One thing that Walt and Mearsheimer do in their rebuttal is to list the large number of policymakers, including Jews like Feith, Perle, Wurmser and Wolfowitz (I would add Abrams), who are “deeply committed” to Israel and helped get us into the war in Iraq. “We emphasize again that we see nothing wrong with this [commitment], as all Americans are entitled to such attachments and are free to express them in political life,” they add.
Identifying the neoconservatives as Jewish is one of those unspoken/spoken things in public life today. Two years ago, Wolfowitz was asked a question about the neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute and quipped, “Don’t you mean Jewish?” He was being ironical; his point was that the identification was itself antisemitic.
This is not very straightforward. Before W&M came along, two Jewish conservative scholars wrote books that described the neocons as Jewish. The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy, by the late Murray Friedman. And The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State, by Benjamin Ginsberg.
Ginsberg’s book came out in 1993 and is an important work for anyone trying to understand Jewish power, the Jewish presence in the American establishment. Indeed, though Ginsberg’s politics are opposite to mine, I admire him for doing what an intellectual should do, and working to describe new social patterns. Ginsberg’s historical theme is simple: Jews have risen again and again because our skills have proven essential to states trying to become modern. We made Spain what it was in the 15th century. We allowed the German and English states to rise in the late 19th century. “Jewish academics, intellectuals, and artists were the leading figures in German theater, literature, music, art, architecture, science and philosophy…. ” Etc. The words “Jewish financier” appear countless times in Ginsberg’s book, for an obvious reason: the Jewish genius for finance has lifted and empowered the modern state. (Yivo, which burlesqued the issue of Jews & Money by inviting the vapid Niall Ferguson to talk about it, should invite Ginsberg to make up for the lapse).
Ginsberg wrote out of trepidation. The Jewish rise had been followed by expulsion, discrimination, extermination. Thrown out of Spain, concentrated in the Pale, gassed in Germany… Ginsberg feared, and presumably still does, that the remarkable rise of Jews in the U.S. will result in a backlash.
These fears did not stop Ginsberg from talking about “predominantly Jewish neoconservatives” who had moved to the right “inexorably” because of “their attachment to Israel.” During the Reagan administration these neocons had worked alongside the “Israel lobby,” which was thought to be Washington’s “most powerful lobby,” to oppose the Soviet Union. They “used their access to the print and broadcast media…” (Including the New Republic!) They had helped cement American support for Israel by working with “high ranking Jewish officials” in government.
Ginsberg regarded this Jewish presence as a good thing, though he feared the rise of a populist backlash, evidenced by such statements as Pat Buchanan’s description of Israel’s “amen corner” in the U.S.
Since Ginsberg’s book in 1993, it is amazing to consider that we have been attacked on 9/11, in part because of our support for Israel’s humiliation of the Palestinians, and entered into one of the greatest disasters in our country’s history, Iraq, in part because of concerns for Israel’s security, and the pattern he described has not been raised in the mainstream, only murmured by Chris Matthews and others, till Walt and Mearsheimer landed with all four feet last March in the LRB to try and force the issue into the U.S. discourse, and were then smeared by many leading newspaper writers (who have never read Ginsberg) as antisemites.
At a time when The New Republic thinks nothing of raising Mitt Romney’s Mormonism as an issue—and legitimately—it is really amazing that no leading newspaper or broadcast outlet has done the simple, honorable thing of reporting on the Iraqi neocons’ attachment to Israel.
This is a great lapse. The reasons for it are twofold: 1, American journalistic culture has a strong Jewish strand. (Ginsberg on London and Berlin: “Jewish financiers and newspaper publishers were important participants in [the British imperialist power structure]… Of the 21 daily newspapers published in Berlin during the 1870s, 13 were owned by Jews and four had important Jewish contributors. All three newspapers specializing in political satire were controlled by Jews”) A great number of journalists now working in powerful positions exulted, as I did in my elementary school, in June 1967 when Israel pasted the Egyptian and Syrian air forces; devotion to Israel is something we grew up with and were inculcated with, and therefore do not tend to question as being not in America’s best interest. 2, Iraq is a disaster. Jews fear that Americans will blame the Jews. We have racial memory; we know that the Holocaust grew out of resentment over Jewish numbers and influence. It could happen here.
Ginsberg and my father worry about that. They are smart guys. To dismiss their fears would be foolish. The only intellectually honest response is: Of course it could happen here…
Yet it is the American way to talk about real issues, and that is, again, W&M’s great contribution, to take a subterranean conversation, unhealthy for American democracy, and approach it with academic rigor. In that sense, they are scholars of Jewish history. For as Ginsberg (and the California scholars Albert Lindemann and Yuri Slezkine) has shown, the rise of Jewish elites, including thinkers and financiers, is a theme of western history, a necessary component of modernism. Charting the rise of the neocons in the U.S. is part of that historical study.
I’ve gotten into that study because of the debacle of Iraq, and the Jewish braintrust that played a role in the disaster. I feel engaged in this discussion Jewishly; the neocons’ Jewishness has brought me back to my own. I recognize that many Jews are made defensive by the neocons’ contribution to our blasted Middle East policy. “In Dark Times, Blame the Jews,” the Forward reflexively dismissed Walt and Mearsheimer, and many liberal Jews feel a similar disdain for W&M. For my part, I would say that these dark times present a crisis in the identity of 21st century Jewry; there are better ways to be Jewish than to demonize Islam and support the occupation of Arab lands.
Yes, It's Anti-Semitic
By Eliot A. Cohen
Wednesday, April 5, 2006; Page A23
Academic papers posted on a Harvard Web site don't normally attract enthusiastic praise from prominent white supremacists. But John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" has won David Duke's endorsement as "a modern Declaration of American Independence" and a vindication of the ex-Klansman's earlier work, presumably including his pathbreaking book, "Jewish Supremacism."
Walt and Mearsheimer contend that American national security dictates distancing ourselves from the state of Israel; that U.S. support for Israel has led to such disasters as America's status as the No. 1 target for Islamic terrorists; and that such an otherwise inexplicable departure from good sense can be accounted for only by the power of "The Lobby" (their capitalization), an overwhelmingly Jewish force abetted by some Christian evangelicals and a gentile neocon collaborator or two, who have hijacked American foreign policy and controlled it for decades.
One of Mearsheimer's University of Chicago colleagues has characterized this as "piss-poor, monocausal social science." It is indeed a wretched piece of scholarship. Israeli citizenship rests "on the principle of blood kinship," it says, and yet the country has a million non-Jewish citizens who vote. Osama bin Laden's grievance with the United States begins with Israel, it says — but in fact his 1998 fatwa declaring war against this country began by denouncing the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia and the suffering of the people of Iraq. "Other ethnic lobbies can only dream of having the political muscle" The Lobby has — news to anyone advocating lifting the embargo on Fidel Castro's Cuba. The Iraq war stemmed from The Lobby's conception of Israel's interest — yet, oddly, the war attracted the support of anti-Israel intellectuals such as Christopher Hitchens and mainstream publications such as The Economist. America's anti-Iran policy reflects the dictates of The Lobby — but how to explain Europe's equally strong opposition to Iranian nuclear ambitions?
Oddly, these international relations realists — who in their more normal academic lives declare that state interests determine policy, and domestic politics matters little — have discovered the one case in which domestic politics has, for decades, determined the policy of the world's greatest state. Their theories proclaim the importance of power, not ideals, yet they abhor the thought of allying with the strongest military and most vibrant economy in the Middle East. Reporting persecution, they have declared that they could not publish their work in the United States, but they have neglected to name the academic journals that turned them down.
Inept, even kooky academic work, then, but is it anti-Semitic? If by anti-Semitism one means obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews; if one accuses them of disloyalty, subversion or treachery, of having occult powers and of participating in secret combinations that manipulate institutions and governments; if one systematically selects everything unfair, ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group and equally systematically suppresses any exculpatory information — why, yes, this paper is anti-Semitic.
Mearsheimer and Walt conceive of The Lobby as a conspiracy between the Washington Times and the New York Times, the Democratic-leaning Brookings Institution and Republican-leaning American Enterprise Institute, architects of the Oslo accords and their most vigorous opponents. In this world Douglas Feith manipulates Don Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney takes orders from Richard Perle. They dwell on public figures with Jewish names and take repeated shots at conservative Christians (acceptable subjects for prejudice in intellectual circles), but they never ask why a Sen. John McCain today or, in earlier years, a rough-hewn labor leader such as George Meany declared themselves friends of Israel.
The authors dismiss or ignore past Arab threats to exterminate Israel, as well as the sewer of anti-Semitic literature that pollutes public discourse in the Arab world today. The most recent calls by Iran's fanatical — and nuclear weapons-hungry — president for Israel to be "wiped off the map" they brush aside as insignificant. There is nothing here about the millions of dollars that Saudi Arabia has poured into lobbying and academic institutions, or the wealth of Islamic studies programs on American campuses, though they note with suspicion some 130 Jewish studies programs on those campuses. West Bank settlements get attention; terrorist butchery of civilians on buses or in shopping malls does not. To dispute their view of Israel is not to differ about policy but to act as a foreign agent.
If this sounds personal, it is, although I am only a footnote target for Mearsheimer and Walt. I am a public intellectual and a proud Jew; sympathetic to Israel and extensively engaged in our nation's military affairs; vaguely conservative and occasionally hawkish. In a week my family will celebrate Passover with my oldest son — the third generation to serve as an officer in the United States Army. He will be home on leave from the bomb-strewn streets of Baghdad. The patch on his shoulder is the same flag that flies on my porch.
Other supposed members of "The Lobby" also have children in military service. Impugning their patriotism or mine is not scholarship or policy advocacy. It is merely, and unforgivably, bigotry.
The writer is a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.
