Jeffrey Goldberg has a great interview with Joe Klein on his blog, remarkable for a few things. First you see Klein unbound. He's really smart. He stands by his criticism of Jewish neocons as having dual loyalties and then sounds the realist when he says that Iran is seeking nukes as a deterrent against western threats:
[M]y reading on the nuclear issue is, given the level of threats that they've been getting from the United States, and from Israel, it's a logical thing for Iran to want nuclear weapons as a deterrent. I don't think they'd ever actually use it. First of all, they don't actually have it, but if they did have it, they'd contaminate at the very least the third most holy site in Islam, and they'd kill a hell of a lot of Muslims.
Brilliant. Klein also opens up the essential conversation that I have been calling for for years, for non-neocon Jews to dime out the neocons' religious agenda in the Middle East.
JG: You seem very angry at people who you specifically identify as Jewish neocons. And you're using the word "Jewish" in ways that we haven't seen Jewish reporters and Jewish columnists use.
JK: It's about time. I think everyone else is too afraid to do it. Let me just make something very clear that you already know about me. I am a strong supporter of Israel. I think Israel had a perfect right in 2002 to go into the West Bank and kick the shit out of those people who were making suicide bombs. I think if they wanted to now go into Gaza and take out the people who were hitting Sderot, they would have a perfect right to do that. I am not a Walt-Mearsheimer guy. I think Jews have a perfect right to have a lobby. I do believe that there is a group of people who got involved and had a disproportionate influence on U.S. foreign policy. There were people out there in the Jewish community who saw this as a way to create a benign domino theory and eliminate all of Israel's enemies.
JG: Is that such a bad idea if it would work?
JK: But I think it is a bad idea and I think it wouldn't work. I think it represents a really dangerous anachronistic neocolonial sensibility. And I think it is a very, very dangerous form of extremism. I think it's bad for Israel and it's bad for America. And these guys have been getting a free ride. And now these people are backing the notion of a war with Iran and not all of them, but some of them, are doing it because they believe that Iran is an existential threat to Israel.
Fabulous. Klein's kicker is that rightwing Jewish networks "seem to have the power
to hurt people's careers" in their effort to stifle criticism of Israel.
A few things should be said about this dialogue. It's extremely revealing of the level of Zionism in the mainstream press. Here's Goldberg saying that it's a good thing for the U.S. to set up a benign domino theory to knock off Israel's enemies--a line you may have missed in Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech. Klein in turn proffers his bona fides as a Zionist; he says he supported the invasion of the West Bank in 2002, with all the destruction of homes and innocents, etc. He indicates that his parents are Zionist too. And neither man says a word about the fact that Goldberg actually moved there and served in the Israeli army in the conviction that Jews are unsafe in the west. The inevitable question here is, Do these guys feel they have a right to talk about Jewish neocons because they have good Zionist credentials? What about the people to the left of Klein, non-Zionists who disapprove entirely of the Israeli occupation? What's their place in the U.S. discourse?
And what about non-Jews? In criticizing Klein for injecting religion into the argument by attacking Jewish neoconservative policymakers, notice how Goldberg injects religion himself, when he says that no Jewish reporter or columnist has said this. As if to say, We expect this talk from the goyim, but in Jewish media workers it is not pardonable. And instead of dismissing the distinction, Klein plays along with it by assuring Goldberg, I'm not a Walt and Mearsheimer man, I think the Jews have a perfect right to have a lobby. (As if Walt and Mearsheimer said that. They didn't; they said just what Klein said, that anyone who likes Israel has a right to a lobby their heart out.) I must say that both Goldberg and Klein have gone out of their way lately to take public swipes at Walt and Mearsheimer, and this is because it is increasingly difficult today to distinguish their own positions, as Zionists who are critical of the lobby, from Walt and Mearsheimer's position. Jeffrey Goldberg's critique of the lobby's actions re the West Bank is virtually indistinguishable from Walt and Mearsheimer's. And Klein's assertion that Jewish neocons fomented the Iraq war is also virtually indistinguishable from Walt and Mearsheimer's argument about Iraq. The only difference I can see is that Klein just knew it to be true and was lying in the high grass as they took arrows for two years. And now we have Klein saying the same goddamn thing re Iran and nukes as Mearsheimer. (As does Fareed Zakaria; the realist center grows by the day.)
