Promoting his new book about the neverending peace process, Aaron David Miller writes in the L.A. Times today that Jimmy Carter wrote a "bad book" about Israel/Palestine, and Walt and Mearsheimer wrote a "bad book" about the Israel lobby. The language is vicious. Just what is "bad" about these books? Should a writer be allowed--in polite society, or respectable journalism anyway--to dismiss serious books with such derisive language and offer no argument for the claim? I don't think so. It's a lot like Jacob Heilbrunn, in his book They Knew They Were Right, saying that Walt and Mearsheimer wrote an "addled essay" in the LRB, without any evidence/facts/analyses marshalled to support the swipe. It feels prejudicial.
These writers (and their editors, too, apparently) feel a need to do this because they need to cover their left flank. Miller's website actually includes powerful evidence that there is an Israel lobby. But he needs to seem acceptable to the mainstream so he makes it a point to marginalize Walt and Mearsheimer. Heilbrunn's book includes a compelling argument that Israel has always come first for the neocons, from Podhoretz to Peretz to Feith, from the Six Day War to the liberation of Baghdad. But Heilbrunn is afraid that he will get lumped with Walt and Mearsheimer, so he has to urinate on them.
When I say prejudicial, I believe there's a color line on this issue. Miller and Heilbrunn are Jewish, so they're allowed to criticize Israel. Do gentiles get to criticize Israel? Or are they always "bad" when they do it? Look what happened to Fukuyama. If I'm wrong, please give me some names.
You don't like that Miller defends Malley?
Your only comment is that he thinks that Walt/Mearsheimer book was a failure as scholarship?
"Urinate"? Is that a professional journalistic assessment?
Did you ever post the link to the Congressional Resolution that Ron Paul was the sole negative vote, as you promised to?
I'm reading Aaron's book and it's terrific.
On your point as to who is permitted, it is not about Jews or non-Jews. If the Peretzites and Dershites think they can "get" you, they go on the attack. But if they think they can't, they wait for a more vulnerable target.
In fact, Petetz, Dersh, Wisse (poor Harvard) much prefer going after Jews, than non-Jews. They are afraid of the people they call "the goyim" but Jews (including the Zionist left) don't scare them (i.e. Rob Malley) so they attack with impunity. But does anybody much care anymore? Do these paranoids have a following among anyone?
"On your point as to who is permitted, it is not about Jews or non-Jews. If the Peretzites and Dershites think they can "get" you, they go on the attack. But if they think they can't, they wait for a more vulnerable target."
Excellent point. When dealing with the Zios (Jewish, Christian, left-liberal Judeophile or otherwise) never apologize and never show weakness — they can smell it.
The title that Phil gave to this thread is also helpful:
"Gentiles Do a Bad Bad Thing When They Criticize Israel"
Those bad, bad, bad, gentiles. Obviously, he's mocking the childish nature of the diaspora Jewish Zionist.
I think Phil recognizes that the only Jewish Zionists with any balls are living in Israel. The rest are gutless cowards who talk the talk in order to compensate for their, uh, shortcomings in other areas.
Thanks for the link to your Heilbrunn (They knew they were right)review Phil.
Is it anti-Semitic to criticize Israel? Who really gives a damn. Maybe they should stop the ethnic cleansing.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/182454.php
Good for a Laugh
03.09.08 — 9:20AM
By Josh Marshall
Doug Feith's score-settling Iraq War memoir is about to be released.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802724.html?hpid=topnews
What a sad sad blog.
An excessively self-critical Jew encouraging anti-semites to urinate on his people – this is an example of why the Jews are a tiny and often beleaguered group.
The reason gentile americans are disliking (some) US Jews is because they have brought Israel into our country and government…and put Israel above America. Otherwise no one would care or be interested in talking about or criticizing them.
The best post Phil ever made was this:
" When Hagel said it hadn't worked out that well in Iraq, a couple of members of the group said he wasn't supportive enough of Israel.
Hagel spoke firmly:
"Let me clear something up here if there's any doubt in your mind. I'm a U.S. Senator. I'm not an Israeli senator. I'm a U.S. Senator. I support Israel… But my first interest is, I take an oath to the constitution of the United States. Not to a president, not to a party, not to Israel."
The myth the zionist have created that Israel and American are one and the same to justify their dual or higher loyalty to a foreign country is going to…well, I don't know exactly what it is going to do…but I would bet on it's eventual not so nice ending.
Maybe Obama should have asked Hillary to "renounce and reject" her fidility to the
foreign country of Israel the same way she demanded he renounce and reject critics of Israel.
I would bet big bucks on that getting a thundering standing ovation.
If I get a chance at a rally I will ask her to renounce and reject her loyalty to the foreign country of Israel and swear her alligence to America only. After all, loyalty to this country and our constitution is the number one requirement for any US official.
"Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Cosmopolitan Reflections," David Hirsh
http://www.yale.edu/yiisa/workingpaper/
Most accounts which understand antisemitism to be a pressing or increasing phenomenon
in contemporary Europe rely on the premise that this is connected to a rise in anti-
Zionism. Theorists of a ‘new antisemitism’ often understand anti-Zionism to be a new form of appearance of an underlying antisemitism. On the other side, skeptics understand antiracist anti-Zionism to be entirely distinct from antisemitism and they often understand efforts to bring the two phenomena together as a political discourse intended to delegitimize criticism of Israeli policy. The project of this work is to investigate the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, since understanding this central relationship is an important part of understanding contemporary antisemitism.
