Journalists Refuse to Weigh Neocons’ Own Statements of Israel-Centered Foreign Policy

On today’s Times Op-Ed page, Robert Wright says, "Critics murmur that neoconservatism is ‘all about
Israel.’" Then Wright deflects the idea with patter about neocons trying to spread democracy everywhere, even China.

The critical murmurs Wright dismisses are serious charges, based on the neocons’ own statements, and liberal journalists have botched their orders by failing to take these charges seriously. Here, for instance, is Norman
Podhoretz, neocon godfather, writing about the centralness of Israel, in Breaking Ranks (1979):

There was, to be sure, one thing that many of even the
most passionately committed American Zionists were reluctant to do, and that was
to face up to the fact that continued American support for Israel depended upon
continued American involvement in international affairs– from which it
followed that an American withdrawal into the kind of isolationist mood
that prevailed most recently between the two world wars, and that now looked as
though it might soon prevail again, represented a direct threat to the security
of Israel
. [my emphasis]

That was a neocon mission statement. Until journalists come to terms with these powerful, dangerous ideas, Americans’ understanding of the Iraq war will remain cloudy.

[Thanks to anon for appending further evidence, in Comments below]

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