Sandstorm
A web column of commentary and analysis from Martin Kramer
Friday, March 17, 2006. Stephen Walt's World. There is much ado today about "The Israel Lobby," a long essay written by Stephen Walt of Harvard University and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and published in the London Review of Books. The bottom line is simple and familiar: the Israel lobby has taken over Washington. Within the academy, it's the sort of thing that Juan Cole and Rashid Khalidi have been claiming all along, without getting any traction. And it's what Walt himself argued in a few pages of his book, Taming American Power, which appeared last fall, and which also got very little traction.
This newest article, obviously the work of Walt more than Mearsheimer, cobbles together a lot of half-truths and untruths that have been out there on the far fringe, and gives them "academic respectability" (which, as I have shown time and again, is usually a contradiction in terms when it comes to the Middle East). In particular, the authors have put together an "unedited version," in which the notes are as long as the text, and which carries the title of a Kennedy School of Government "Faculty Research Working Paper." This is presumably intended to make the study appear even more "academic." But it's really a piece of journalistic sensationalism, reminiscent of the 1987 book The Lobby by Edward Tivnan. The Washington correspondent of Haaretz called the new article "academic garbage" in his blog this morning, and offered it as an example of "the decline of academic values and the misuse of academic titles by contemporary American pseudo-scholars." That it is, but it's got plenty of competition.
Back in the fall, a donor to Harvard asked me to counter Walt's argument that Israel is a liability. So I wrote a short rebuttal, sent it off, and filed it away. I have no idea whether it went any further, or whether it reached Walt himself. But now seems a perfect moment to resurrect it, so here it is, just as I wrote it in October. It doesn't address all the arguments made in the new essay, because Walt didn't make all those arguments in his book. But it will do for now.
Fortunately we do not live in Stephen Walt's world, where shared values with others are meaningless, and cerebral mandarins make foreign policy by fiat. We live in a real world, where real people respond to other real people who share history and values, and where foreign policy is the result of a tumultuous interaction of interests, ideas, and emotions. Walt would have the United States make its foreign policy like Syria and Egypt do. It's not going to happen.
But let's enter Walt's World, and accept its presumptions, for argument's sake—and for the sake of an argument about Israel. Let's set aside the claim that Israel and the U.S. share democratic values, rooted in a common tradition. Let's set aside the fact that the American public has a genuine regard for Israel, shown in poll after poll, which prevents it from ever seeing Israel as one more Norway. (Walt: if Israel tries to impose an "unjust solution" on the Palestinians, the United States should reduce its support for Israel to "the same way that we support a Norwegian state.") Let's just ask his simple question: is Israel a strategic asset or a strategic liability for the United States?
To recap: Walt thinks that by any objective measure, U.S. support for Israel is a liability. It causes Arabs and Muslims to hate America. Since he thinks the United States should disengage from the Middle East, and follow a policy of "offshore balancing," he believes America needs to cultivate a sense of shared purpose with Arabs and Muslims, many of whom detest Israel or its policies or both. The less the United States is identified as a supporter and friend of Israel's five million Jews, the easier it will be for the United States to find local proxies and clients to keep order among the billion or so Muslims. And the only thing that has prevented the United States from seeing this clearly is the pro-Israel lobby, operating through fronts as diverse as AIPAC, The Washington Institute, and—yes—even the Brookings Institution. Have I simplified Walt's argument? Probably not as much as you might think.
To answer Walt's simple argument, I'll respond with a simple question. If you need an ally somewhere, don't you want it to be the smartest, most powerful, and most resourceful guy on the block, who also happens to admire you? And what is the point of having an ally who's backward, weak, irresolute, and thinks in his heart of hearts that you're his enemy? That's the choice the United States faces in the Middle East.
It took the United States some twenty years to figure this out. Between 1948 and 1967, it believed in Walt's zero-sum concept of the Middle East. The United States recognized Israel in 1948, but it didn't do much to help it defend itself, for fear of alienating Arab monarchs, oil sheikhs, and the "Arab street." That was the heyday of the sentimental State Department Arabists and the profit-driven oil companies.
So Israel went elsewhere. It got guns from the Soviet bloc, and fighter aircraft and a nuclear reactor from France. It even cut a deal with old adversary Britain at the time of the Suez adventure. Israel wasn't in the U.S. orbit, and it didn't get significant American aid, but it grew ever stronger. It even became a nuclear state. Then came June 1967, and Israel showed its stuff. In October 1973, it achieved what military analysts have called an even greater victory, repulsing and reversing a surprise attack that might have overwhelmed a less determined and resourceful people.
It was then that the United States began to look at Israel differently: as a potential ally. The fact that the United States hadn't backed Israel before 1967 didn't prevent key Arab capitals from falling into the Soviet orbit. To the contrary: along with Nasser, they tried to play Washington off Moscow, with a preference for Moscow since it made policy by uncomplicated diktat. America's Arab allies were in a precarious position, and in 1958 it had to send the Marines to Lebanon to bail some of them out.
In 1967, Israel showed itself to be stronger than the whole lot of its neighbors, transforming U.S. perceptions. Israel looked to be the strongest, most reliable, and most cost-effective ally against Soviet penetration of the Middle East, because it could defeat any combination of Soviet clients on its own. It could humiliate them, and in so doing, humiliate the Soviet Union and drive thinking Arabs out of the Soviet camp. That worked: expanded U.S. support for Israel persuaded Egypt to switch camps, winning the Cold War for the United States in the Middle East. Egypt thus became an American ally alongside Israel, not instead of Israel, and became integrated into an overall Pax Americana. The zero-sum theory of the Arabists—Israel or the Arabs, but not both—collapsed. U.S. Middle East policy underwent its Copernican revolution.
Before 1973, the Arab states thought they might defeat or destroy Israel by some stroke of luck, and they tried their hand at it in 1948, 1967, and 1973. Since 1973, the Arab states have understood not only that Israel is strong, but that the United States is Israel's guarantor. As a result, there have been no general Arab-Israeli wars, and Israel's Arab neighbors have either made peace with it (Egypt, Jordan), or keep their borders quiet (Syria, Lebanon). The Levant corner of the Middle East, for all the saturation coverage it gets from an overwrought media, has not been a powder keg, and its crises haven't required direct American military intervention. This is due to U.S. support for Israel—a support that appears so unequivocal to Arabs that they have despaired of overturning it.
United States support for Israel has enhanced its standing in another way, as the only force, in Arab eyes, that can possibly persuade Israel to cede territory it has occupied since 1967. In a paradoxical way, the United States has been a major beneficiary of the Israeli occupation of Arab territories: Arab leaders who wish to regain lost territory must refashion themselves to pass an American test. When they do, the United States sees to it that they are rewarded, and the result has been a network of U.S.-endorsed agreements based on U.S.-mediated Israeli concessions.
It is this "peace process" that has turned even revolutionary Arab leaders into supplicants at the White House door. They would not be there if a strong Israel didn't hold something they want, and if the United States, Israel's ally, were not in a position to deliver it. Walt's notion that Israel has enjoyed total and unqualified support from the United States blinds him to the ways the United States has leveraged its support for Israel into Israeli concessions that are the bedrock of the Pax Americana in the Levant. (It could even be argued—just to be mischievous—that the U.S. interest is best served by a perpetual "peace process," fed by slow and incremental Israeli concessions.)
Compare this to the situation in the Gulf, where U.S. allies are weak. There, the absence of a strong ally has wreaked havoc with U.S. policy, and forced the U.S. to intervene repeatedly. The irresolute Shah, once deemed a U.S. "pillar," collapsed in the face of an anti-American upsurge, producing the humiliation of the embassy seizure and a hostile, entrenched, terror-sponsoring regime still bent on driving the United States out of the Gulf. Saddam Hussein, for some years America's ally, launched an eight-year bloody war against Iran that produced waves of anti-U.S. terror (think Lebanon), only to turn against the United States by occupying Kuwait, and threatening the utterly defenseless Saudi Arabia. Absent a strong ally in the region, the United States has had to deploy, deploy and deploy again. In the Kuwait and Iraq wars, it has put something like a million sets of boots on the ground in the Gulf, at a cost that surely exceeds a trillion dollars.
It's precisely because the Gulf doesn't have an Israel—a strong, capable local ally—that Walt's offshore balancing act can't possibly succeed. If the United States is not perceived to be willing to send in troops there—and it will only be perceived as such if it sometimes does send them—then heavily populated and technologically advanced states (formerly Iraq, today Iran) will attempt to muscle Saudi Arabia and the smaller Arab Gulf states, which have the bigger reserves of oil. In the Gulf, the United States has no allies. It has only dependencies, and their defense will continue to drain American resources, until the day Americans give up their SUVs.
In Israel, in contrast, the U.S. is allied to a militarily adept, economically vibrant state that keeps its part of the Middle East in balance. The U.S. has to help maintain that balance, with road maps and diplomatic initiatives, but this is at relatively low cost, and many of the costs flow back to the U.S. in the form of arms sales, useful Israeli technological innovations, etc.
In the overall scheme of the Pax Americana, then, U.S. policy toward Israel and its neighbors over the past thirty years has been a tremendous success. Has the U.S. brought about a final lamb-lies-down-with-lion peace? No; the issues are too complex. Are the Arabs happy about U.S. support for Israel? No; they still dream of pushing Israel off the map. But any time U.S. interests are upheld without the dispatch of U.S. troops, it's a success. That Walt can't see this suggests that his own vision is marred by a bias against Israel, the depth of which only he knows.
Walt's notion that U.S. support for Israel is the source of popular resentment, propelling recruits to Al-Qaeda, is of a piece with his argument that the United States is hated for what it does (its detested policies), and not what it is (its admired values). In fact, America isn't hated for what it does or what it is. It's hated because of what they can't do, and what they aren't. They can't accumulate power, and they can't handle modernity, and they resent anyone who reminds them of it. How would U.S. abandonment of Israel alleviate this inferiority complex, which has been centuries in the making?
