In Edge of Irony, Marjorie Perloff explores six great writers who lived in the Habsburg empire or, after its collapse, in Austria during the early part of the 20th century. Of these six—the poet Paul Celan, the memoirist Elias Canetti, the novelists Joseph Roth and Robert Musil, the satirist Karl Kraus, and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein—only Musil was a non-Jew. Perloff, herself a Vienna-born Jew, sees irony as the overarching mode of these writers’ work. Adam Kirsch writes in his review:

[N]one of the [Austro-Hungarian] empire’s many ethnic groups—Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Slavs—did more to create [its distinctive multinational] culture, or held it in greater reverence, than its Jews. The emigration of Jews from rural villages in Galicia and other parts of Eastern Europe to the capital in Vienna had created, before World War I, an intelligentsia of amazing accomplishment, including figures like Gustav Mahler and Sigmund Freud.

As Perloff writes, Vienna’s Jews were passionate about German culture even though, or perhaps because, they were for the most part rejected as members of the German nation. . . . In her [2004] memoir, Perloff is alternately nostalgic for this religion of culture and suspicious of it. Plainly, the Viennese Jews’ enthusiasm for art and intellect did not earn them a secure place in Austrian society. On the contrary, fin-de-siècle Vienna was one of the birthplaces of political anti-Semitism, the place where the young Hitler first expressed his hatred of Jews. For all the accomplishments of the German Jews, Kultur could be seen as a kind of lullaby they sang to themselves as the walls closed in.

Perhaps, writes Kirsch, the plight of the Jews was best expressed by Robert Musil, Perloff’s token Gentile, in his great unfinished novel The Man without Qualities:

The Austrian idea [as represented by Ulrich, the novel’s main character] is empty, but at least it is not menacing. The same can’t be said of another character, Hans Sepp, whom Perloff sees as a representative of the fascism that would triumph after [World War I]. Sepp, Musil writes, was part of a “Christian-German circle” that opposed “‘the Jewish mind,’ by which they meant capitalism and socialism, science, reason, parental authority and parental arrogance, calculation, psychology, and skepticism.” Musil, writing his novel in the 1920s—the first two parts were published in 1930 and 1933—could already see that this kind of all-too-definite ideology had triumphed. . . . Musil himself, like [Perloff’s own] family, had to flee Austria after the Anschluss—among other things, he was vulnerable because he had a Jewish wife—and he died in penury and obscurity in Switzerland in 1942.

In his inauguration speech, Donald Trump put forth ambitious goals for his first days in office. An additional item that should be on the agenda of his administration, and also that of the 119th Congress, should be defunding, and ideally dismantling, UNRWA. The UN Relief and Works Organization for Palestine Refugees—to give its full name—is deeply enmeshed with Hamas in Gaza, has inculcated generations of young Palestinians with anti-Semitism, and exists primarily to perpetuate the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Robert Satloff explains what must be done.

[T]here is an inherent contradiction in support for UNRWA (given its anti-resettlement posture) and support for a two-state solution (or any negotiated resolution) to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Providing relief to millions of Palestinians based on the argument that their legitimate, rightful home lies inside Israel is deeply counterproductive to the search for peace.

Last October, the Israeli parliament voted overwhelmingly to pass two laws that will come into effect January 30: a ban on UNRWA operations in Israeli sovereign territory and the severing of all Israeli ties with the agency. This includes cancellation of a post-1967 agreement that allowed UNRWA to operate freely in what was then newly occupied territory.

A more ambitious U.S. approach could score a win-win achievement that advances American interests in Middle East peace while saving millions of taxpayer dollars. Namely, Washington could take advantage of Israel’s new laws to create an alternative support mechanism that eases UNRWA out of Gaza. This would entail raising the stakes with other specialized UN agencies operating in the area. Instead of politely asking them if they can assume UNRWA’s job in Gaza, the Trump administration should put them on notice that continued U.S. funding of their own global operations is contingent on their taking over those tasks. Only such a dramatic step is likely to produce results.