Well, frankly, I can't blame Finkelstein for wanting to prevent an anti-Semitic backlash.

I'm an avid blogreader and everywhere I visit, it's about neocons, Jews, Israel, lobby, Zionist, Cabal. It's not just on the fringes, it's pretty much all over the place.

I.e. what about YouTube? Even anti-Semites should be getting tired of all the accusations accompanying the vids. Many newspaper blogs are filled with senseless ad hominems.

I don't get the stupidity of the masses. So, neoconservatism started of as a Jewish movement. So? Are all Jews therefore neoconservatives or somehow complicit? Clearly no.

You say, it's Antizionism, I don't think so. Some of what I've read, truly is a form of anti-Semitism — a bit of paranoia, Judeophobia might be a better term.

For the record, I'm not Jewish, nor do I like the ADL, SPLC and other Stalinist PC enforcers, who make criticism of any specific group impossible. We should speak freely about all this. But, there is something out there and I don't like it. Not one bit.

Jews need to start getting used to the fact that their post-Holocaust days of immunity from criticism are over, because many of their co-religionists abused that immunity to turn Palestine into a gulag, to help engineer the deaths of a million+ Iraqis and thousands of Americans, and to basically trash American principles.

Finkelstein knows that and has written eloquently about Jewish chicanery and abuse of power, but he apparently thinks critique of Jewish aggression should be monopolized by Jews — classic Jewish authoritarianism. Can’t he see that it is Jewish authoritarianism that is at the root of much of what he hates?

When you suppress legitimate debate in the mainstream, then you have inevitably pushed it into corners where people may not be as discriminating. The solution is not to suppress the debate further, it is to make it mainstream so that it becomes obvious to all that the neocons and AIPAC don't reflect the views of Jews at large. The Finkelstein/Chomsky position is counterproductive insofar as it could easily lead to a perception that it is a 'Jewish', rather than a Zionist problem if even anti-Zionist Jews are seen as covering for the lobby.

Can't say I'm seeing that. But if you're right, what is the explanation?

The most startling political event of recent years was that after an antiwar majority of the public voted in 2006 to change the majority party in both House and Senate, the result was not a withdrawal of troops from Iraq, but a SURGE.

People naturally are casting about for an explanation for this unsettling development, in which democracy as we knew it seems to have broken down; to have been nullified. The Lobby claims to be uninvolved, yet they are constantly agitating for a similar intervention against Iran, and political leaders have been quick to oblige with mounting threats.

Clearly all Jews are not neocons — plenty of Jews joined the peace marches of 2003. Nor do all Jews endorse the politics of AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents. But if those pro-Israel groups are not the cause of the chasm between popular opinion and government action, then what is?

Posted by: the sword of gideon | February 23, 2008 at 12:01 PM

C'mon, gideon, we all know the real reason you're arming yourself to the teeth is that you fantasize about a day when Jewish Neolib/Neocon authoritarians have taken over the US government and declare open season on Christians and gentile dissidents the way Jewish Bolsheviks did in the Soviet Union.

You fancy yourself a Commissar, don't you, gideon, with all the rape-and-slaughter "perks" that Jewish Bolsheviks enjoyed in Communist Russia.

Yeah, I hope that the problem with Neoconservatives and the Israel Lobby — the faux belief that Israeli-US interests are always identical — can be dealt with in a civilised manner. So, without anti-Semitism and without hysterical rants against Israel.

The US should say this:
- Israel is an ally, in time of need, we will defend her
- Israel and US interest are not identical, it's bad for both.
- Israel and Palestine must resolve their issues: a two-state solution would be most wise, IMHO.
- Netanyahu and his ilk can sink into the ground for what we care; we will never listen to their uncrompromised radicalism again.
- Religious Right should stay out of politics. Religion and politics shouldn't be mixed–ever.

Oh, and neoconservatives did a good/respectable job as social critics, they should go back doing just that. They should stay away from foreign policy alltogether.

I really hope people won't project their anger and disappointment over the (lost) war(s) towards Jews in general. It would be a tragedy.

I have to say this though: I've never suppressed my thoughts or writings on anything; I just stand up for what I believe to be wrong or right. Even though I'm a marginal nobody, more people should have done just that. It wouldn't have come to this.