I’m not the best source on Jewish liturgy but I remember that at Yom Kippur they open the doors of the ark, the cabinet of the law, and later warn you that the doors are closing. The days of atonement are coming to an end, this is your last chance to come to grips with all the vows you broke in the year before and get ready for the year ahead. Soul-ravishing… Today the Times cracked opened the doors of American consciousness a little further..
It published Walt and Mearsheimer
in the letters column, pointing out that Jeffrey Goldberg, who trashed
them up and down the town last year, has now borrowed their argument.
When will the Times see fit to invite these important scholars to speak out on the Op-Ed
page? Americans want to hear their analysis of the latest Iran fear-mongering!
Just as important, the Times published a letter from Jacob Bender. I’m
going to reprint it in full; it’s better than anything else you’re
going to read here:
Sixty years after Israeli independence, it is time for Jews to
acknowledge the painful truth: the Jewish state was born on the forced
expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinian people.As an
American Jew who lived in Israel for many years, and who has worked
with Muslim organizations for the last decade, I believe that our
recognition of this agonizing history would help open doors to peace
between Israel and Palestine, and could lay the foundation for
Jewish-Muslim reconciliation.In the third century, Rabbi Hama
bar Hanina wrote, “Great is repentance: it brings healing to the
world.” This ancient Jewish teaching can guide us as we seek to bring
peace to what Martin Buber rightly described as “a land of two
peoples.”
Amen. And further evidence that 40 years of temporizing on the ’67 borders, by both sides, has led to the inevitable, Let’s talk about ’48 and the creation myths.
Phil, I have one wish. But not long ago, you linked to an older article on the New York Observer. I once tried to find your earlier articles there, but wasn't successful. Maybe I gave up to fast. I am wondering about the genesis of Mondoweisss, now that the times are changing.
Maybe you could link to one in the future? Ideally via the entrance to the whole collection. ;)
"Martin Buber rightly described as “a land of two peoples."
NO. it is not a land of two peoples. before the ashkenazi jews, including buber-the-moral, invaded from elsewhere, there were muslims, christians, jews, and others. they were living together.
where does this "a land of two peoples" crap come from and why is it accepted?
my mistake. i now see the light.
euro-russian-american thug-squats can take someone else's land and then say they have a 100% equal share.
I posted this yesterday, but it applies here directly, so I'm posting it again–I apologize to those who may have already read it:
Jeffrey Goldberg says "John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, in their polemical work “The Israel Lobby,” have it wrong: They argue, unpersuasively, that American support for Israel hurts America. It doesn’t. But unthinking American support does hurt Israel."
M & W's book clearily states and shows that unconditional support for Israel's conduct has been, and is the fundamental error. The book demonstrates many instances where this Israel Right Or Wrong approach has hurt US interests–and Israel's.
Since Goldberg agrees "unthinking American support hurts Israel," given the "special relationship," recognized by the world over in terms of very unbalanced power politics, how happens it to be that "American support for Israel does not hurt America?"
Goldberg simply dismisses M & W's book as a mere polemic. Then, by cleverly dropping the adjective "unthinking" (unconditional) regarding American support for Israel in terms of its hurting America, he erases the elephant from the room.
The American public has been continually sold on the idea that America's interests and Israel's interests are the same. No contrary information is ever given by our politicians. Now Goldberg simply asserts that's not really the case. The USA has not been harmed but only Israel has been harmed by unthinking American support of Israel. Goldberg should write fantasy books, about Fourth Dimensions where the laws of cause and effect don't exist.
Painful as it is, but we must accept Jeffrey Goldberg as one of the enlightened ones now. Phil seems to be right about this — there is a sea change going on. Last week Friedman and now this. There has obviously been some kind of shift within the high level Jewish leadership. What happened? Why can't Aipac whip their boys back into line? Yes, that upcoming national Aipac meeting is going to be interesting.
enlightened? one or two does not an enlightened group make.
power is flexible. keep goal in sight. change tactics to get there, stay there.
change lies. refurbish lies. keep lying.
Here's Rosner & Goldberg today on this topic:
link to haaretz.com
It's really obtuse.
More than glosnost about the nature of the Zionist theft of Palestine is needed.
American Jews need to rethink their views of the last 2-3 centuries of Jewish history.
The three defining political assassinations of Modern Russia (and hence of the world) were carried out or ordered by ethnic Ashkenazim, to wit, the assassinations of
1. Czar Alexander II,
2. Pyotr Stolypin,
3. Nicholas II and his family.
By viewing themselves as weak and powerless victims, ethnic Ashkenazim avoid the unpleasant truths of their history.
BTW, I was recently reading Richard Pipes discussion of the assassination of Stolypin. It reminded me of the sort of distortions that I associated with Daniel Pipes in discussions of Islam.
