The Senate is investigating gifts by drug companies to doctors. Says The Times:
the more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have
prescribed a new class of powerful medicines known as atypical
antipsychotics to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and
mostly unapproved.
The other day on MSNBC, The Times’ Gardiner Harris spoke of this issue in ideological/ epistemological terms. He said that studies have shown that people form the ideas that they get money for forming–even brilliant doctors who have had years and years of education. The moderator cut him off, but Harris had made a great point.
This is a central problem with the Israel lobby’s presence in American life: it funds an orthodoxy that is often out of step with pluralist ideas. As a longtime freelance writer, I can tell you that I simply cannot get paid good money to write critically about Israel and its influence on our foreign policy. There are very few outlets that will pay anything for these views. Too bad for me. Meantime, there is a ton of money on the other side. Consider the idea that Jerusalem should be wholly controlled by Israel. This is patently a bad idea. It means allowing one group of religious nuts who cite ancient scripts to dominate two other groups of religious nuts who cite ancient scripts. All three of these religions have been around for a long time and aren’t going anywhere. Muslims have shown a willingness to blow themselves up over this question. And Jews have shown a willingness to murder U.N. negotiators over the same point. The proper role of the United States should be to try to impose some fairness on the issue: to make sure that Jerusalem is an international city. This idea is an obvious one, especially when you see Muslims forced by Israeli soldiers to pray outside the walls of the Old City.
And yet American politics is dominated by one of those three Biblical views: that Jews should control Jerusalem. Norman Podhoretz expresses this view in the latest Commentary. I imagine that Podhoretz would form this idea no matter what, but his views have long been publicized by a magazine subsidized till recently by the American Jewish Committee. David Wurmser, the top adviser on the Middle East to Vice President Dick Cheney, seems to hold a similar view of Jerusalem; he has opposed the Oslo peace process, and he has thanked a leading backer of an undivided Jerusalem for funding him when he was at the American Enterprise Institute. As I reported, and have many times repeated on this site, AEI quietly gives $96,000 a year to Dore Gold (one of a group of American Jews who made aliyah and now spend their time proselytizing their former countrymen about Israel), who also believes that Jerusalem must never be divided. Of his latest book The Fight for Jerusalem, Publishers Weekly says:
Gold is far from impartial. He displays an intense repudiation of
fundamentalist Islam, and the perceived ineptitude and ingratitude of
the West toward Israel, which he considers the only legitimate savior
of the city. Warning of the apocalypse, he concludes that today’s
Jerusalem is threatened by the "evil wind" of Islamic fundamentalism;
if redivided, he argues, the precious city will be the next great
victim of global jihad.
This is the kind of thinker that American Enterprise Institute gives $96,000 a year to? Holy smoke. Clayton Swisher showed in his book
that the issue broke down the Camp David discussions in
2000. Arab countries pressured Arafat, demanding assurance that Jews would not control
the city. U.S. negotiators accepted Israel’s demand that
Jerusalem be undivided. Arafat couldn’t accept that.
As Gardiner Harris said, ideas just don’t pop into brilliant people’s minds. Most ideas are social creations; and subsidy plays an important role in propagating them. Grant Smith of the Insitute for Research on Middle Eastern Policy has called for legislation on the thinktanks that would do for foreign-policy intellectuals what Congress wants to do for doctors: Show us where the gifts are coming from. He argues that money plays a significant role in forming consensus about often-dangerous ideas.
The desecration of Josephs tomb and the destruction of temple artifacts by the wakpf along with the desecration of the historic synagogue in Jericho along with the desecration of the Western Wall during Jordanian rule show fairly conclusively that Jewish religious sites that are under Arab control have a pretty unhappy life. Also, I'd like you to cite me one case of an internationilized city that works. Or a case where Israel gets a fair hearing in the international arena. Just one.
Phil – I would be careful in your disparaging remarks about religous nuts. While the worst you're likely to get from the Jews is an absence of funding for your writings critical of Jews, and eternal damnation from the Christians, you may get a car bomb on your street full of nails from the nutters of Islamic variety. Those unhappy with Sir Rushdie being honored may have expressed this displeasure with car bombs aimed at civillians.
Now before you go off calling these blokes terrorists, perhaps you should consider that they are simply liberators attempting to liberate your soul from Western materialism so you can embrace Allah in all his spiritual wonder.
Directors Note:
Cue Joachim Martillo Ajami to post a piece about Jews are greatest terrorists than Muslims any day of the week and even if Muslims do commit terrorism they have good reason to.