And is it not actually better for the United States to signal the Arabs that until they change, Israel will remain America's favorite son? Would this not be doubly so in Walt's preferred scenario of "offshore balancing," in which America would drop its active democratizing altogether? What lever would remain to encourage progressive change in the Arab world, if the United States were to back away from the one democratic, modern, and pluralistic society in the Middle East—the most persuasive and proximate argument made to the Arabs, for the empowering and overpowering might of Western democracy and Western modernity? Would the atrophy of such an Israel not fill the ranks of extremists, much as the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia to Hitler did?
Indeed, for argument's sake, let's imagine that we have followed Walt's policy—that we have somehow tumbled back to the pre-Copernican policy. The United States has decided that Israel should "go it alone," since Israel isn't willing to concede all things to the insatiable Arab appetite for Israeli concessions. How long would it be before the Arabs would revert to their pre-1967 fantasy of defeating or destroying Israel? (The medieval-minded Islamists have never abandoned it.) How long would it be before Israel felt compelled, as it did in 1967, to launch a preemptive strike against Egypt, with its massive conventional force, or Iran, which even now rattles a nuclear saber against Israel? Remember, pace Walt, Israel isn't Norway: it can and will defend itself against threats, be they real or perceived, present or anticipated. It is populated by the remnant of a people that was nearly obliterated in the twentieth century, and that's unlikely to take chances in the twenty-first. Less American support would mean less Israeli restraint, less Israeli maneuverability, and a quicker Israeli finger on the trigger.
How long would it be before the United States would have to pull out all the stops to defuse gigantic crises, or clean up the mess in the aftermath of another war? How long would it be before the United States would have to deploy forces—to save an Arab regime that didn't join the frenzied free-for-all, or to position peacekeeping forces between hostile armies, or to reassure Israel to keep its nukes in the silos? Why would any serious policymaker even contemplate exchanging the present stability—and the situation is stable—for these uncertainties and imponderables? And for what? Some boost for America in Arab public opinion polls, which seem to have Walt all twisted in knots of anguish?
In short, the Levant in Walt's World would become a far more dangerous place than it is now, for Israelis, for Arabs, and ultimately for Americans. Without a strong Israel, buttressed by the United States, it might begin to look like it did before 1967, or as the Gulf has looked over the last three decades. Why anyone would imagine this to be a feasible U.S. policy option—even at Harvard—is a mystery
Good for Phil Weiss for getting behind walt and measheimer. People always tell muslims to "speak out" or "condemn terror". Jews similarly need to "condemn" the neo cons. war is terrorism and they are terrorists.
Ugh. The NY Observer is starting to look like the NY Sun.
As often pointed out, the mostly Jewish-pro-Israeli Straussian neo-cons are finally in power in the White House after generations(2..3?)of disciplined effort and sacrifice not to mention transfigurations, dissimulations, betrayals,and lies and all in the service of the age old agenda of 'whats good for the jews'. They got their long fought for opportunity to effect their rather anachronistic/19th century/European/racist/nationalist/socialist/Utopic/pseudo-Biblical/secularist/aggressive, dreams (in contrast to America's normative and traditional Anglo-Saxon pragmatism) and it is failing and failing MOST dangerously! Will they now bow out as chastened losers? …after all that effort and trouble?……….NOT BLEEDING LIKELY! I fear that the 'Samson Complex'(Masada complex)is now in play. The toxic, nay, lethal brew known to us as Neoconservatism has two more years in power! This is the the last opportunity to deploy their great weapon, ie US might for their ends. They shall try again……this time by attacking Iran or more correctly, by getting America to do Israel's dirty work. If the Apocalyptical Plan works, and the world is made safe for Israel and Coke (NOT BLEEDING LIKELY!) it will prove to be 'the Wisdom of the Ages'(a Disney/Bambi promise that warms the hearts of all those dumb fundamentalist gentiles led by their dumbest leader Bush who unlike their breath-takingly brilliant jewish task masters, all seem to have shit for brains). If it fails and it all goes down catastrophically, like blind Samson at the Philistine Temple, they will at least have the biblical consolation of having brought THE WHOLE HOUSE DOWN! LET EVERYONE OF GOOD WILL, JEW AND GOY ALIKE DO THEIR UTMOST TO STOP THIS MADNESS!
rene, too many acid trips from the 1960's I presume
Rene: take a valium already,
Has a card carrying member of the LOBBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! though, I'm going to kick your name up to the elders in Jerusalem. We will find you and be afraid Rene, be very afraid. After all, next to killing Christ, the plauge, Capitalism, Communism and everything in between your not that tough, You'll never know that its us though because we can take any shape, any form, in order to sink our neferious fangs into healthy host societies. And when we go to the Samason option I'm going to vote that Israel saves at least one bomb to drop on your house
lol that eliot cohen essay is terrible. You can already see writing like that fading away. "when bin laden's fatwa clearly says" yeah because of bin ladens fatwa israel is in the clear. if that were true we would be too because we are no longer in saudi arabia. meaningless clever little arguments probably written by some jr neo cons as an assignment.
Bill, your would-be 'pithy' comments make me think you must be one of those christian fundamentalists refered to in my comment above
Lester, I know to you its all about the Jews, or should I say the kike vermin, and neo-conservative is reall just another name for zionist warmonger but what if your wrong. What if Islam isn't a religion of peace. And throwing allies over the side isn't really an honorable thing to do. Consider that possiblity when your genuflecting to the picture of Hitler that I'm sure you have on your wall
The wise king, (a title, by the way that puts one in mind of Leo Strauss' Orchard Street version of 'Platonism')is using good cop, bad cop threats!!! Quick, w.k., remove your comment , the inanity of your argument will have one believe that you too are a christian fundamentalist and get you thrown out of your zionist cell.
perlman- "Consider that possiblity when your genuflecting to the picture of Hitler that I'm sure you have on your wall"
no.
In his guilt-by-association attack on Walt and Mearsheimer, Eliot A. Cohen calls himself a "proud Jew." Now if only he were a proud American.
Gene, Eliot Cohen was being attacked by Walt and Mearsheimer because he is Jewish, hence the response.
Rene, Leo Strauss, Orchard St, I guess all those I'm not antisemitic I'm just anti Israel nuances just flew out the window. By the way Leo Strauss, who I just had a seance with since he has been dead a while had to flee the Nazi's, I guess they didn't get the word that he was really at the center of the spider web.
By the way, you really do need to take a valium, or have some more sex,
Eventually, Phil, you will realise that dismissing complaints about Jewish predominance in the professions as 'populist' is a smidgeon offensive.
One of the problems is that many things can be true at once; i.e. not necessarily mutually exclusive. Let me state that I am lefty, Jewish, American, pro-Israel, two-state solution on the lines of Barak-Rabin negotiations during Clinton era, anti-occupation of west bank, yada yada yada.
1. Neocons are predominantly but not exclusively Jewish, and the Jewish ones are predominantly but not exclusively pro-Likudnik (and parties to their right) Israel, and pro-Republican U.S. They also tend to be anti-peace making by Israel (real two state solution per Israeli Labor party and those to their left).
2. AIPAC is run by NeoCon and otherwise conservative (right wing?) Republicans (U.S.) who act not as an Israeli lobby but as a Likud lobby. They opposed Oslo, opposed negotiations with Syria, opposed Camp David, opposed Israeli policy when Barak and Rabin were prime ministers and undercut their policies and negotiations for peace. I think NY Review article on W&M & AIPAC was quite good on this.
3. Jewish American on the other hand are overwhelming Democratic. Have been in the past. Still are. In fact their voting was even more Dem and anti-Republican in the 2006 elections then in 2004. Despite the NeoCons tiny loud minority, Jewish American as a whole have been from teh beginning more opposed than the average American to the Iraq invasion and occupation. So yes we are patriotic Americans… and as such we as group are STILL actually more Democratic, more liberal, more opposed to Neocon & Bush Admin. policy then the average American. Alas, we in the large majority have failed to either re-take AIPAC or set-up more powerful (commensurate with our numbers) counterweight to AIPAC and NeoCons.
4. The most senior folks in the Admin… Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, the Joint Chiefs, Tommy Franks, and many others (Stephen Cambone?), are not Jewish, and have been known to have minds & opinions of their own (ok, maybe not Rice). Admittedly Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby, Perle, etc. are Jewish. Khalizad & Chalabi are Muslim.
So, in summary, some Jews probably are guilty of having influence and double loyalty (e.g., Perle, Peretz, etc)… and also being wrong (wrong on Iraq, wrong on Israel/Palestine).
However, large majority of American Jews completely disagree with them.
And lots of non Jews were the actual senior leaders in doing Iraq, undermining peace talks, etc.
"I am lefty, Jewish, … anti-occupation of west bank."
Steve, have you urged your congressman to cut off all aid to Israell until they dismantle the settlements?
Perhaps when people say that "the Jews" promoted the war in the Mideast, they mean the Jews who actually make their voices heard. (And as you probably know, our media has quite a few in that category.)
I want to thank you for your blog, which I very much enjoy and look forward to every day, and to your sponsorship of meaningful discussions of extremely serious issues in an intelligent and genuinely even-handed manner, which is the only way that the truth can ever be collectively discovered when dealing with highly complex issues laden with emotion.
And my compliments — and my gratitude — on the courage and clear thinking you display in your support of Professors Mearsheimer and Walt, and of President Carter, in the face of those give us no alternative but to conclude that they are either incapable of logical thinking or are deliberately mongering fallacies in an attempt to fill up a page and confuse those who prefer to respect authority rather than to examine the validity of the authority's arguments.
I refer specifically to the very first paragraph of the very first comment posted in this thread, written, though not posted, by Eliot A. Cohen, who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and so should naturally be familiar with basic logical reasoning. The very first paragraph of Cohen's article is reproduced here for convenient reference:
"Yes, It's Anti-Semitic"
"Academic papers posted on a Harvard Web site don't normally attract enthusiastic praise from prominent white supremacists. But John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" has won David Duke's endorsement as "a modern Declaration of American Independence" and a vindication of the ex-Klansman's earlier work, presumably including his pathbreaking book, "Jewish Supremacism." "
Let us examine this single paragraph in terms of facts, logic, and rhetoric.
First, what facts do we learn from this paragraph?
