This weekend the Times did a piece on Freedom’s Watch, the new pro-war advocacy group. Once again it left out the Jewish angle, that the leaders of the group are rightwing Jews (one of whom has given $60 million to the anti-intermarriage Zionist birthright program). The Washington Post also ignored this angle. Only the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was able to call a spade a spade: "Pro-Surge group is Almost All Jewish." (And I will write about it in the forthcoming American Conservative.)
Last night’s ’60 Minutes’ had two good pieces involving the
troubled black family: a profile of angry fatherless Clarence
Thomas, and a profile of QB Vince Young, also fatherless. In
both pieces, sociological issues were prominent. Compare that to
the ’60′ piece on Alan Greenspan a couple weeks back. Greenspan’s story contains great sociological Jewish themes, from his early love for Ayn Rand, to his globalism, to his social arrival with the Clinton administration. These ideas went completely undeveloped.
I know why these themes aren’t addressed in the mainstream press. The Freedom’s Watch story raises the untouchable fact that neoconservative Jews spearheaded the Iraq war. Greenspan’s rise speaks to issues of Jewish power in American society. These topics are verboten. Understandably: antisemites talked about international Jewish influence in the Russia of pogroms, and in Hitler’s Germany.
The problem is that these are great, important stories about how our society works right now. They are also obvious: and so mainstream journalists are generating a credibility gap among intelligent readers by failing to write about them. When Leslie Gelb wrote in the Times last week that Walt and Mearsheimer are completely wet, but yes, the Israel lobby is the most important factor in American foreign policy toward Israel, readers have a right to ask, Why hasn’t the Times been covering the lobby? 60 Minutes’ refusal to cover Walt and Mearsheimer’s book seems to me inexcusable. When leftwing journalists say the war was about oil, it is using its brainpower to delude itself about the Israel angle.
There are notable exceptions. Lately James Morris sent me the following quotation from Eric Alterman in which Alterman is wonderfully straightforward about Jewish wealth:
AIPAC is pushing us to war with Iran. AIPAC is the reason that no Democrats are coming out strongly
against war with Iran. AIPAC’s funding is extremely wealthy American Jews and AIPAC is pushing for war with Iran.
So, when people go to Democratic politicians and they say "listen, I
don’t want you gettin’ out in front and opposing war with Iran, particularly since you have national aspirations," they don’t say it in the New York Times.
James Morris is an interesting case. He has become obsessed with the degree to which the tail is wagging
the dog, and he is indefatigable on talk shows and the net, pressing
his belief that rightwing Jewish forces are driving foreign policy. (I first saw him at an American Enterprise Institute panel a couple years ago, when he angrily questioned Richard Perle and ($96,000-a-year-unlisted-"scholar") Dore Gold about Israel’s role in our foreign policy). Some of Morris’s approach makes me a little uncomfortable, but his larger point is journalistically incontrovertible: These are important stories, they are not being covered.
The failure to do this work has to do with memories of the Holocaust. And so in the end this issue is about the construction of Jewish identity. Iraq is a burning wreck, and there are plans to go after Iran? How selfish is it to focus on our historical hurt, when there is so much suffering at the doorstep.
Who says warmongers are not beautiful?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article
_id=484762&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490
here is the link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=484762&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490
Thanks Phil for a very incitful comment.
At best, one could say the neocon thinking with regard to international policy is "clouded" by their ethnic backgrounds and emotional ties.
That is not to say Jews in general can't be even handed, but the neocons in particular are certainly not. They can't be trusted on matters even remotely related to the middle east.
The war was primarily about oil. That was the motivation for the historically anti-semitic state department and intelligence community to go along.
That such powerful institutions historically have omitted the concerns of Jewish citizens, compels the Jewish community to attempt to effect policy through legislative and electoral paths.
Its a means of accountability, of balance, as much as described as a means of excess.
I saw the Garofolo section of last week's Bill Maher on YOutube (thank you youtube). Phil applauded her interjection and criticism of Maher personally.