What seems to make Klein not "a Walt and Mearsheimer man" is the religious issue that pervades the interview. He's Jewish, they're not. Nah Nah! Klein and Goldberg happily play their Jewish cards in this interview. But what if you're not Jewish and don't care for Israel? Or you're an Arabist, or you're a Jewish non-Zionist? Well, you're not really invited to have an opinion that will be taken seriously. Imagine if only Christian evangelicals got to call the evangelicals out on their political agendas! We'd be nowhere today on gay marriage or abortion rights.
Still it's a good interview. You see Klein's mind moving freely on important questions: Jewishness in foreign policy, in neoconservatism, and Zionism as a force in media life. More light, as Goethe said.
Though Goldberg's wrong when he says that Klein is the first Jewish reporter or columnist to say such things. Jim Lobe has been an intellectual leader. Glenn Greenwald has done some very good work, so has John Judis in TNR (an entry that remains inaccessible at TNR but available at the Carnegie site). So has Eric Alterman. Jews Jews Jews. I have called the neocons out for dual loyalty for years, and Zionists at the Observer wanted the blog gone. I think I'm still Jewish.
So, let the soul-searching about the neocons' religious agenda continue. But on this democratic condition: You don't have to be Jewish to join in.
(Thanks to Brad Greenberg for the heads up. And to Ed Miles.)
Richard, I think the reason for the bait and switch as you call it is this–W and M are constantly being accused of propounding a conspiracy theory where the Israel lobby is illegitimately influencing US foreign policy. Their reply consists of three points as I see it–
A) It's perfectly legal for any group to form a lobby and exert pressure on behalf of some issue
B) This is commonly done in numerous policy areas.
C) But sometimes the result is bad for America. People make the same claim regarding the Cuban exile community in Miami and their influence on US policy towards Cuba and to a lesser extent, Latin America. They have the right to do what they do, but the result isn't necessarily a good one for either America or the Cubans.
Keating and Laurie:
Perhaps the krauts might want to wait 2933, the end of what would have been the thousand tear Reich before they chip in . Your really sorry you missed on on Treblinka or Babi Yar aren't you?
Why should non-Jews need the permission of Jews to criicize Israel or Jewish interests? I wonder if I'll hear another holocaust or Jewish interest story(presented by a Jewish reporter)on the way to/from work tomorrow? I'd say that the chances are good that I will.
What is keeping the nation from spinning into anarchy?
I didn't say non-Jews, I said the fucking krauts, big difference.
It is sometimes so hilarious yet so tragic for the world of the id that dominates the Neocon mind. It seems to have an greater danger for other cultures and people as the worst of the Spanish and British Empires. Empires sparked by religious and economic demons who laid waste to cultures that were flourishing and self-sustaining but now extinguished and dependent on western statism.
I am a gentile and I have been criticizing the Jewish neos and the jewish lobby for six years.
I don't know why the jewish writers think no one except jews have been criticizing the Isr'merica deal of the jews and zionist. Maybe there are talking about the MSM being afraid to do it, but look at any blog that mentions jews or Israel and you will see gentile commentors ranting about this issue.
I feel prefectly free to criticize jews and gentiles alike and have never paid any attention to those who say we aren't allowed to criticize the zionist and their activities and motivations…just like I never paid attention to being called a traitor for not supporting Bush and his "wur".
Knock your self out man. I know it's the Jews, above all else.
Phil, Finkelstein and leftists critiquing AIPAC for example, in attempting "objectivity" is perceived by many almost as a spy, disloyal, a danger, an airer of only community's dirty laundry.