1. David Duke has endorsed "The Israel Lobby."
2. Well, unfortunately, there aren't any more facts.
I can see that Cohen is trying to say something more in the last sentence, but I can't quite figure out what it is. Is he saying that Mearsheimer and Walt have written "The Israel Lobby" in order to vindicate one of David Duke's earlier works, which Cohen, unfortunately, doesn't name? This would make sense if Cohen provided us with information as to whether either Mearsheimer or Walt ever said that "The Israel Lobby" was written to vindicate David Duke's writings. Does such a statement exist? No. It might also make sense if Mearsheimer or Walt ever joined one of Duke's organizations. But this has never happened either.
Does Cohen mean that David Duke thinks "The Israel Lobby" vindicates Duke's earlier thinking? Cohen, regrettably, provides no Duke source, but even if he did, it wouldn't matter. A point by point comparison of Duke's work with Mearsheimer and Walt's is necessary to decide whether "The Israel Lobby" vindicates anything Duke wrote about. Cohen does not do this. In the absence of such a study, what David Duke opines about "The Israel Lobby" has no more credibility than the opinions about Jesus Christ of the three people I have met in my life who believe they ARE Jesus Christ. Which is zero. Nada. Nichts.
Or is Cohen saying that HE thinks "The Israel Lobby" is a vindication of Duke's earlier work? But he can't be saying that either because the indefiniteness of his remark: "presumably including his pathbreaking book, 'Jewish Supremacism.'" Now "The Israel Lobby" either IS like Duke's book, "Jewish Supremacism" or IS NOT like "Jewish Supremacism." I haven't read "Jewish Supremacism", so I can't tell you. And if Cohen hasn't read it, then he can't say either. And if he has read it, then why the "presumably"� We'll get to why I think Cohen brought in "Jewish Supremacism" in the rhetoric section.
Logically expressed, the article looks out like this:
If David Duke endorses "The Israel Lobby," then "The Israel Lobby" must be anti-Semitic (from the title of the article) / pro-Klan.
Formally, the argument is:
If Duke endorses X, then X must be anti-Semitic / pro-Klan.
This is easily seen to be false by a substitution for X:
If Duke endorses Nathan's Hot Dogs, then Nathan's Hot Dogs must be anti-Semitic / pro-Klan.
or
If Duke endorses "The Fiddler on the Roof," then "The Fiddler on the Roof" must be anti-Semitic / pro-Klan.
Duke's endorsement of "The Israel Lobby" tells us nothing about "The Israel Lobby." Duke may be lying. Duke may be crazy. Duke may be trying to get some cheap publicity. Duke may have never read the paper at all. Duke may have been out drinking all night. We just don't know about the relationship until we make the point by point comparison of the professors' work with Duke's.
But Eliot A. Cohen's bringing up David Duke in the context of "The Israel Lobby" tells us a great deal about Eliot A. Cohen. Which leads us to the rhetoric section.
The attentive reader will notice that I have spent all this time discussing the first paragraph of the article that forms the first comment of this thread. This was deliberate. Some rhetorical effects must be used at the beginning to be effective.
The following quotations are all taken from "The Hasbara Handbook: Promoting Israel on Campus." It is produced by the World Union of Jewish Students. I have some reader of this blog to thank — when I find your name again, I'll publicly thank you — for making a cryptic reference to "hasbara" which I had never heard of and had to look up, and have since profited so much from it that I now refer to it, in turn, for the benefit of others. We're going to take a quick peek at it now, and then we're done. Beginnings. What's so special about beginnings?
http://www.middle-east-info.org/take/wujshasbara.pdf
Hasbara Handbook page 6. Being Proactive and Promoting Israel
"…However it is important that Israel activists are proactive too. Proactivity means taking the initiative and setting the agenda. It means being on the attack."
Please note, there is nothing here (or anywhere else in the 131 page Handbook) about a fair and open discussion or a rational debate. There is nothing here about getting at the truth. The Hasbara Handbook is, pure and simple, a book of instructions on how to promote a certain agenda — Israel. I make no claims — because I have no knowledge — as to whether Eliot A. Cohen or anyone else promoting Israel has ever read this manual. I only urge the objective reader to make comparisons for him or herself, and draw their own conclusions. If their conclusions are along the lines of "if the shoe fits…, then don't let them pull your leg," I won't be too surprised.
Hasbara Handbook page 6. Being Proactive and Promoting Israel
"Why Be Proactive? Agenda Setting.
The Person who sets the agenda will usually win the debate….However by setting the agenda Israel activists get to determine what to talk about, and can therefore discuss the things they feel help promote the pro-Israel message. Being proactive keeps the right issues in the public eye, and in the way Israel activists want them to be seen."
["Why Be Proactive"] People Believe What They Hear First.
Uncritical audiences believe something if they hear it first and hear it often. People tend to believe the first thing they hear about a certain issue, and filter subsequent information they hear based on their current beliefs. Once people believe something, it's hard to convince them that they were wrong in the first place."
And one last quote for today, which also relates to beginnings and to motivation.
Hasbara Handbook page 8. "Point Scoring and Genuine Debate.
"Point Scoring. Point scoring is a method of communication that prioritizes making certain points favorable to the speaker, and attacking opponents of the speaker by trying to undermine their positions. POINT SCORING COMMUNICATION OUGHT TO GIVE THE APPEARANCE OF RATIONAL DEBATE, WHILST AVOIDING GENUINE DISCUSSION." my emphasis.
"When to Point Score
Point scoring is the correct method of communication to use when the audience is likely to be only partially engaged."
The beginnings of a discussion, article, speech, etc., is just such a time.
Finally, let's use all this to summarize Mr. Cohen's paragraph's rhetorical flourishes.
1. "Yes, It's Anti-Semitic." (the title, the very first thing you see. "People Believe What They Hear First.")
2. David Duke, a Ku Klux Klan member, is thrown into the first paragraph along with Mearsheimer and Walt, even though there is no logical connection between the professors and the Klansman except the Klansman's statement, and no affiliation or admiration or anything whatsoever. ("Point scoring is the correct method of communication to use when the audience is likely to be only partially engaged.") This is how one sets up the "Guilt by Association" fallacy, or the observation that if you throw a lot of mud, a little will inevitably stick.
3. "The Israel Lobby" is a vindication of Duke's book, "Jewish Supremacy." Point scoring again. To the "partially engaged" and not well-informed, jewish supremacy sounds like it might have to do with the Israel lobby, even though "Jewish Supremacy" by David Duke has nothing to do with "The Israel Lobby" by Mearsheimer and Walt.
This is the agenda that Eliot A. Cohen sets. There is no truth in it whatsoever; but it's quite a good agenda for concealing the truth and promoting Israel. The use of such means speaks most eloquently about the Zionist cause. For were it legitimate, there would be no need for such means. The truth, when permitted to be heard, is always chosen over lies.
Awesome take down Kobold!
Cohen is a subtle sophist. His words make you fume but you can't say exactly why. You just know something isn't right.
There's something forced about his outrage. You'd think the Zionist's side of the story wasn't getting heard:
"if one systematically selects everything unfair, ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group and equally systematically suppresses any exculpatory information"
Sounds like he's saying there's a "system" that's shutting out the 'po Jews from getting a fair hearing.
Not credible.
Alan Wherever You Are — Thank You!
Thanks to a little help from my friends, I found it.
Alan December 10, 2006 4:39 PM wrote: [he's speaking to Mr. Pearlman]
As your Hasbara manual declares, when out of your depth and when exposed as a bigot, it's better to leave quietly.[...]
Nicely written, Kobold.
Public discourse is the the bloodstream of a democracy. By intentionally thwarting and distorting honest communication, and getting away with it, the Zio-lobbyists delegitimize our democracy. People sense that the discussion is not about truth, and they tune it out. The price we pay for the lobby is not confined to a distorted foreign policy in the Mideast. It corrodes the values of our society.
Bravo Kobold!
Poetry in motion!
or if you prefer…
Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee!
That was thoroughly enjoyable and informative reading. My sincerest thanks.
Duke left the Klan in 1978.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke
Kobold,
Thank you, thank you. I haven't been very active lately on this blog because I felt disheartened. I felt that there is nothing we can really do about these issues, that we will have to let history take its course and let the Zionist agenda proceed and self-destruct, with Israel, ordinary Jews, Americans and millions of Arabs ultimately paying the price.
But it goes even deeper than that. Studying Judaism and Zionism, the concept of self-fulfilling prophesies comes to mind:
******
"The resurgence of Orthodoxy in Israel in recent years, and its attraction for many secular Israelis, is a function not only of the contemporary crisis of secular values that has led to a return to traditional religion in many parts of the world but also of Israel’s unique situation. When Israelis ask themselves why, despite Zionism’s promise to the Jews that their enemies would vanish with the advent of a Jewish state, they now have a wider circle of foes than ever, it is Judaism that has the most coherent answer. “In every generation there are those who stand over us to destroy us,” says the Passover Haggadah, and the belief that this is rooted in the nature of things and that God’s chosen people will inevitably draw the wrath of those who quarrel with His choice is intrinsic to Jewish religious thought. Religious Jews may be the only Jews who are never surprised by perduring anti-Semitism."
Israel’s New Reality, Commentary, 2006
******
Of course this is very convenient because it shreds the responsibility of one’s own actions. “This is rooted in the nature of things”!!!. So, the reason others might oppose extremist Zionists has never anything to do with their actions and their consequences, it is only because opponents hate the fact that Jews are God’s chosen people!!! What an explanation!
How can we possibly deal with that? Reading the talkback sections on Israeli newspapers, it becomes immediately evident that this attitude, that no matter what Jews do they will be hated anyway, is indeed deeply ingrained in the Israeli mentality. Never mind that Zionism and Judaism are not identical. Never mind that the extremist revisionist Zionism which has prevailed was just one of several and often very antithetical brands of Zionism (there were even early Zionists advocating a one-state solution!). In the minds of American Jewish leaders and Israeli politicians and Rabbis, the Zionism of Greater Israel and Judaism has become one. And the misgivings of everyone else are simply in “the nature of things”, what God indeed promised Jews. Thus, the self-fulfilling prophecy.