I thought his comments were reasonable, that the prior interviewee expressed negligent callousness towards Israel, and a frankly stupid rationale for isolationism, moral or strategic.
I expect that dissenters must see the irony in urging the US to NOT defend functioning democracies, and instead pander to theocracies.
The effort to establish Palestine as an viable independant state is possible, and should be pursued.
The frustration ("they are not listening to me") is immature in political discussion.
The question should be how to accomplish that, not how to demean in generalized language, legal and ethical means of influencing public policy.
"When leftwing journalists say the war was about oil, it is using its brainpower to delude itself about the Israel angle."
Phil, one thing does not exclude the other.Have you looked at this:
http://dissidentvoice.org/Apr06/Ash04.htm
==========================================
I think it is wrong to be anti-Zionists.
Secular enlightened strategies were worked out to rescue the millions of Jews from the historical oppression.
It has worked, and Israel is a decent home for all our refugees.
It is unfortunate that some Messianic politics has enter Israel, too.
The same unfortunate accident has occured in the Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, in the Khomeinist Iran, and in a gentle form in the Reaganist USA.
If we can fix this Messianic outgrow, we cured one problem of humanity.
It is another ugly way how this curious Messianic anti-Zionist propaganda is shaping up.
The earlier you cure it, the better and then we can go back to the humanity.
Let's be nice to each other. I personally can not be blamed for all the pains of the humanity.
==========================================
Richard Witty,
Once again, you're confusing me. I believe that Israel is a theocracy without a constitution. Am I mistaken?
Is there any piece of factual information that Zionist apologist Richard Witty will not shun so as to keep his precious country's record spotless?
Michael Schueur, who said on Bill Maher's program that Israel "isn't worth one American life or one American dollar," was not expressing any isolationist standpoint. He is a CIA guy, he reiterated that he believes in lethal intervention WHEN NECESSARY FOR THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNITED STATES.
People like Witty seem not to want to realize that the United States military is not simply for lease to whichever special interest group wants to clear the path for their special colonialist project or massive profiteering off of natural resources to continue unabated. American taxpayers fund the U.S. military's actions, thus those actions should benefit American taxpapers, not merely special interests. If Iraq was "about oil," the price shouldn't be at $80/barrel. The U.S. taxpayers have gotten nothing from this war except the bill, and their relatives in bodybags and wheelchairs.
And Mr. Witty will be at the front of the crowd urging U.S. taxpayers to fund another war of aggression against another state simply because they are against the racist colonial project known as Zionism.
For Richard,
Just a quick list of things Zionists have in common with the Nazis:
- Lebensraum justification
- Pseudo-religious/racial justification
- Collective punishment of civilians
- Extensive coordinated propaganda
- Vilification of semites
- Indoctrination of children
I've reached the point where my immediate response to the Debra Cagan story that CB linked to was, "She's probably Jewish."
First tier of American leadership: Beholden to Big Oil (The business of America is business); next below: Those who conflate America's best interests with the current Israel regime's agenda. Long term winners: American elite, Israeli elite. Losers:
USA's & Israel's "cannon and capital fodder masses." It's just a matter of time, as it has been since biblical times.
Phil,
This is one of your best posts in quite some time. Congratulations.
DS
The religious or racial identity of the war-mongers is really hardly relevant. I think I disagree with Philip substantially on this point. The only thing that matters is the person's political agenda.
I realize that Jewish organizations have largely been co-opted by Zionism, but then again, so have some Christian churches as we can see in the U.S. And there's also the fact that many of the "Jewish" neo-cons are secular, and with "Jewish" being a rather debateable separate ethnicity, I hardly see the relevance anyway. What matters is whether a person thinks that it is justified to colonize a part of the Arab world in the name of a particular group of people at the great expense of all other inhabitants.
