences US foreign policy along with Saudi influence and etc etc.”. Nor does he say “there is a Jewish lobby that has disproportionate influence”. No he uses the word “monopoly”. The Jewish lobby monopolises foreign policy. Thus a group limited by religious affiliation and by uncritical support of Israel is able to control, with no competitive vision accepted, the foreign policy of the US. Ability to control world affairs through mysterious means is a standard trope of anti-semitism. That’s pretty much Protocols of Zion territory.

The problem is that he mixes a particular political orientation into all his work, nowadays (he didn’t in the past, and I suspect his wife has influenced him in this). He was one of the emailers in that wonderful backfiring Guardian attempt to influence Ohio voters during the last US presidential election. He swipes pointlessly at Bush in a book about atheism. He focusses on extreme Christianity when that really isn’t our main problem right now, chez the religious world.

The suspicion is that he is so accustomed to hearing remarks that really are anti-semitic, from a part of the left that has become seriously infected with this disease, that when this remark of his just slipped out he didn’t realise how it might sound to the rest of the world.