The Boy President's latest obeisance to the "sh*tty little country" is examined by Juan Cole–
Phil's musings on Jewishness and citizenship are drawing increasing attention–
“>link to muzzlewatch.com
No, not really, it is sort of interesting though when a self professed liberal hooks up with Pat Buchanan ( who never met a nazi war criminal he couldn't come to the defense of ) to advance the Protocols of the elders of zion theory
Apparently Bill takes his cues from Podhoretz. Maybe he can rebut the following:
http://www.buchanan.org/pma-99-1105-wallstjl.html
Mr. Podhoretz says that I have a "habit of championing the cause of almost anyone accused of participating actively in Hitler's genocidal campaign against the Jews."
But whom have I defended? Six men. Frank Walus of Chicago and Ivan Stebelsky of Denver, accused by Simon Wiesenthal of being Nazi war criminals, were proven to be wholly innocent. Tscherim Soobzokov of New Jersey was about to receive compensation for the vile slander that he was an SS killer, when he was blown to pieces by a bomb outside his home.
I defended John Demjanjuk for ten years, insisting he was not "Ivan the Terrible" of Treblinka. On the eve of Mr. Demjanjuk's scheduled execution, Moscow released documents proving "Ivan" was another man. Demjanjuk had never even been at Treblinka. Due perhaps to my columns, John Demjanjuk's wrongful execution was delayed, and averted, and Israel was spared the international disgrace of having hanged an innocent man.
Karl Linnas was accused of being a Nazi killer at the Tartu camp in Estonia. Along with the Washington Post, I opposed his being sent back to certain death in the USSR. All I asked for was a fair trial for Linnas, right here in the U.S.A.
As for Dr. Arthur Rudolph, the German rocket scientist who built the Saturn that took Armstrong to the moon, he was cleared by two post-war investigations and brought to America under Harry Truman. Under threat of a loss of his pension, Social Security, and honors, Rudolph, the victim of a heart attack, did renounce his U.S. citizenship and return to Germany. There, the German government investigated the U.S. Justice Department's charges against him and found them baseless. What did I ask for? Only that Dr. Rudolph be given a hearing before a congressional committee, so that both his accusers and his defenders could present their respective cases.
Trouvere, I'm unable to understand this paragraph from Tobin:
"Fein, who worries that Walt and Mearsheimer have been misinterpreted, warned that it was a mistake to say that the questions they raise about pro-Israel activism ought not to be dismissed."
Meaning it would be right to dismiss the questions they raise because they were misinterpreted?
Quite can't get it.
From the online documents in the archive of the US State Department re the Six Day War it appears that on one level (that of the State Department itself and particularly its then Secretary Dean Rusk) there was strong resistance against the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem.
On the 22nd of June that year Dean Rusk had a conversation with Abba Eban and the American UN Ambassador Goldberg about this. The relevant report (doc. 314) says: “Secretary hoped that Israel would be very careful with regard to Jerusalem as it involved actual or latent passions of an enormous number of people. The matter was very delicate and could be a source of strong anti-Israeli feeling in the USA”.
However the American Ambassador to Israel, Barbour, reported ten days later (on July 2 doc.338) that he had discussed the matter with the Israeli Minister of Justice and several other officials, that he had made it clear that his government strongly deplored the “precipitate issuance unification ordinance re Jerusalem” but that the Government of Israel was “adamant” on the issue..
About two weeks later (on July 15 doc.367) Dean Rusk came back to the issue in a conversation with, inter alia, Abba Eban. The relevant report says: “The Secretary saw real trouble ahead on Jerusalem. There are strong feelings in many places on this issue. The USG had never agreed with either the Israeli or Jordanian positions on Jerusalem, and there had been sharp, adverse reaction to recent Israeli steps in Jerusalem. The question of Jerusalem must be kept open for further discussion and negotiations. The US sought solid international agreements…”
One would imagine that this high level American resistance against the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem floundered on the rock solid determination of the Israeli’s to have the place and long standing plans in this regard. But no. From the recent interview (22nd March this year) with Tom Segev, who has recently published a book on the 1967-War, by Harry Kreisler one gets quite a different picture. This is what he said on the matter of Jerusalem to Kreisler:
"All earlier reflection on the implications of occupying the West Bank and East Jerusalem was apparently forgotten:
“Once they sit together and have to make the decision, all this is forgotten. It doesn't come from the head anymore. It comes from the guts, from the heart. "Wow, it's possible to take East Jerusalem." And it's so interesting, when you look at the meeting where they actually decide to take East Jerusalem, no position papers, no scenarios, no experts, not even legal experts. This is a big legal thing. All of a sudden Israel will be in charge of the entire holy places of the Christian world, to say nothing about the Muslims, but all these churches, what will we do with them? Nothing. And the major question which never comes up is why it is in the interest of Israel to rule East Jerusalem. "Why is it in my interest?" Why don't they ask that? Because it's "self-evident." It comes from the heart, not from the head. It's completely irrational.”