Neo-cons and Zionists might as well just be called neo-colonialists. The "religion" of these people really doesn't matter to me. I am increasingly insensitive to a particular group's monopolizing of the vast suffering that accompanied WWII. I am sorry some people are so traumatized. Doubtless there were unspeakable atrocities visited on Jewish people and non-Jewish people alike in that war, and almost non-stop ever since. There are also many Holocaust survivors who have the decency and courage to speak out against the brutality of colonialization in Palestine or Iraq, so it is not impossible.
One of the important things we should do in this forum, is to separate the criticism we make of the lobby from traditional antisemitism.
We should make clear that what we are talking about here is something that is happening now, at this moment, and in this particular situation, and is not part of some ancient, age old conspiracy. Zionists like to make some continuum from ancient Israel to today… They are playing with fire when they do.
Today's Israel is not the Israel of King David, it is, in fact, no more and no less then the last European colony in the third world. The Jews of Israel are really America's "pied noir" (the French Algerian settlers).
The Algerian parallel is very clarifying in analyzing where we are today and how to get out of where we are. That is why I'm perfectly serious when I say that we should resettle the Jews of Israel in the USA, just like the French did with the pied noir.
I can't think of any other way of this situation not ending in a world war someday. I don't want to see all the Jews in Palestine killed in a few hours and I don't want them to kill millions of human beings in a few hours either and then be cursed forever as enemies of mankind.
So as way out and flaky as it sounds, I'm in favor of resettling the Jews of Israel in the USA, as a favor to them and as a recognition of America's failure to practice the tough love that might have made it possible for them to stay in the Middle East without becoming universal pariahs for all time.
Kissinger once said that it was a pity that the Bible hadn't been written in Uganda… and for once he spoke the truth. Where this is happening is the center of the question. All this is happening in a critical area from which the whole world "eats". And one of the first things they teach you as a kid is not to play with your food. Really that is what we are doing with all our endless American blah, blah, playing with the world's food.
Yes, it's basically neo-colonialism, with all the usual racial and religious fig-leaves as England did it, as Early America did it. But the sly power of the extractors has been multiplied by the guilt associated with Auschwitz; out of this deplorable union of Bismarck and Mea Auschwitz Culpa, united with End Times posits, comes the hideous early end of America, the first nation to really attempt full civil rights and universal justice. If you are an average American goy or American Jew, the planners have a spot for you in their interest.
OK Phil just to make you happy let's say it.
JEWJEWJEWJEWJEWJEWJEW
Jews everywhere. all the warmongers are Jews. Freedom Watch is filthy with Jews.
OK, you happy?
So, now what have we learned about the world. What have we learned about finding peaceful solutions?
But seriously, Phil Are you so deluded as to think the whole world DOESN'T know the proportion of Jews in the War Lobby? What are you trying to accomplish, with your silly self flaggelations? "It's not me, I'm a good one–I don't want to hurt the goyim!!"
C'mon, get over it. Grow up and write about something serious, like how to REALLY challenge the war mongering (largely goyim) machine.
Mikey
I find it hard to believe that the "founding fathers" could have ever imagined the way special interest groups have prostituted America's political classes. What an incredible brothel Congress has become.
It isn't serious to expect to run the world with a system that anybody with a lot of money can game as shamelessly as this. The world is losing its respect for the USA. "una manca di rispetto" as the Mafia would put it.
Tragically there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about except bitch on the Internet.
"una manca di rispetto"
Yes David – but we both know that Michael Ledeen has shown the cure for that:
"every now and again the United States has to pick up a crappy little country and throw it against a wall just to prove we are serious."
The Mafia-complex.
Chomsky has pointed to the role it plays in international affairs, particularly those run under the aegis of the man who has adopted Kennedy's motto with a slight variation : "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what it can do for me."
"Chomsky: There are several issues in the case of Iran. One is simply that it is independent and independence is not tolerated. Sometimes it's called successful defiance in the internal record. Take Cuba.
A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it too. But the government won't allow it. It's attributed to the Florida vote but I don't think that's much of an explanation. I think it has to do with a feature of world affairs that is insufficiently appreciated. International affairs is very much run like the mafia.