LeaNder, from the WaPo review of Feith's book which you linked:
————
In summarizing his view of what went wrong in Iraq, Feith writes that it was a mistake for the administration to rely so heavily on intelligence reports of Hussein's alleged stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons and a nuclear weapons program, not only because they turned out to be wrong but also because secret information was not necessary to understand the threat Hussein posed.
Hussein's history of aggression and disregard of U.N. resolutions, his past use of weapons of mass destruction and the fact that he was "a bloodthirsty megalomaniac" were enough, Feith maintains.
————
That's EXACTLY the line I recall hearing from pro-war Jews in the run-up to Iraq — the "Saddam as Hitler" theme, endlessly repeated.
In a nutshell, the WaPo review says that Feith entirely ignores "big picture" aspects of the war which should have been visible from his official vantage point. Instead, he uses his platform to settle scores with his former colleagues, for not supporting his briiliant policies. How trivial, how cowardly: obviously the work of a small-bore zionist loser, who may have been an "affirmative-action hire" to begin with (i.e., a fifth-column cadre nominated by the Lobby).
Some states have laws providing for the confiscation of publishing profits earned by criminals. It would seem eminently fair for the profits from Feith's book to be turned over to disabled U.S. soldiers and injured children in Iraq, in the absence of a Nuremberg II trial to hold Feith accountable for his crimes against humanity.
excellent statement about jewish americans and why anyone is even spending energy dialoguing about zionist jewish worshipers of israel….
"The reason gentile americans are disliking (some) US Jews is because they have brought Israel into our country and government…and put Israel above America. Otherwise no one would care or be interested in talking about or criticizing them."
it's the only reason i even get involved in this discussion dealing with the criminal apologist for israels apartheid criminal racist government…there is no defense.
why wait for next year in yerushalayim…go this year and stay there if you love it so much.
"The myth the zionist have created that Israel and American are one and the same to justify their dual or higher loyalty to a foreign country is going to…well, I don't know exactly what it is going to do…but I would bet on it's eventual not so nice ending."
I doubt that. The Rodney King verdict was the last cause of anything approaching a pogrom in the US but even a six year old could probably have figured out what caused the upset there.
Even if all the Neocons broke down in tears and fessed up to everything Phil talks about I still doubt you'd get more than a confused "Oh!" out of most of the US citizenry.
Early in his book, Aaron compares his father's view (How many of your Gentile friends can you count on to hide you if there's an attack on the Jews in America?), with his own wider view, which is more akin to Phil's (More than you think; why does it necessarily boil down to them versus us? What have Americans done to deserve such an assumption?).
Past experience is a bitter teacher. But Aaron's experience has been different than his father's.
On recent episodes of Beauty & The Geek, a reality show wherein
one of each are teamed up to compete with others of similar match, one couple just couldn't get on the same wave length. Turns out, the Geek (picture Howdy Doody, his favorite hobby: comic books) just couldn't rid himself of being humiliated in High School by girls that looked like his partner (picture an Aryan goddess girl-next-door cheerleader type). No matter how hard she tried to partner with her assigned Geek (the goal: a quarter millions dollars prize), he looked at her as a member of the tribe of abusers he had suffered in lower school. She wasn't the smartest, but she eventually saw that was the problem. Their interrelationship was much worse than any of the other Geek & Beauty couples. Finally she told him, "Don't roll your eyes at me! Show me some respect! I may look like those girls who insulted you and abused you in grade or HS, but I'm not that way! Near the end of the winnowing process, she finally told him: " Look, I've tried my best, if you can't see this, and where I am and have been in our partnership, fine! I'll keep trying, but I must confess,
the most I can offer you at this point is that, if I saw a bunch of
people jumping on you, I would come over and demand they desist!" And with that, she stomped out–near the very end of the show, when they one of the three couples left standing (despite their core issues, much more than the rest), he finally pulled it together to fight her, ignore her less (one of her key complaints all along–he just figured she was an idiot moron blonde who hated him for who he was)–and then, only because they had made it to the top of the final three contending partnerships of Geek & Beauty despite all their internal feuding.
They lost, primarily because he executed his challenge in a more technically competent way, but without the humanity his male Geek exhibited.
In Aarons's book G H W Bush says he knew he was in for trouble
when AIPAC jumped in; Bush subsequently referred to the intense pressure as "the Jewish community in New York."
George Salem, Co-founder & chairman of the Arab lobby, says
his American community failed to address adequately the counter-pressed view that Israel was to be seen as the victim in any issue addressed.
Malcolm Hoenlein, Ex-Chairman of the Conference of Major Jewish Jewish Organizations, said the strongest factor at America's executive level was/is the gut reaction of the President; that the key influences in the psychology of the President are his key aides because the President depends on their input. The issue is always what's in America's best interest?
In the war on terror, which side can we rely on? As an example, he uses Egypt, which, he says, has only voted with the USA at the UN 18% of the time. This compared to Israel and England which nearly always vote with the USA. Mister Hoenlein doesn't get into how, why, and who pressures on any UN vote.
James Zogby, discussing lobby influence says it boils down to capacity to inflict damage by economic support for or against; he mentions various key Christian and Jewish Zionists who have it down to a science. He said Powell felt boxed in when he saw the American Israel Lobby had supported an Israeli spokesman attacking his position.
And then, there was Chuck Hagel, who said it all, as detailed above.
Reminds me of that Monty Python sketch where they're at the Philosophy Dept. of an Australian University. A new professor is told by the Head of the Dept., "You may teach the philosophy of Hegel as long as you teach that he was WRONG.