Neoconservative Bill Kristol is still at it. In the latest First Things, a journal about religion, he praises the writings of Yiddish scholar Ruth Wisse–who has elsewhere called for young American Jews to serve as a kind of intellectual "army" for Israel–and then offers his belief that America and Israel have utterly congruent interests:
After the
attacks of September 11, no one can escape knowledge of the dangers
facing the world. And as anti-Judaism, anti-Americanism, and general
hostility to the West increasingly merge, the little state of Israel
and the entire Jewish people seem once again caught in the crosshairs
of history… [I]n a sense, we are all caught in those crosshairs. In Jews and Power,
Ruth Wisse only hints at how the experience of Zionism has relevance
beyond the Jews. But if Zionism is an attempt to marry power and
morality—to join religion and liberalism, tradition and modernity,
patriotism and principle—then America has a great deal in common with
Israel. Indeed, all the people in the world who wish to stand against both death-loving Islamic fanaticism and soulless European postmodernism—what are they, if not Zionists?
So we are all Zionists now. And moral Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is a model for western democracies. And now Europe must be taken on. Its "soulless postmodernism." I don’t know what this means. Probably it is because Europe is critical of Israel and didn’t support the Iraq war. Does Kristol want to invade?
The latest Commentary (not yet available online) includes similar sorts of statements from and about neocons. Several letter writers say that the neocons have not gone far enough in taking on the Arab malaise. We should be targeting Saudi Arabia, says Michael Schwartz of New York. "[V]irtually every entry in [a neocon writer’s] catalog of evil can be traced to a single predominant source: namely, the political, financial, and religious leadership of Saudi Arabia…" Robert Rosenkranz worries that democracy in the Middle East will only enfranchise Hamas. Allen Weingarten echoes that fear, saying that "the nub of the Islamist problem is the masses that find the minority understandable, and would not seriously counter them."
Later on in the new Commentary, there is an ad for Encounter books–a publisher with whom Kristol shares connections–picturing three anti-Arab books. One is called Decline and Fall: Europe’s Slow Motion Suicide, which seems to be saying what Kristol hints at with his comment about "soulless postmodernism." Europe’s good life
will end because it has let in too many "prolific" Muslims. Another is called History Upside Down: The Roots of Palestinian Fascism and the Myth of Israeli Aggression. (Need I read more?)
Five years after the neocons helped push us into a disastrous war in the Middle East, it is shocking to me that 1, these sorts of statements are routinely made in the Jewish community and 2, that so little is done to expose and embarrass them. As to point 1, in the spirit of Never-again, the neocons have now merged the history of the Jews & Israel into the history of the west. So the Arabs were made the new Nazis, and Israel’s war with the Palestinians and Arabs must be America’s new war. Kristol’s comments merely confirm that sort of Israel-centric thinking. And from one month to another Commentary basically says all Arabs are infidels.
As to 2, that is the real marvel. Why doesn’t the New York Times do a weeklong series on the thinking of the neocons? Why isn’t it a cover story in any number of magazines? Why aren’t thoughtful reporters being paid to ask about the Israel connection. How central is Israel’s fight with the Arabs to the neocon worldview? Did the discovery of a world war against Islamofascism arise in the 90s from a perception of Israel’s interests? Interview Bill Kristol about this, and Douglas Feith, and Paul Wolfowitz…. How important is their Jewishness to their worldview? What did Frum and Perle mean by saying, the choice in the Middle East is victory or holocaust?
The best reporting on what I like to call the Religious Left so far has been largely incidental. There is Scott McConnell’s fine piece on falling out with the neocons, in part because they regarded Palestinians as subhuman, and his church said otherwise. George Packer’s discussion of feverish neocon thinking in his book, The Assassin’s Gate. Michael Lind’s attack on neocon ideas in the Nation. But where is the journalism that takes these very important ideas head-on? Next month, Doubleday will publish Jacob Heilbrunn’s book They Knew They Were Right. An important and honest book by a former quasi-fellow-traveler, it places the neocons firmly in a Jewish social and intellectual milieu, historically. But I can tell you now that the foreground of the book, the modern thoughts and acts of the neocons, are not treated in much depth.
I know, these are highly uncomfortable and pessimistic times; and my people feel skittish. But the result is that the media have not taken on these shocking and important ideas squarely. To do so would be to embarrass and marginalize the neocons. (As it is, only Walt and Mearsheimer are to be marginalized. When the Obama campaign placed an ad in the Amazon site for W&M’s book, the New York Sun got Obama to remove the ad.) I think the reason is, again, that the neocons are part of the Jewish family: the dark side of it, but an empowered member in good standing, representing an aggressive response to fears shared by the larger community re Israel. "Atavistic" fears, says Richard Silverstein, yes; but prevalent fears. So the larger community refuses to repudiate these ideas; good Jewish liberals refuse to expose these ideas for what they are and where they came from. So my community remains unredeemed in the shadow of the Iraq bloodbath.