So an “irrational” decision on one side, “rational” American resistance on the other. How and why did Israel get away with it? I think the answer is in the White House. The Israeli’s could bypass Rusk because they had direct access to President Johnson who probably pulled the rug from under the various negotiators also on other matters, as for instance promises made to King Hussein.
Omigod, Phil. Now we're both hypocritical sell-outs in bed with Pat Buchanan. I've just published a review of Dore Gold's book at–you guessed it, The American Conservative.
For those who followed the links to Tobin's nincompoop article about Phil & to the Muzzlewatch post–Pat Buchanan founded the Magazine & has NOTHING to do with it now. It is principally funded by Ron Unz, a California high tech guy who's dabbled in Republican politics there & once ran for governor.
ACM is a more traditional conservative publication at war with the radical neocons who've made a travesty of Goldwater style principled conservatism.
I am not a conservative & didn't even agree w. Goldwater's politics. But at various pts in his career he really stood up courageously on certain issues & I admire that.
But the main pt. is do we progressives wish to toil in a political ghetto & never get our voices & views heard? Are we willing to find common cause with those with differing ideological views in order to advance a common agenda for I-P peace. I say the answer to that one is obvious.
They called MLK a sellout because he broke bread with pols like the Kennedys and LBJ. If that's what it took to get a civil rights agenda through Congress then what's wrong with that?
Do we want peace in the ME or do we want to sit in our ivory towers & talk about how pure & unsullied we are?
That's why I'm willing to break bread with conservatives represented by ACM.
No problem Richard. We understand. Politics makes strange bedfellows. Why, just look at these secular zionists breaking bread with fundamentalist christian zionists.
Just let us know when you are breaking bread with the Islamic Fundamentalists. That always makes for interesting theatre.
btw – Ron Unz is Jewish, so so much for your voice being squelched by other Jews, huh?
Phil – This begs your attention:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/876668.html
Shalom Klaus!
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/07/01/germany.streisand.reut/index.html
Poor Bill (Gollum) Pearlman!
A Sniveling Wall of Aparteid Zionism! Give him one example, (just one!) of fair international treatment of Israel! And you know what? In this particular case he is absolutely right. There is no fair treatment of Israeli regime. The fair treatment in this case would be the same that we gave all other racist, apartheid regimes. The fair treatment would be complete international isolation and enforcement of international law until all the illegally occupied lands beyond 1948 UN plan are liberated, all property illegally seized from Palestinians returned, Jewish Orthodox communities are removed from Israeli jurisdiction and Israeli war criminals are given the same choice as South African ones – repent of be persecuted. World Zionist movement (including an idiot me for being one for so many years) should be given a chance to organize something like a Jewish Reconciliation Peace Corps and Peace Fund to send people and money to Palestine to ebuild with out own hands and money the houses, erase the sameful separation wall, build universities for Palestinian children and teach in them, build hospitals, electric generators, schools, restore, as much as humanly possible, the injustices of occupation.
The litmus test for sincerity of such actions would be the CLEAR BRAKE with the racist past such as voluntary publication of documents that show Zionist role in non-preventing of Holocaust, financial deals to buy Congress and Senate votes, manipulation of media and academic institutions.
Then we will be able to finally give Bill Pearlman that ONE EXAMPLE of fair treatment of his beloved racist, schizophrenic alter-ego.
And you know what is interesting? Ask yourself how come it did not happen yet and you will come to the conclusion that there is only ONE, single REAL reason for that.
The whole Middle East travesty hangs, like a gigantic rock on a single spider fiber on an American veto in UN. That's it! There is lots of window dressing and all, but the real reason is the VETO.
The moment that veto is gone… there will be a flood of resolutions that would make Israel into a pariah state in about half an hour!
That would throw racist Zionist landlords out of Knesset in a heartbeat and Israelis will finally find people among themselves to represent the best in Judaic tradition, humanity and justice to the outside world.