However, regardless of my pessimism in dealing with an issue which is not only political but also religious and social, I very much enjoyed your commentary on Cohen’s propaganda piece. On the classic propaganda trick he uses in that first paragraph, allow me to repost some comments from a debate with a “Laurence Mintz”:
******************
“So far you have only attacked Mr. Weiss, repeatedly, mostly with ad hominem attacks or suggestive associations with despicable figures, a classic, textbook propaganda trick. Here is a quick one:
"…I wonder if Philip Weiss saw Wolf Blitzer's interview with David Duke and, if so, how long before he starts invoking "the great David Duke" for our edification[.]"
Posted by: Laurence Mintz | December 14, 2006 12:27 PM
Phil Weiss and David Duke. Hmmmm.”
***
“ The classic textbook propaganda trick you use here is discrediting a valid argument by showing despicable figures using that argument as well. What David Duke says doesn't matter. What matters is [whether] what Phil Weiss is saying is true or not. Suppose Hitler said the earth is round, would you disagree with an astronomer because Hitler said the same thing the astronomer says?”
***
"Go seek out the Duke/Blitzer exchange and tell me DD's thoughts on Israel, the Lobby, etc. don't chime nicely with PW's (Come to think of it he also sounds a lot like you.)"
Laurence Mintz
"When Shlomo Ben-Ami and Martin Indyk said that John Mearsheimer was antisemitic for speaking of a collection of Jews who influence policy, Judt demolished them by quoting Arthur Koestler when he became an anticommunist and said that Just because idiots and bigots share some of his views doesn't discredit the views. The job of the social scientist is to describe the true conditions of society; are these statements accurate or not? That is the only issue. I'm paraphrasing. Judt was way more eloquent."
Phil Weiss
mondoweiss.observer.com/2006/09/the-great-debate-at-cooper-union-last-night.html
Posted by: Brian | December 16, 2006 9:56 AM
******************
My comments and Brian’s comment from this debate are here:
http://mondoweiss.observer.com/2006/12/how-many-bubbles-in-a-bar-of-soap-jimmy-carter-fails-the-lit.html
Kobold, I'm not going to make this long because I actually have a job and a life, and not being the obsessive mainiac that you are but what it really comes down to is this. David Duke is a principal in the KKK. Walt and Mearsheimer wrote a polemic outlining the insidious and neferious zio/nazi control of our foreign policy. ( although to people like you the nazi's had the right idea ) We pull the strings and everybody dances. Clearly we travel to healthy host societies, take different shapes and form, and bend them to our evil ends. Duke loved it. What is so complicated about that.
Its not about arriving at a settlement or anything to you people. Its about the JEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
It always has been.
Pearlman, suppose the fact that you consistently attack and insult others here makes people dislike you.
Could it be that this is because of your behaviour?
Of course not! You create the perfect alibi by believing that this is because you are a JEW!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's the very psychological process someone described above.
You might also want to look up what the concept "projection" means in psychology…
Here is how it works with you:
1) You are a racist who thinks Arabs are animals. That makes you a racist and an anti-Semite as well since Arabs are Semites. Then you project this to us by naming us anti-Semites and racists, even though it is you who is one!
2) You see that the Palestinians and Arabs are the roadblock to your biblical fantasies of the Greater Israel you crave, so you want to destroy them (actually, you want America to destroy them). Then you project this to us and accuse us we want to destroy Israel, even though the only one here who wants to destroy anyone is you!
3) You hate Mr. Weiss and Carter and anyone who stands up to this Greater Israel lunacy. Again you project those feelings to us and accuse us that we hate Jews, even though the only one here expressing any hatred is you, towards all of us, repeatedly, every day, insulting us.
Get it?
Get a grip. Look in the mirror!
I have enjoyed reading many of the posts on this thread, but I just wanted to thank Steve for speaking up. I found your post enlightening and reassuring. I'll try to remember that there's a silent majority of Amerucan Jews who don't feel well represented by AIPAC.
Of course Iraq is a complicated issue, and of course the USA didn't go there just to serve Israel's interests. No government on earth operates that way. The administration had to be convinced it was in the USA's interests, somehow, or it would not have happened.
People sometimes over-simplify things. It's easier that way. But it isn't necessarily correct.
"The administration had to be convinced it was in the USA's interests."
Well, "the administration" is just a group of individuals, each with their own motivation. Are you sure Douglas Feith, to pick just one member of the administration, had to be convinced it was in the USA's interests before he stovepiped misleading intelligence into the White House? And that Scooter LIbby had to be convinced it was in the USA's interests before he promulgated that misinformation to the media? Different individuals have different motivations, but the neocon's motivations never stray very far from Israel.
Alan wrote: "…I haven't been very active lately on this blog because I felt disheartened…."
There's an old Lower Slobovian folk saying that goes something like:
If you take a ride on a merry-go-round with the Devil, don't complain about being dizzy.
There's also this variant found in some mountainous districts:
If you go riding on a merry-go-round with the Devil, don't ask why you're not merry when you get off.
Alan — you are the same 'Alan' who pointed out Hasbara in this blog, aren't you? (and please don't get all Heraclitean on me and say that you can't step twice into the same blog…)
Patient: Doctor, it hurts whenever I do this.
Doctor: So don't do that.
If you're not the same 'Alan', please accept my apologies and go watch something restful on TV, like the new season of '24'.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Still here? OK, you ARE the same Alan then.
Sometimes there are simple solutions to painful problems. Perhaps this may be of value to you — and I don't mean for you to stop participating in this blog. I mean just the opposite. You are far too valuable and knowledgeable a participant and we don't want to lose you.
I mentioned those folk sayings because the word "disenchanted" in Lower Slobovian is expressed by a compound of "dizzy" and "not merry."
Since you are "dizzy" and "not merry", I feel that drastic measures are called for.
What are the rules of this blog?
Mr. Weiss, our generous host, puts near the top of the page:
"COMMENTS
We welcome anonymous, pseudonymous, and most other comments."
Thus, by explicit statement, Mr. Weiss structures this blog minimally — like the area set aside for chess / checkers in some public parks, where there are stone or metal tables with an 8 X 8 pattern of light and dark squares carved on them and chairs or benches to sit upon. There are no signs saying "Chess played here", and there are no rule books of chess posted, nor any police around to enforce the rules of chess. You just "know" that chess is what gets played here. And you know the rules.
In addition to his explicit statement above, Mr. Weiss, by his example in each opening piece, demonstrates that he values logical, referenced, unbiased, and thoughtful statements. From his examples alone, I'm sure that Mr. Weiss has firmly in mind a specific set of rules of discussion to which he personally abides.
When I enter a discussion, I too expect it to be conducted in a certain way, just as I expect the King to be moved only one space at a time and the Queen to galavant around any way her sweet heart desires — as long as she sticks to the straight and narrow. One such list of rules I personally have found helpful, is from "Attacking Faulty Reasoning" by T. Edward Damer :
A CODE OF CONDUCT FOR EFFECTIVE RATIONAL DISCUSSION
FALLIBILITY
TRUTH-SEEKING
CLARITY
BURDEN OF PROOF
CHARITY
RELEVANCE
ACCEPTABILITY
SUFFICIENCY
REBUTTAL
RESOLUTION
SUSPENSION OF JUDGMENT
RECONSIDERATION
FALLIBILITY
When alternative positions on any disputed issue are under review, each participant in the discussion should acknowledge that possibly none of the positions presented is deserving of acceptance and that, at best, only one of them is true or the most defensible position. Therefore, it is possible that thorough examination of the issue will reveal that one's own initial position is a false or indefensible one.
TRUTH-SEEKING
Each participant should be committed to the task of earnestly searching for the truth or at least the most defensible position on the issue at stake. Therefore, one should be willing to examine alternative positions seriously, look for insights in the positions of others, and allow other participants to present arguments for or raise objections to any position held with regard to any disputed issue.
CLARITY
The formulations of all positions, defences, and attacks should be free of any kind of linguistic confusion and clearly separated from other positions and issues.
BURDEN OF PROOF
The burden of proof for any position usually rests on the participant who sets forth the position. If and when an opponent asks, the proponent should provide an argument for that position.
CHARITY
If a participant's argument is reformulated by an opponent, it should be expressed in the strongest possible version that is consistent with the original intention of the arguer. If there is any question about that intention or about implicit parts of the argument, the arguer should be given the benefit of any doubt in the reformulation.
'For a practical application of the principles governing good argumentation summarized in this chapter and addressed throughout the book, see the detailed critique of several popular points of view, including those of Shirley MacLaine and Ronald Reagan, in Lawrence L. Habermehl's The Counterfeit Wisdom of Shallow Minds: A Critique of Some Leading Offenders of the 1980's (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1995).
RELEVANCE
One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to set forth only reasons that are directly related to the merit of the position at issue.
ACCEPTABILITY
One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to use reasons that are mutually acceptable to the participants and that meet standard criteria of acceptability.
SUFFICIENCY
One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to provide reasons that are sufficient in number, kind, and weight to support the acceptance of the conclusion.
REBUTTAL
One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to provide an effective rebuttal to all serious challenges to the argument or the position it supports and to the strongest argument on the other side of the issue.
RESOLUTION
An issue should be considered resolved if the proponent for one of the alternative positions successfully defends that position by presenting an argument that uses relevant and acceptable premises that together provide sufficient grounds to support the conclusion and provides an effective rebuttal to all serious challenges to the argument or position at issue. Unless one can demonstrate that these conditions have not been met, one should accept the conclusion of the successful argument and consider the issue, for all practical purposes, to be settled. In the absence of a successful argument for any of the alternative positions, one is obligated to accept the position that is supported by the best of the good arguments presented.