And isn't extreme paranoia what is warranted, after all?
Would an "objective" journalist do something as PERSONAL as air the dirty laundry of political elites of our ethnic group?
benign domino theory
Which is different than the malignant domino theory.
In benign domino theory of course, setting off that first domino entitles the winners to accrue interest on the war profits while they teach and work in elite institutions and the government forever.
Is that such a bad idea if it would work?
He's right. Jeffrey Goldberg is such a serious thinker. And brilliant.
Consider: Isn't peace ONLY possible after all of Israel's eternal enemies have been COMPLETELY destroyed?
Tipping more dominos (unleashing more genocide) is obviously the lone path to future peace.
Leftists are only IMPOSING unrealistic and hateful conditions (human rights, international law, nuclear nonproliferation) on zionism's vision of a peaceful Mid-East.
W&M say it's All-American to allow any lobby to lobby. They don't always agree with the results as being in America's long-term best interest, or even Israel's. So, they are anti-semites?
Progress in disentangling our foreign policy
from the bellicose Israel-firsters will
never occur until non-Jews are permitted
absolute freedom to criticize Zionism without being stigmatised for anti-semitism,
a term, like racism, which has been stripped
of all meaning by flagrant abuse.
We aren't going to be "permitted freedom to criticize"…so we must simply take the freedom to criticize and let anyone who wants to howl, howl.
Hey, one day even a German from
Germany might risk an analysis of the American-Israel thing.
How much money have the Germans given to Israel to date?
Ditto, the Israelies to the Palestinians?
The significance of Klein, as a Jew, critiquing the neo-conservatives, as Jews, is that it amounts more plausibly to self-reflection, the basis of personal social responsibility.
The significance of non-Jews condemning issues of Israeli policy for example are that it looks like (and very often is) complaining or "demonizing".
A Jew like Klein is saying, WE should act differently.
The right is saying "they" should act differently (or worse) "they" should be silenced.
Phil, Finkelstein and leftists critiquing AIPAC for example, in attempting "objectivity" is perceived by many almost as a spy, disloyal, a danger, an airer of only community's dirty laundry. As they present themselves as assimilated, rather than associating, they describe themselves as "formerly Jewish".
I do the same. When I edited a magazine on energy issues, I brought my knowledge of business and finance to attempt to expose the corruptions of energy deregulation, of the strange bedfellows, and strange policies that emerged from legislative compromise of interested factions.
I dislike the manner of the Walt/Mearsheimer work for a gamut of reasons, but one critical one is that there is a bait and switch process. They state 'AIPAC has a right to advocate for positions that it considers important', and 'that a faction advocating is not a distortion of public weal, its the American constitution alive", but then they switch to the thesis that it is a distortion.
So which is it?
You know what will happen when people are free to say what they think, they will criticize Germany for giving so much money and aid to Israel. If I were Germany, I tell the rest of the world to "get screwed" and go about my own business, which is taking care of Germans.
Reparations
"Since the 1950s, Germany has paid 26 billion euros ($38 billion) in compensation. Around 1.7 billion of this went to Israel, the rest to German claimants." This would not include aid and other sorts of help Germany has given Israel.
"The significance of non-Jews condemning issues of Israeli policy for example are that it looks like (and very often is) complaining or "demonizing"." Richard
Only to the Jews.
Olmert resigns…Kadima is probably finished…Netanyahu and Likud follow
When Klein says “I think Israel had a perfect right in 2002 to go into the West Bank and kick the shit out of those people” he reminds me of violent liberal interventionist NYT columnist and bestseller Tom Friedman, who’s thinking and agitating was key to softening up mainstream Democrats towards the wisdom of invading Iraq (and who was also a big supporter of Clinton’s bombing of Serbia: “Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too,” he wrote at the time.)