Now what is this veto hangs on?
Diaspora Jews and especially American Jews, you and me and our children (and Bill Pearlmans' children, no grudge against them).
That also means that it is us, American Jews who are real apartheid enforcers, real killers of Palestinian children, real occupiers and real torturers.
Live with it, guys.
Hey, this is a democracy – money is speech, money is votes, money is presidency, money is policy and we have tonnes of it. Hooray!
But what is this slowly appearing on the wall… תקל ,מנא ,מנא …
Indeed, Alex. All those 190-to-2 votes in the U.N. make it pretty clear that this "complex problem" isn't really that complex after all. The international community would put an end to the situation in a matter of weeks if it could. The complexity of the issue has nothing to do with legal or moral questions, but with the odd fact that the people enabling Israel's crimes would never actually dream of living there.
This sets up a very unhealthy dynamic. Since they are never held responsible for their actions, Israelis are virtually guaranteed to act irresponsibly. And meanwhile the diaspora's community's guilt at refusing to make aliyah, drives them to ever wilder acts of blind support. (Call it the "Bill Pearlman" phenomenon.)
David –
I actually have a different view of Bill Pearlman – I mean he does need (sometimes I suspect he actually longs for it) his behind to be whooped for his rudeness, his boorish lack of civility and most of all – for his stupid racial lashing out, but I also believe that it is not that simple.
I have a feeling that we are witnessing a breakdown of an ordinary (in the best sense of the word), kind, caring, very "Jewish" soul that is so mortified by what it sees in front of him and having never dealt with such a deadly crisis before he finds comfort in old shtetl wisdom – "Dont say things while OTHERS can hear!" and he shouts till his lungs burst – EVERYTHING IS OK!!!!!!
And anyone who notices otherwise get his instant rude rage and a bucketfull of insults just to shut you up, just to make you stop saying anything that can break the illusion. Very, very Sholom Aleichem-y.
But coming back to your words, I think he is way pass the childish embarrassment of not making aliyah. Its way too grim than that, IMHO.
One could argue that Philip Weiss is lucky that he even gets paid to write. In the 70s I was a working reporter, but the industry has really changed, and I have the impression that nowadays getting any sort of job in the print media today is a real achievement.
With regard to Jewish topics, it is not even an issue of getting paid to write critical articles about Israel.
If an article even tangentially touches a topic that is Zionism-sensitive, one might have to move heaven and earth to get it published.
I have often thought of writing a short book on Jerusalem in Jewish consciousness.
Since the 10th century at least (probably earlier) Jerusalem has had much more importance for Jews as a spiritual concept than as a physical place.
Vilna was the Jerusalem of Lithuania. Thessalonika was la chica Yerushalayim. Amsterdam was the Jerusalem of the North. It probably would not be hard to come up with 50-100 cities that Jews called Jerusalem over the last millennium.
I could write a few interesting chapters on some of the most interesting of these "Jerusalems."
The actual Jerusalem was, especially for ethnic Ashkenazim, sort of a dumping ground and not a place of tremendous emotional significance or attachment. A young woman, the Virgin of Ludmir, is getting uppity and trying to play the role of a Tzaddik or Rebbe. The community sends her to Jerusalem in Palestine, and for the most part no one hears of her again.
Eastern European Ashkenazim sent a lot of community cranks and eccentrics to Jerusalem. Their stories would probably also have been quite interesting.
With glossy pictures and with a nice conclusion on the changing meaning of geography — maybe in the vein of Meron Benveniste or Nadia Abu el Haj, I might have had a nice coffee table book, but there is not a snowball's chance in Hell that I could get some to give me an advance even if I were the Peter Mayle of Jewish culture.
Joachim Ajami – Why do you Muslims revere Jerusalem so much? Did your sacred Mohammed transcend to heaven in a dream from there? Why do your cousins deny that there was a Jewish temple there when everyone knows there was? Why can you not accept that at least two peoples have historically lived on the land known as Israel and Palestine?
Ajami is my mother's family name, and it is insulting to put it last unless you write Joachim Martillo Ajami.
Ajami (actually 'A`jamiy) is a name used by all Arabic and several non-Arabic-speaking religious groups including Jews.
Ethnic Ashkenazim have no connection to the Greco-Roman populations of Palestine. Of all groups that have practiced modern Rabbinic Judaism they came to practice the religion the last.
There is an ur-religion that was practiced in Judea and Samaria. I call it the Judeosamarian Temple religion.