SUSPENSION OF JUDGMENT
If no position comes close to being successfully defended, or if two or more positions seem to be defended with equal strength, one should, in most cases, suspend judgment about the issue. If practical considerations seem to require an immediate decision, one should weigh the relative risks of gain or loss connected with the consequences of suspending judgment and decide the issue on those grounds.
RECONSIDERATION
If a successful or at least good argument for a position is subsequently found by any participant to be flawed in a way that raises new doubts about the merit of that position, one is obligated to reopen the issue for further consideration and resolution.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As this is not my blog, I cannot require anyone else to abide by these rules — nor can you. But they ARE very useful for immediately identifying those who have NOT come here for a rational discussion (or to play chess), but for some other reason, whatever that might be. (We'll leave off specifying just what THAT activity might be for a future blog, when we will offer incontrovertible proof.)
For example, if I come across someone who thinks they're infallibly right, or is uncharitable and calls other people bad names without any proof, or refuses or neglects to prove a statement but just asserts it, or who is constantly filling the air with irrelevant remarks — irrelevant to the theme article provided by our host Mr. Weiss — I know they're like somone who wants to eat lunch on my chess pieces in the park while I'm using them, and I deal with them accordingly.
If this set of rules, or a set similar to them, aren't being used and aren't firmly etched in your mind, no matter what you call it, you're not engaging in a rational discussion; you're doing something else, perhaps a verbal "Fight Club", perhaps dog wrestling, I don't know. Just don't come show me your cuts and bruises or whine about your new acquisiton of a wardrobe full of fleas. You will be getting what you asked for, whether you realize it or not.
Another way to look at the situation is that you are not "disheartened" at all, but rather suffering from a form of disorientation caused by cognitive dissonance: YOU are playing "have a rational discussion" [playing chess] but your partner in this match is playing "pin the tail on the donkey" — he's winning, and guess who the ass is?
The fact that he's winning is proof that you are also playing pin the tail on the donkey, because he can't play pin the tail on the donkey by himself.
How do I know he's winning?
Because meaningful rational discussions do not dishearten but refresh and uplift you. Truth vivifies, inspires. You can put that in the bank, baby.
And it is independent of circumstances, whatever they may be, and no no matter how grim.
There now, I'll bet your no longer either dizzy or unmerry.
Bon chance, mon ami.
Kobold,
Hmmmmm. Yes, this is the same Alan who has posted here Rabbi Weissmandel's and Grand Rebbe Teitelbaum's anti-Zionist polemics and terrible accusations regarding the Zionist organizations' actions during the holocaust, has given a lot of information on many many topics regarding Judaism, Israel, Zionism, and quite frankly, I didn't like the tone of your response.
Chances are, if you hadn't known about the Hasbara manual you are pretty new at this. So spare me your patronizing tone and advice and allow me to decide for myself, after endless hours of studying and debating these issues, whether I should feel disheartened or not. Consider the possibility that I might have a better idea of what we are dealing with here than you.
And if you think that when dealing with the likes of Zionists and religious fanatics, that Edward Damer's recipes will achieve anything other than pointless point-scoring (pun intended) as far as THEY are concerned, think again. This is NOT the point.
I'm only here to pass information to others and let them research things further and decide for themselves. I will continue to do so. I may have my doubts regarding the ultimate effect of this, but I haven't given up yet. It won't change anything as far as the Zionists and their worldview goes, because believers never care about facts or rational argument (see Bill Pearlman and others), but it might help educate others who'll hopefully oppose them once they understand what is going on and at their expense as far as Americans go. This is the only reason I occasionally engage in debates with hopeless fanatics, and it was indeed in one such debate that you learned about Hasbara. I couldn't care less about Pearlman or whoever I debate and whether I will end up being "bruised".
P.S. Being a good chess player, I have to inform you that the queen sticks to the straight and diagonal.
I don't think Alan is bruised because of his debates with people like Pearlman or Mintz or APS or Adolf or whoever. To the contrary! As far as I am concerned, it was pretty easy for him to discredit them – and enjoyable to watch!
I guess he just realizes the powers involved here, in the bigger picture. Don't underestimate the revisionist Zionists. Anyone who thinks it will be easy to successfully oppose them engages in wishful thinking.
Keep up the good work, Alan! You too, Kobold!
Kobold, it was Brian who wrote that he hasn't contributed lately because he was disheartened. Both Alan and Brian have made major contributions of knowledge to those who read the blog consistently. Alan took on and vanquished a major Israeli apologist/troll — sustaining a few psychic wounds in the process I would imagine.
I don't see this blog as being a debating society — if anything, I begin to despair when it does begin to resemble that. The fact of the matter is that Americans generally have been bombarded with extremely effective Israeli propoganda over the past several decades, to the point where it is more socially acceptable to be anti-American than it is to be anti-Israel. It takes a lot for an American to forcefully speak up for American interests where those interests happen to be in conflict with Israeli interests.
In other words, the "debate", the national debate, is loaded toward one side. And that side is not ours. These arrogant m'f'ers have to be taken down by whatever means possible before it's too late. They don't play by the Marquis de Queensbury rules and there's no reason why we should.
BTW, I loved your earlier post Jan. 11 7:28pm
Not feeeling the love here guys, but like the saying goes if the kaffiyeh/swastika fits………..
Alan wrote: "…quite frankly, I didn't like the tone of your response."
Alan, it was my intention to help, and if I failed to do that — and managed to insult you in the process — then obviously my communication was a failure. Please accept my humble apologies. No insult was intended; I knew nothing about you and so my remarks were a shot in the dark. As Hamlet said,
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother.
And if I ever use that tone again, you can club me with it .
Alan wrote: "…allow me to decide for myself, after endless hours of studying and debating these issues, whether I should feel disheartened or not. Consider the possibility that I might have a better idea of what we are dealing with here than you."
How could I prevent you; I wish to persuade you. I always consider the possibility that others know more than me. I'm quite certain that, in many things, you do know more than I do. It's not your knowledge I question. It's your tactics — though I'm not the brightest guy in the world, I honestly can't think of a single good reason for beating one's head on the wall. I'm sorry. Maybe it's just me.
My writing came, after reading the long posts you invited me to read, from a concern and from a feeling of camaraderie. Someone whom I thought had very good ideas had somehow got himself into a time-energy sucking black hole by trying to prove something to people who weren't listening, who would never listen, who were incapable of listening, who were paid not to listen, who were eminently unredeemable, and who were, it was obvious to me even with my far less knowledge and experience, only here to push his buttons for their own amusement and profit.
Sometimes, in the heat of battle, we lose track of this. I have done it myself. It's a chemical reaction to adrenalin. I can remember one roller coaster I rode on that went strait up and then straight down, it seemed, at 100 miles an hour: I was still on a rush fifteen minutes after I'd gotten off.
A friend and fellow warrior mentions a possible problem to you when he sees it; an enemy lets you depelete yourself.
If you don't believe my assessment of the efficacy of your tactics is correct, just look at how happy we've made Bill by all this interchange. He can limit himself to one measly incomplete sentence and only two name-callings. His smugness is itself the proof of what I say. I'm sure at The Israel Lobby Headquarters right now they're putting a great big gold star on his report card for January 13th.
You don't debate disinformation agents. That's what they want. You simply refuse to let them distract you from finding out and communicating the truth.
My goal for 2007: No More Gold Stars for Bill.
P.S. Being a chess player — and a writer — I allow my Queen a little double entendre from time to time.
Brian wrote: I don't think Alan is bruised because of his debates with people like Pearlman or Mintz or APS or Adolf or whoever.
Initially, I did think he was bruised, Brian. I'm glad you saw that because that was my intention. From his response, I see now I was wrong. Good. I don't want to see anyone I fundamentally agree with hurt or in bad spirits. As I get up to speed on the background here, I'll do my best not to step on toes I don't mean to.
Who or what is APS? Thank you.
Brenda wrote: Kobold, it was Brian who wrote that he hasn't contributed lately because he was disheartened.
Er, thanks for that, Brenda. I see it's gonna take me a while to get the names connected with the voices.
Brenda wrote: The fact of the matter is that Americans generally have been bombarded with extremely effective Israeli propaganda over the past several decades, to the point where it is more socially acceptable to be anti-American than it is to be anti-Israel.
No argument from me on any of that.
Brenda wrote: In other words, the "debate", the national debate, is loaded toward one side. And that side is not ours.
I'm with you here; but instead of calling it "the national debate" I would call it "the Party Line" or "The Propaganda Facade" , which of course, since they control the media, is all one sided. There is no debate when only one side is heard.
Brenda wrote: BTW, I loved your earlier post Jan. 11 7:28pm
and
I don't see this blog as being a debating society — if anything, I begin to despair when it does begin to resemble that.
Thank you for the BTW.
Now if you mean by "debating society" some uptight bunch of white dudes in blazers and ties hypocritically posturing in platitudes about policies they have no intention of ever implementing in the real world, then I'm against debating societies too. But if to examine an opponent's argument in terms of facts, logic, and rhetoric is not a form of debate, then what is it? Because then I don't know what did I do to merit your compliment. :)
Kobold, not to worry, I'll be around and am actually something of a chess player myself. but when I read your polemics it's just that you don't actually say anything beyond the usual bullshit that has been spouted since time immemorial. Its not about the Palestinians specifically, or the Moslems in general, its about the Jews, the conspiracy and the evil that we being. Doesn't make you any more original than Mohammad or Martin Luther. I'll be happy to debate at any time. The reason that my responses may not be as long as yours is because I actually have a life, not an obsession.
Kobold,
Apologies accepted, no problem. I think what happened was that you weren't sure you were talking to me or an impostor, thus the overall tone of your post, playing it a little safe just in case you were addressing the wrong person.
Please accept my apologies as well. Rereading everything, I have to admit I overreacted.
P.S. APS was one of the first apologists here who tried a different tactic, presenting himself as a moderate Israeli sympathizer open to debate. You have to realize that for weeks, the comments sections of this blog were dead because of the wiseking's and Pearlman's efforts (by that I mean heavy insults, spitting venom). It was really disgusting. Very often, nobody else was posting. A few of us took them head on and put them on the defensive very quickly. Then people like APS started showing up, they weren't effective obviously but the worse was over and the comments sections were alive again.
