Is the Jewish culture so attached to being suppressed that it has become indivisible from being Jewish?

Walt/Mearsheimer?

How did you experience putting on tefillin? I've only done it a couple times. Why did you do it?

That and lifting the Torah during shabbat services were two experiences that also contributed to a shift in my consciousness, that the commitment conveyed in being Jewish, was not only of thought, but also body.

"As to presidential politics, he (Michael Medved) said that Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich were all but antisemites, "both of whom have trafficked with haters of Israel and are basically pledged to the destruction of Israel as we know it."

For Jewish readers, as well as deluded Christian war-mongers (and Moslems, and Zoroastrians and Manicheans and even devotees of Bob) here's the skinny:

At a recent "Values Voters" conference (I assume all-Republican), Dr. Paul was asked to tell voters about his personal faith and what it meant to his life:

"I get to my God through Christ. Christ to me is a man of peace. He is for peace. He is not for war… I strongly believe that there is a Christian doctrine of just war, and I believe the nation has drifted from that. No matter what the rationales are, we have drifted from that, and it's very, very dangerous. And I see it in many ways being un-Christian.

Christ is for love and forgiveness and turning the other cheek, for peace. And to justify what we do in the name of Christianity, I think, is very dangerous and not part of what Christianity is all about. Christ came for spiritual reasons, not secular war and boundaries and geography. And yet we are now dedicating so much of our aggressive activity in the name of God… he is the prince of peace. That is what I see from my God and through Christ. I vote for peace."

Also:

"We cannot go to Washington to dictate to us how to improve our personal behavior. You don't dictate, you don't legislate virtue…"

As Matt Simon writes, "I only hope "values voters" will listen. And to … non-Christians out there, if you're going to have a Christian in the White House, wouldn't you prefer a Christian who practices the virtue of tolerance?"

Sounds good to this Catholic (I assume Paul is Protestant). Not Medved. He prefers a false Christian, a wolf in sheep's costume, who will spill blood again and again. Medved, unaware of the true nature of St. George's purpose in writing '1984,' actually seems to believe that "War is Peace, Ignorance Strength."

Humanity has suffered at the hands of false Christians down through the ages. False Christian popes have condemned the Jews, launched crusades, sat idle while false-Christian bishops and cardinals tortured thousands during the Inquisition. False Christians have donned white hoods and lynched innocents, organized pogroms, built concentration camps, on and on through history. The boot which smashes the face forever is as often, perhaps more often, worn by a false Christian as by an atheist.

Ron Paul seems genuinely devoted to peace. A strong defense, yes, but amicable relations with the world. He does not want to see Israel destroyed: far from it. He wants people to be able to live their lives in peace, just as Martin Buber desired a one-state Israel where Jews and Arabs lived together in harmony. Today, 2007, one state or two, what do I know? But it saddens me to see a good man slandered by hate-mongers.

To all, Shantih. ("OMG, is he quoting Eliot?!")

Aside from a few sly asides, including how the approach of Walt & Mearsheimer invite charges of anti-semetism even if they are not anti-semetic, Gelb does attempt to engage their argument and is more honest about how these ideas have long been discused privately in foreign policy cicles.

In the end, Gelb is not not very successful in rebutting the argument– but, but, but the China Lobby had even more power in the 1950s, for example.

What bothered me even more is the incendiary headline on the review at least in the print edition of the Times:

"Dual Loyalties: Two scholars contend that the Jewish Lobby jeopardizes the national security of the United States"

Whoever picked that headline knew what they were doing and how it would cause many readers to pre-judge the book.

I'm very interested in how The New York Review of Books handles this. Tony Judt regularly writes for them and I wonder if he will provide a review. If he does, I bet there will also be another review from an opposing perspective in the same issue (certainly lots of letters).

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Gelb-t.html?ref=books