Realist Mike Desch has a good piece on AIPAC in the Chicago Tribune that describes the presidential nominees' speeches as a "bidding war" for Jewish support that does not serve Israel. And meantime in a dialogue with Richard Silverstein, Carla Cohen, the owner of Politics and Prose bookstore, dismisses realists Walt and Mearsheimer's book:
I am curious as to why you consider the book progressive. It is anti-Aipac to be sure, but it is really out of this world, or at least out of my world. Do you think the media is controlled by Jews?
This is an important question. Answer, please:
Walt and Mearsheimer don’t say that. In fact, I go a lot further, saying that Jews like myself (privileged meritocrats) tend to dominate certain sectors of the media, and that we bring sometimes unconscious pro-Israel agendas to this work. Oh but FSG published Walt and Mearsheimer and the Trib publishes Desch! True. Other voices get in now and then. But Carla Cohen’s question seems to me to reflect a real lack of introspection. Carla: What does it mean that Jews have as much cultural/political power as we do? You own an important book store. I bet Tom Friedman comes there, he lives nearby. He helped pave the way for the Iraq war with his columns on Iraq’s threat. He is a big deal, and he’s hardly alone. I wonder if Ken Pollack comes by your book store. He had the run of the NYT op-ed pages to make the case for war, with his foolish claim that Israel/Palestine was not a big issue in the Arab world. My old classmate Fred Hiatt runs the Washington Post editorial page and has been surprisingly hawkish these last few years. Another friend, Nick Goldberg, runs the LAT editorial page, which has been the best page in the country for diversity on the Middle East; he’s a true progressive, though I bet he’s got a little Zionism whirring away in there. As do you. The other day I was at the New York Theatre Workshop, whose board intervened two years ago to censor the Rachel Corrie play. Now NYTW is amending that error, and god bless it. But what does all this say about Jewish success? And your censorship of Makdisi, to your great credit now rescinded, is reflected in the many censorships even at Harvard of these views. The author of that article knows that we are part of the elite.
Your statement to Richard is flip, Carla. Flipness doesn’t become the great Jewish tradition of serious consideration of such important questions.