You are absolutely right that you can't really debate these guys, I know that. But sometimes one has to call their bluffs and neutralize their intimidation tactics. I was probably the first guy who called Pearlman on his racism, and it worked.
Thank you for your posts. We'll be seeing each other here!
Um, Brenda, just to clear this one up, it was Alan who said he wasn't active lately because he felt disheartened. You were probably confused 'cause towards the end of his post he copy-pasted a comment of mine and my name. Scroll up and you'll see what I mean.
Btw, Bill, I suck at chess but if you like backgammon, I'd love to kick your butt sometime!
Have a nice weekend everyone.
Alan–
We're back on track, bro'.
Thanks for the heads up about recent events. I will try to read more of the earlier posts as well as the current ones so that I know in detail what went on and not be a liability.
Alan, what worked, do I think the Palestinians are less a people than death cult, sure. How is that racism, the evidence supposrts that conclusion. If I don't get back on this right away with long spiels that are reminiscent of Mein Kamph the way you and the rest of your compatriots do its because I actually have a life and don't have time to research obscure quotes from completely objective souces like Chomsky, Finklestein, Jew Watch, the IHR, and the rest of the swamps that you people inhabit. But I wouldn't go anywhere, its actually a lot of fun to watch you people jump through verbal gymnastics and pontificate on things like intermarriage that you don't have a clue about.
Bill,
It worked, because instead of having you throwing the anti-Semitic libel and heavy insults at everyone, by proving that you are the actual bigot, you changed your tone, started making sense and even offered a few legitimate counterarguments – and you were even complimented for that, by Brenda if I remember well! Anyone who thinks you are obnoxious now should read what you were posting a few months ago!
May I also point out that for all your claims of having a life and not being obsessed, you are by far the most active poster and almost always the first one to offer his take on any new entry on this blog by Mr. Weiss?
P.S. I find it extremely interesting that I find myself sharing Brenda's feelings towards you. For some perverse reason, I've come to kinda like you! I'll try to find Brenda's post where she expresses that and tries to explain, because it's weird, but it's happening to me as well!
KoboldBlew wrote: I'm with you here; but instead of calling it "the national debate" I would call it "the Party Line" or "The Propaganda Facade" , which of course, since they control the media, is all one sided. There is no debate when only one side is heard.
—-
I think of it as the "Official Narrative." That's why anything outside of it is dismissed out of hand without feeling any need to substantiate the dismissal. The echo chamber takes care of the rest. It's like a recipe for "instant lemming". Just add ignorance and stir up.
Good job all on correcting misunderstandinngs. I have more times than I care to admit argued a point not being made at a person who also did not make it.
BTW, loved the primer on argumentation. Up to this point, I kept getting my @ss kicked by BP with his pithy, "No, it isn't" and "Hey jerkface!"
Lance wrote:
"Up to this point, I kept getting my @ss kicked by BP with his pithy, "No, it isn't" and "Hey jerkface!""
That's typical… defamation when there is no reasonable argument.
What I posted on the related thread,
http://mondoweiss.observer.com/2007/01/walt-and-mearsheimer-rebut-and-humble-their-critics.html
stands as well here under the circumstances:
Adolf writes: "What you and W&M are trying to do is to de-legitimize a large body of American public sentiment because that sentiment — ie, pro-Israeli — has actually won the day in America."
And HOW did it come about that a "pro-Israel sentiment" has "won the day in America"?
An interesting question. There seems to be something almost supernatural in this subjugation of three generations of Western men to the mumbo-jumbo of Zionism.
But it is not sorcery; it is a well-understood disease process studied by some psychologists who have been carrying out their research for years now though their results are not widely known. That, in itself, is due to the activities of the very process they are studying! But let me try to synopsize the progress of the disease using a real life example.
B'nai B'rith is an organization that can easily be compared to similar groups of other religions such as the Young Men's Christian Association or the Knights of Columbus; its declared objects were the help of the poor, sick and fatherless and good works in general.
An ideology of any benevolent association is formed by certain constant factors regardless of their quality, quantity, or scope of action: namely, the motivations of a wronged group, radical righting of wrongs, and the noble intentions of the individuals who join the organization. This is good. But it can be easily converted to evil because these same objectives can also facilitate sublimation of the feeling of being wronged by the universe that exist within pathological individuals. Finding a “home” in such organizations can release these deviant types from the social dictates of universal moral principles. With a “cause” to fight for, the end justifies the means. Only when pathological types are involved, the “end” is often not what the original organization had in mind.
When a benevolent association has been taken over by pathological elements, there is a gradual adaptation of the primary ideology to functions and goals other than the original formative ones. A certain kind of layering or schizophrenia of ideology takes place during this process. The outer layer closest to the original content is used for the group's propaganda purposes—especially as regards the outside world, although it can in part also be used inside with regard to disbelieving lower-echelon members. The second layer is fully comprehended by the insiders; it is more hermetic, generally composed by slipping a different meaning into the same names. Some current day examples of this kind of corrosion of language include:
1) "bringing peace [insert foreign country here]" – This refers not to bringing any kind of meaningful peace to a country that needs it. It simply means killing all enemies. Without anyone to fight back, there is peace. For a pathological deviant, peace means any and all opposition has been exterminated.
2) "bringing freedom to [insert foreign country here]" – This refers not to any real freedoms, but merely the freedom to rape, pillage, and plunder a given group of people. For a pathological deviant, freedom means doing whatever they hell he wants to.
3) "protecting our freedoms" – A variation of 2), this simply means protecting the right to rape, pillage, plunder, etc.
4) "defending oneself" / "acting in self-defense" – This refers not to any real type of defense, as a result of an unprovoked attack. Self-defense means that a pathological deviant has the right to maim, torture, terrorize, or kill anyone who complains that he is already maiming, torturing, terrorizing, or killing. For a deviant, defending oneself means attacking blaming the victim for the deviant's own crimes, and holding them fully accountable for actions that are the responsibility of the deviant.
5) "War on Terror" – The war on terror is a war of terror. It is a war on the victims of terror at the hands of psychopaths. When the victims of psychopathic terror respond, they are attacked in the name of terror.
6) re: morality, e.g. "Jewish morality" or "Israel's military is the most moral in the world" – When used in the context of a psychopathic military, 'morality' refers to a complete lack of conscience. For example, feeling empathy for your enemy is "soft", "weak or simple-minded". Cold-blooded killing machines are moral soldiers, in the minds of pathological deviants.
7) "Militant Islamo-fascism wants to take over the world and install the law of Islam on the peoples of the world" – This means that pathological deviants, in fact, wish to take over the world of normal people (the majority of humans), installing the universal law of the psychopath. This 'law' can manifest itself in any ideology, whether it by capitalist, socialist, fascist, communist, Judaic, Talmudic, Christian, Muslim, etc.
10) "Anti-semitic" – A label which refers to any behavior critical of the bloodthirsty Talmudic Zionist war-machine in Israel that murders Palestinians every day.
11) "Self-hating Jew" – A Jew that displays "anti-semitic" behavior but cannot have this label (libel?) applied for obvious reasons.
12) "Globalization" – It's not about the distribution of the marvelous wealth the capitalistic system has to offer to the poorer countries, but another way or another excuse for the big corporations and the wealthier nations to steal and plunder the natural resources of those same poorer countries leaving the native populations with nothing.
Getting back to doublespeak, since identical names signify different semantic content depending on the layer in question, understanding this "doublespeak" requires simultaneous fluency in both languages.
The masses of average people succumb to the first layer's suggestive insinuations for a long time before they learn to understand the second layer as well. But it is very important to notice that they DO, eventually, wise up!
However, in the beginning, comprehending this doubletalk is hard work fraught with quite understandable psychological resistance; this very duality of language, however, is a pathognomic symptom indicating that the organization in question is touched by the pathological process to an advanced degree.
With this in mind, we note that, in 1913, B'nai B'rith gave birth to the "Anti-defamation League" which, by 1947, had become a formidable secret police in America.
It could be said that the creation of the A.D.L. was a symptom that B'nai B'rith had been taken over from within by the above described pathological elements.
In Doublespeak "anti-defamation" means "defamation" and the A.D.L. lives by calumny, using such terms as anti-Semite, fascist, rabble-rouser, Jew-baiter, Red-baiter, paranoiac, lunatic, madman, reactionary, diehard, bigot and so on.
What is interesting to the objective observer is that the vocabulary is rather fixed and the true nature of any writer's or newspaper's allegiance may be detected by keeping count of the number of times these trade-mark words are used.
The achievement of the A.D.L. has been to make "trigger words" by iteration so that politicians, academics, and the average person hasten to deny that they are any of these things.
Under the influence of the A.D.L., reasoned debate became effectively outlawed.
When the A.D.L. was born in 1913 it had desk space in the parent B'nai B'rith office and a tiny budget. In 1933 Mr. Bernard J. Brown wrote:
"Through the intervention of the A.D.L. we have succeeded in muzzling the non-Jewish press to the extent that newspapers in America abstain from pointing out that any person unfavourably referred to is a Jew".
In 1948 the Jewish Menorah Journal of New York wrote:
"Should but one phrase in a reprinted literary classic reflect unjustly upon Jews, the A.D.L. will promptly belabour the innocent publisher until he bowdlerizes the offending passage. Let one innocent movie-producer incorporate a Jewish prototype, however inoffensive, in his picture and the hue and cry raised by the A.D.L. will make him wish he's never heard of Jews. But when Jews are subtly propagandized into accepting Communist doctrine . . . the A.D.L. remains silent. No word, no warning, no hint of caution, much less exposure and condemnation: although there are men high in the councils of the organization who should know by their own experience how the Communists 'infiltrate'." (The Menorah Journal spoke for the many Jews who were alarmed because the A.D.L. was attacking anti-Communism as anti-Semitism).