Here’s a couple of quotes that nicely summarize Friedman’s angry and violent perspective on the best approach to US foreign policy: "Sometimes it takes a 2-by-4 across the side of the head" and a high-ranking foreign policy official "quietly pounding a baseball bat into his palm" to get the message across.(thanks Glenn Greenwald)
There are unquestionably violent proclivities that come out of the Jewish milieu. Those who subscribe to the official Establishment narrative might answer: well sure, a Holocaust will do that. But that ignores the violence of the Jewish Bolsheviks that pre-dated the Holocaust, and on a scale that surpassed the Holocaust. The Jewish collective always seems to inflate the nature of some out-group’s transgression in order to justify its own violent and psychotic over-reaction. Functioning sociopaths.
And yet, all these violent, Jewish Neocon, Jewish Neolib and Jewish Zionist measures are always successfully passed of as merely “pre-emptive” and defensive in nature. There’s no aggression, malice or racism at work; its all, always and inevitably, the fault of someone else.
Why do US Jewish liberal fans of the Tom Friedman mentality profess to hate functioning sociopaths in the Bush/Cheney vein when they are all so much alike?
The problem is bigger than Zionism, but all we need to know right now is that Zionism attracts both Jewish and non-Jewish sociopaths like flies to sh**, and may well be the best means to distinguish the sane from the insane.
I Know What Jews Like
By Spencer Ackerman 07/16/2008 12:55PM
Actually, J Street knows. The pro-peace/pro-Israel/pro-Palestine Jewish lobby just released a monster of a poll on American Jewish political attitudes. The takeaway: we're liberal as hell; we hate Bush; we know Bush has been a disaster for Israel; we'll support any peace deal the Israelis make; and the only thing we're uncomfortable with to that end is giving East Jerusalem back to the Palestinians.
Let's go down the line. Seventy-four percent of us view Bush unfavorably and 83 percent of us disapprove of his job performance. While 76 percent of the country as a whole says the U.S. is on the wrong track, an astonishing 90 percent of American Jews say the same. Only 21 percent of us approve of the Iraq war and only 29 percent think Bush is good for Israel, and those are clearly the shmucks that kissed ass in Hebrew school and snitched when the rest of us used the synagogue phone booth and cloakroom to make out.
When asked if the U.S. should or shouldn't actively broker Mideast peace, it broke down 55 percent for U.S. involvement and 30 percent against. J Street, the menschen, took that a step further and examined support for the hard choices piece requires. "Even if it meant the United States publicly stating its disagreements with both the Israelis and the Arabs?" Yes — 75 percent; no — 25 percent. "Even if it meant the United States exerting pressure on both Israelis and Arabs to make the compromises necessary for peace?" Yes — 70 percent; no — 30 percent.
In terms of negotiating positions for an Arab-Israeli settlement, 59 percent agree that Israel will need to "withdraw from most of the West Bank and dismantle many of the Israeli settlements." Another 58 percent agree that for full peace with Syria — and an abandonment of their support for Hamas and Hezbollah — Israel should get out of the Golan. Only 44 percent, though, endorse the statement that Palestinian East Jerusalem should be part of the state of Palestine. And while that's the only non-majority position among American Jews for what can fairly be called the dovish line, 44 percent is still a substantial amount of support.
J Street's poll supports its contention that the attitudes of most of us are far, far out of whack with what this country's self-appointed Jewish leaders — the Joe Liebermans, the AIPACs, the Sheldon Adelsons, the Commentary magazines — say we're about and what we're actually about.
OT:
Holy shtykies! Richard Witty was right about Iraq!
The Zionists did it for the oil!
Klein: "There were people out there in the Jewish community who saw this as a way to create a benign domino theory and eliminate all of Israel's enemies."
Goldberg: "Is that such a bad idea if it would work?"
Goldberg's question sums up the whole problem. Neocons believe it is ok to use American soldiers to make Israel safer. Klein went along with it at first, but now he has buyers remorse.
If it worked, Klein would be screaming for more war.
Great smear job here:
Joe Klein is no Kappo, Just a Low-Life Scumbag
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