On the basis of the Pipeses, one could almost make a case for identifying intellectual dishonesty as a genetically inheritable trait.
Goldberg tries to row back here:
link to jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com
Dear Max,
I have a “fair amount of respect” for you, as well, so it bothers me that you misread my recent Times op-ed so comprehensively. In your post, you misrepresented my views consistently, but let me grapple with your most outrageous assertion: that I “concede” most of the case made by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their book “The Israel Lobby.”
any one here know who's palestinian home buber-the-moral, the highest of the enlightened, took for his own?
enquiring mind wants to know.
Joachim:
war with Iran or not? Surely even the neo Coms must fear the energy spike that wopuld come with that attack…
There are lots of ways to make money with a spike in oil prices.
If you read Podhoretz in Commentary, he seems undaunted by consequences of an attack on Iran, and remember that "Our Crowd" being generally cash rich did quite well during the Great Depression.
Because I believe that Neocons had expected the USA to be entering a new economic boom thanks to new Neocolonial revenue streams from Iraq and Lebanon at this point, they are navigating completely unforeseen waters.
It is not out of the range of possibilities that the hyperwealthy Zionists, who paid for the current mess, might decide to crash and burn the US economy if they begin to feel threatened.
Already in 1897, in his famous speech to the First Zionist Congress, Max Nordau conveyed some real explicit longing for the ?long lost Ghetto?:
?The Ghetto?was for the Jew of the past not a prison, but a refuge. ?In the Ghetto, the Jew had his own world; it was to him the sure refuge which had for him the spiritual and moral value of a parental home. Here were associates by whom one wished to be valued, and also could be valued; here was the public opinion to be acknowledged by which was the aim of the Jew's ambition?.Here all specific Jewish qualities were esteemed, and through their special development that admiration was to be obtained which is the sharpest spur to the human mind. ?.The opinion of the outside world had no influence, because it was the opinion of ignorant enemies. One tried to please one's co-religionists, and their applause was the worthy contentment of his life. So did the Ghetto Jews live, in a moral respect, in a real full life. Their external situation was insecure, often seriously endangered. But internally they achieved a complete development of their specific qualities. They were human beings in harmony, who were not in want of the elements of normal social life. They also felt instinctively the whole importance of the Ghetto for their inner life, and therefore, they had the one sole care: to make its existence secure through invisible walls which were much thicker and higher than the stone walls that visibly shut them in. All Jewish buildings and habits unconsciously pursued only one purpose: to keep up Judaism by separation from the other people and to make the individual Jew constantly aware of the fact that he was lost and would perish if he gave up his specific character.?
Clearly, this old speech expresses the current Israeli innermost desire.
Already in 1897, in his famous speech to the First Zionist Congress, Max Nordau conveyed some real explicit longing for the ?long lost Ghetto?:
?The Ghetto?was for the Jew of the past not a prison, but a refuge. ?In the Ghetto, the Jew had his own world; it was to him the sure refuge which had for him the spiritual and moral value of a parental home. Here were associates by whom one wished to be valued, and also could be valued; here was the public opinion to be acknowledged by which was the aim of the Jew's ambition?.Here all specific Jewish qualities were esteemed, and through their special development that admiration was to be obtained which is the sharpest spur to the human mind. ?.The opinion of the outside world had no influence, because it was the opinion of ignorant enemies. One tried to please one's co-religionists, and their applause was the worthy contentment of his life. So did the Ghetto Jews live, in a moral respect, in a real full life. Their external situation was insecure, often seriously endangered. But internally they achieved a complete development of their specific qualities. They were human beings in harmony, who were not in want of the elements of normal social life. They also felt instinctively the whole importance of the Ghetto for their inner life, and therefore, they had the one sole care: to make its existence secure through invisible walls which were much thicker and higher than the stone walls that visibly shut them in. All Jewish buildings and habits unconsciously pursued only one purpose: to keep up Judaism by separation from the other people and to make the individual Jew constantly aware of the fact that he was lost and would perish if he gave up his specific character.?
Clearly, this old speech expresses the current Israeli innermost desire.
Goldberg's response to Boot contains an error about Walt and Mearsheimer's arguement about The Lobby. Here is Goldberg:
"Max, as you well know, “The Israel Lobby” makes three principal arguments: The first is that American support for Israel – which is engineered solely by the Jewish community, the authors erroneously claim – hurts America."
"Solely by the Jewish community?"
W&M make great effort throughout their fine book that The Lobby is not just Jewish-Americans. The Lobby also includes gentile neocons like Frank Gaffney, former UN Amb Bolton, and the many Christian Zionists like Hagee, Falwell, etc.
If Goldberg can't get that correct, he probably did not read the book.