These quotes show the growth of the A.D.L.'s power in only thirty-five years. It has imposed the law of heresy on the public debate in America. No criticism of Zionism is allowed to pass without virulent attack.
"Jerusalem is the capital of the world no less than the capital of Israel" (the Zionist mayor of Jerusalem, 1952).
America has today very few writers who fight on for independent debate and comment. They will discuss any public matter, in the light of traditional American policy and interest, save Zionism, which hardly any of them will touch. If you ask them why, you will always get the same answer: it canno be done. The employed ones would lose their jobs, if they made the attempt. The independent ones would find no publisher for their books because no reviewer would mention these, save with the epithets enumerated above.
The A.D.L., of such small beginnings in 1913, as early as 1948 had a budget of three million dollars (it is only one of several Jewish organizations pursuing Zionist aims in America at a similar rate of growth of expenditure). Today, the budgets of these organizations are undoubtedly as large as the budgets of small nations.
The Menorah Journal, discussing "Anti-Defamation Hysteria", said:
"Fighting anti-Semitism has been built up into a big business, with annual budgets running into millions of dollars". It said the object was "to continue beating the anti-Semitic drum" and "to scare the pants off prospective contributors" in order to raise funds. It mentioned some of the methods used ("outright business blackmail; if you can't afford to give $10,000 to this cause, you can take your business elsewhere"), and said American Jews were being "stampeded into a state of mass-hysteria by their self-styled defenders".
The Menorah Journal also drew attention to the falsification of news by Jewish news agencies subsidized by the big organizations. It showed that some minor brawl among juveniles in Manhattan had been depicted in "front-page scare headlines which would have led a stranger to believe that a Czarist pogrom was going on" (by these same means the "Czarist pogroms" earlier, and Rabbi Stephen Wise's "reported pogrom in Berlin" in 1933 reached the world). Out of this particular "scare headline" grew a mass-meeting in Madison Square Garden, where Wendell Willkie (aspiring to the presidency at the time) declared:
"The mounting wave of anti-Semitism at home shocks me. . . etc., etc."
"Mass-hysteria" is not only produced among Jews and band-wagon politicians by this method; it produces another kind of mass-hysteria among earnest but uninformed people of the "Liberal" kind: the mass-hysteria of self-righteousness, which is a tempting form of self-indulgence.
George Orwell was of those who helped spread "mass-hysteria" in this way during those early days. He went to fight when the Civil War broke out in Spain, then discovering that Communism, when he saw it, was worse than the thing which (as he thought) he set out to fight against. He died before he could go to Palestine and experience any similar enlightenment about Israel, so that what he wrote about "anti-Semitism" was but the echo of "anti-defamationist hysteria".
He explored "anti-Semitism in Britain" (1945) and found " a perceptibly anti-Semitic strain in Chaucer". Mr. Hilaire Belloc and Mr. G.K.Chesterton were "literary Jew-baiters". He found passages in Shakespeare, Smollett, Thackeray, Shaw, T.S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and others "which if written now would be stigmatized as anti-Semitism" (he was right without knowing it; if written now they would have been stigmatized, the operative word being "stigmatized").
Then Orwell fell on his backside: He said that "offhand, the only English writers I can think of who, before the days of Hitler, made a definite effort to stick up for Jews are Dickens and Charles Reade". Thus he extolled one of the A.D.L.'s "Jew-baiters" as a champion of Jews.
In America the film of Oliver Twist was banned because of Fagin! This was the work of the A.D.L.; its representative, a Mr. Arnold Forster, announced:
"American movie-distributors refused to become involved in the distribution and exhibition of the motion picture after the A.D.L. and others expressed the fear that the film was harmful; the Rank Organization withdrew the picture in the United States".
Later the picture was released after censorship by the A.D.L.; "seventy two eliminations" were made at its command and a prologue was added assuring beholders that they might accept it as "a filmization of Dickens without anti-Semitic intentions".
A private organization which can produce such results is obviously powerful; there is nothing comparable in the world.
Vincent Sheehan wrote in 1949 when the A.D.L. was flexing its muscles:
"There is scarcely a voice in the United States that dares raise itself for the rights, any rights, of the Arabs; any slight criticism of the Zionist high command is immediately labeled as anti-Semitic".
Dorothy Thompson, whose picture and articles at that time were published everyday in hundreds of newspapers, similarly protested.
Sheehan's popularity with book-reviewers immediately slumped; Miss Thompson's portrait and writings disappeared from the American press.
Does anybody remember either of them?
How is this supernatural fog imposed on masses of people? What are the logistics? By what means has America (and the entire West) been brought to the state that no politician or writer or editor or producer of any mass media feels secure at his desk, until he has brought out his prayer-mat and prostrated himself to Zion?
How have presidents and prime ministers been led to compete for the approval of this faction like bridesmaids for the bride's bouquet?
Why do supposedly substantial persons suffer themselves to be paraded at hundred-dollar-a-plate banquets for Zion, or to be herded on to Zionist platforms to receive "plaques" for services rendered?
The power of money and the prospect of votes have demonstrably been potent lures, but by far the strongest weapon is the power to control published information; to lay stress on what a faction wants and to exclude from it all that the faction dislikes, and so to be able to give any selected person a "good" or a "bad" press. This is in fact control of "the mob". In today's language it is "the technique of propaganda and the approach to the masses", as Chaim Weizmann said, but it is an ancient Asiatic art and was described, on a famous occasion, by Saint Matthew and Saint Mark: "The chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude. . The chief priests moved the people . ."
In forty years the A.D.L. perfected a machine for persuading the multitude.
It is a method of thought-control of which the subject-mass is unaware and its ability to destroy any who speak against it is formidable.
One of the first to be politically destroyed was the head of the Congressional Committee charged to watch over sedition (the Un-American Activities Committee).
Martin Dies related that he was required by the secret inquisition to restrict the definition of "subversion" to "fascism", and to equate "fascism" with "anti-Semitism".
In other words, "subversion" must mean any kind of resistance to Zionism, not the subverting of the U.S. He would not yield, and was driven out of politics by defamation.
The A.D.L. (and the American Jewish Committee) "set out to make the American people aware of anti-Semitism". It informed Jews that "25 out of every 100 Americans are infected with anti-Semitism", and that another 50 might develop the disease.
By 1945 it was carrying out "a high-powered educational program, geared to reach every man, woman and child" in America through the press, radio, advertising, children's comic books and school books, lectures, films, "churches" and trade unions.
This program included "219 broadcasts a day", full-page advertisements in 397 newspapers, poster advertising in 130 cities, and "persuasions" subtly incorporated in the printed matter on blotters, matchbox covers, and envelopes.
The entire national press of the time ("1900 dailies with a 43,000,000 circulation") and the provincial, Negro, foreign-language and labor newspapers were kept supplied with, "and used", its material in the form of "news, background material, cartoons and comic strips".
In addition, the A.D.L. in 1945 distributed "more than 330,000 copies of important books carrying our message to libraries and other institutions", furnished authors with "material and complete ideas", and circulated nine million pamphlets "all tailored to fit the audiences to which they are directed". It found "comic books" to be a particularly effective way of reaching the minds of young people and the military, and circulated "millions of copies" of propaganda in this form. Its organization consisted of the national headquarters, public relations committees in 150 cities, eleven regional offices, and "2,000 key men in 1,000 cities".
The name of the body which supplied this mass of suggestive material never reached the public.
During the 1940's the system of "syndicated writers" in New York or Washington enveloped the entire American press. One such writer's column may appear in a thousand newspapers each day; editors like this system for its cheapness' it saves them the cost of employing their own writers. Through a few dozen such writers the entire stream of information can be tinctured at its source.
By all these means three generations have been brought up in America (and this applies equally to England) which have been deprived of authentic information about, and independent comment on, the nature of Zionism, its original connection with Communism, the infestation of administrations and capture of "administrators".
The opposition to this creeping control was strong at first and was gradually crushed during two decades by various methods, including the purchase of newspapers, but chiefly by unremitting and organized pressure, persuasive or menacing.
In America a newspaper which prints reports or comment unacceptable to the A.D.L. may expect to receive a visit from its representatives. Threats to withdraw advertising are frequently made. The corps of "syndicated" writers joins in the attack on any individual writer or broadcaster who becomes troublesome; many American commentators have been driven from the publishers' lists or "off the air" in this way.
Even the figures for expenditure, staff and activities, convey no true idea of the power and omnipresence of the A.D.L. It is incomprehensible that a body of such might can almost invisibly operate in a state still nominally governed by a president and Congress.
The A.D.L.'s numerous offices and sub-offices are clearly only the centers of a great network of agents and sub-agents, for its eye is as all-seeing as that of the N.V.D. in communist Russia or of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.
In in 1952, when a book by former London Times WW II correspondent had appeared in England, the American Legion's magazine at Hollywood published some five hundred words from it.
The A.D.L. at once demanded a retraction from the Hollywood commander of the Legion, who referred to the magazine's editor. No inaccuracy was alleged; the deputation just called the book "anti-Semitic".
The editor refused to retract unless false statement or other valid reason were proved, and resigned when the commander, ignoring him, published the familiar "apology" in face of threats that "all Jews" would boycott the Hollywood Stadium, which was operated by the Legion.
The editor, departing, said this proved the truth of what was stated in the book.
Ironically, the apology availed the commander nothing for the ABC, which had been televising the Legion's events at the Stadium, at once announced that it would terminate its contract with the Legion and televise rival events; the commander ruefully said that this "comes as a complete shock to me".
The reader need only multiply these few examples to see the effect on the total sum of information supplied to the public. The peoples of the Western nation-states are deprived of information in the matters most vitally affecting their present and future, by a press which (they are constantly told) is "the freest in the world".
In conclusion, we see that "a large body of American public sentiment …ie, pro-Israeli" has actually been "won" by a covert and insidious propaganda campaign. The "pro-Israeli" sentiment is, effectively, no different from the pro-Nazi sentiment of the WW II Germans.
Major tip of the hat to Douglas Reed and Andrew Lobaczewski.