The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience otherwise the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders and it can spread to important places.
If you look back at the record, what was the main reason for the U.S. attack on Vietnam? Independent development can be a virus that can infect others. That's the way it's been put, Kissinger in this case, referring to Allende in Chile. And with Cuba it's explicit in the internal record. Arthur Schlesinger, presenting the report of the Latin American Study Group to incoming President Kennedy, wrote that the danger is the spread of the Castro idea of taking matters into your own hands, which has a lot of appeal to others in the same region that suffer from the same problems. Later internal documents charged Cuba with successful defiance of U.S. policies going back 150 years — to the Monroe Doctrine — and that can't be tolerated. So there's kind of a state commitment to ensuring obedience.
Going back to Iran, it's not only that it has substantial resources and that it's part of the world's major energy system but it also defied the United States. The United States, as we know, overthrew the parliamentary government, installed a brutal tyrant, was helping him develop nuclear power, in fact the very same programs that are now considered a threat were being sponsored by the U.S. government, by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Kissinger, and others, in the 1970s, as long as the Shah was in power. But then the Iranians overthrew him, and they kept U.S. hostages for several hundred days. And the United States immediately turned to supporting Saddam Hussein and his war against Iran as a way of punishing Iran. The United States is going to continue to punish Iran because of its defiance. So that's a separate factor.
And again, the will of the U.S. population and even US business is considered mostly irrelevant. Seventy five percent of the population here favors improving relations with Iran, instead of threats. But this is disregarded. We don't have polls from the business world, but it's pretty clear that the energy corporations would be quite happy to be given authorization to go back into Iran instead of leaving all that to their rivals. But the state won't allow it."
"And it is setting up confrontations right now, very explicitly. Part of the reason is strategic, geo-political, economic, but part of the reason is the mafia complex. They have to be punished for disobeying us."
What tees me off about the Freedom's Watch crowd is not so much that they are Jewish, but that they use their Jewishness as a justification for their right wing views. Does the Jewish God hate wetbacks and sand Niggers? Does the Jewish God want U.S. boys dying in Iran for Israel?
God, I hope not for everyone's sake.
Yes, Chomsky should have pointed to one conspicuous case of 'disobedience' – Israel's defiance of the US's forty year old nominal policy on the settlements.It could only pull off that piece of effrontery with the help of 'the lobby'- so much is clear.
There is an odd diplomatic twist here to which Rusk drew attention around 1980 in his memoirs. The US is not bound by treaty obligations to come to Israel's aid if there is an armed incursion into the West Bank by some 'hostile power'.
I don't know whether this has been straigtened out in Israel's favor. Perhaps Witty, who sets so much store to these treaty obligations, knows the answer to that.
The logical flaw that I observed in Chomsky's "scientific" analysis over years was in one phrase that he used often.
"What other explanation could be possible?"
"It could only pull off that piece of effrontery with the help of 'the lobby'- so much is clear." – Arie ("So much is clear")
Its far from clear. Politics is complex, and includes vociferous reactionaries and vociferous reactionary to reactionaries.
I don't know the specific treaty obligations that the US has to Israel. It would be an interesting study.
I do know that it is the law of the land, and that a treaty is of more legal authority than legislation, which is certainly of more legal authority than executive policy. (A treaty is approved by a 2/3 majority?, anyone know?)
Re: AIPAC is pushing us to war with Iran for Israel (click on the pic of USA Today correspondent Barbara Slavin at the following URL as Eric Alterman's youtube is linked there as well, and the Scott Ritter youtubes in the comments section are very concerning too):
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2007/10/re-aipac-is-pushing-us-to-war-with-iran.html
Talking about Neoconservatism:
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2007/11/talking-about-neoconservatism.html
Jewish Freedom's Watch Test Markets Language to Sell War With Iran (for Israel):
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?p=399283#399283
Iran War: American Military vs. Israel Firsters:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?p=400387#400387