Roman Imperialism shattered it, and it reformed into several different religions.
First Christianity crystallized in the fourth century, and that crystallization tended to prune the other shards of Judeosamarian Temple religion including a Samaritan current, a Talmudic current, an anti-Talmudic current and a Judean Christian current among the Palestinian peasantry that recognized Jesus as messiah but not God or son of God. Judean Christianity could also be called Jamesian Christianity.
Judean Christianity spread to Hijaz and eventually crystallized as Islam in the 7th-8th century. In response, Talmudic and anti-Talmudic Judaism crystalized into modern Rabbinical and modern Karaite Judaism.
Thus of the modern Abrahamic religions, Orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Samaritanism have the closet connection to Judeosamarian Temple religion while modern Karaite and moder Rabbinic Judaism have the least.
You can find an homily that I wrote on the subject at: link to eaazi.blogspot.com
.
Modern ethnic Ashkenazim have no genuine connection to the ancient Jerusalem Temple, and to call it a Jewish Temple is anachronistic to say the least.
My understanding is that many of the Jews living in Israel are of the Arab variety or Mid-Eastern North African variety and can very easily trace their families back to modern day Israel. So even if you are correct about the European Jews, why should the Middle Eastern and Arab Jews not be entitled to live in their ancient homeland and not be ruled by Muslims? If they are fine with their European co-religionists and their African co-religionists also living in Israel, who are you to say that it is no OK for them to live there. If the Palestinians are not willing to share the land than they can duke it out with the Hebrews. They should just be prepared to lose it all if they are not willing to share it. The same goes for the Israelis, but from my reading of the events over the last 20 years, the Israelis are more inclined than Hamas to share the land.
John Hanan wrote: "The same goes for the Israelis, but from my reading of the events over the last 20 years, the Israelis are more inclined than Hamas to share the land."
Really? What is your "reading" of the settlement project then? Don't say "it was the bad, bad right-wingers" because the settlement project was accelerated by Labor governments. 450.000 settlers with private roads. Nice way to share a land, indeed.
You are right on one thing though: The Israelis are more inclined than Hamas to share the land in a way that leaves the Palestinians with isolated Bantushtans, which is giving them practically nothing.
P.S. I'd like to share your house that way, if that's ok with you.
Alan:
I always illustrated it with drawing 6 inch -wide lane from room to room at someone's house plan that would take less that 1% of the while square footage and ask the owner how would he feel if I had a right to walk on it all over day and night and not allow him to cross it.
I was told that only a monster can come up with such a bestiality.
"My understanding is that many of the Jews living in Israel are of the Arab variety or Mid-Eastern North African variety and can very easily trace their families back to modern day Israel. So even if you are correct about the European Jews, why should the Middle Eastern and Arab Jews not be entitled to live in their ancient homeland and not be ruled by Muslims?"
Because the claim is nonsense. Modern Jews whether ethnic Ashkenazi or members of other ethnic groups have practically no ancestral connections to the Greco-Roman population of Palestine, whose inhabitants included Judeans but not Jews, which is a term for a religious group that crystalizes at the time of Saadya Gaon in the 10th century.*
The claim of Judean ancestry for those who practiced Judean rituals was probably nonsense in the time of the Hasmoneans even if it was a good way to raise money for the Temple treasury. Today's North African, Mesopotamian and Southern Arabian Jews are for the most part descendants of local populations that began practicing Medieval Rabbinic Judaism sometime around the time of Saadya Gaon. Such edot hamizrah (Oriental Communities) have no more rights to Palestine than North African, Mesopotamian and South Arabian Muslim would have.
In Palestine bnei edot hamizrah are just as much murderous genocidal thieves and interlopers as ethnic Ashkenazim. Their murderous attitudes barely differ significantly from those of ethnic Ashkenazi invaders even if one can ascribe some mitigating circumstances to Israeli oriental Jews because they generally came as unwilling immigrants to Palestine as a result of Zionist machinations to create or to find an ersatz native collaborator population to help Zionists keep control of Stolen Palestine.
(*)In Hebrew and Arabic Saadya prefered the term qehal meyahidim or qehal muwahhidina (community of monotheists). He did not call Judaism Yahadut but preferred the term yihud or tawhid (monotheism). In general reading Saadya in Arabic has the feel of reading Mohamad ibn Abd-il Wahhab, who is the reformer, whose ideas are taken as the basis of Wahhabism. (Mohamad's followers reject the term "Wahhabi".)