The New Jersey Jewish Standard has a review by Abraham Foxman of former Indiana congressman John Hostettler's book Nothing for the Nation, which blames Israel firsters for pushing the Iraq war. Foxman ends his piece:
Hostettler has
settled upon the oldest answer to policy failures in which, having
failed to persuade his colleagues to act otherwise, he must
unfortunately feel implicated: It’s the Jews that did it.
Sadly, this is the conspiracy theory that keeps on ticking.
I've heard of the Oldest Profession, but never the Oldest Answer to policy failures.
Anyway, when have people blamed Jews for policy failures in the U.S.? I can't remember it. People don't blame The Jews for Iraq either. We are blaming ultra-Zionist Jews who think nothing of the Israeli occupation and who wanted to reform the Arab world at the point of a gun for playing a decisive part in a disaster.
I think about the time that Arlen Specter voted "unproven" in Clinton's impeachment trial in 1999. He was a key vote, a Republican who sided with the Democrats. Specter is Jewish and I remember Jews taking pride in Specter's vote. He was just one of 50, but he was the guy who made the difference, a supposedly sage jurist. Well we're talking about far more significant political power in the case of the neocons, these were the guys who supplied the toxic ideas that fed the Iraq war. Where is the reflection in the Jewish community? Why always this angry defensiveness? We're a powerful community. Where's the introspection, the honesty, the responsibility?
(Thanks to Idrees Ahmad for the tip…)
The review was eloquent, clear, accurate.
Foxman's comments were more on the mark than yours.
Richard, you're getting worse.
'Why always this angry defensiveness? We're a powerful community. Where's the introspection, the honesty, the responsibility?'
Eloquent, clear, accurate. You think your pathetic foot-stomps put the heat on Phil, when it's his insistent honesty and common sense that has put the burners under your blinkered and fearful ethno-religious solidarity. Hence the high-pitched squealing that seems to be all that emanates from your quarter nowadays.
It wasn't only the Israel-firsters, and a focus that ignores the MI complex (indeed, the US's reliance nowadays on what Chris Floyd calls 'war, or the rumour of war' as the basis of an economy that no longer produces anything useful) is wrong, but it's no more wrong than pretending there is no Israel-first footprint all over the war.
It wasn't only the Israel-firsters, and a focus that ignores the MI complex (indeed, the US's reliance nowadays on what Chris Floyd calls 'war, or the rumour of war' as the basis of an economy that no longer produces anything useful) is wrong, but it's no more wrong than pretending there is no Israel-first footprint all over the war.
My problem with Richard is that he does not distinguish. Everybody asking questions to him can have only one mindset. Everybody curious about the course of recent US history and a president celebrated like a king in neoconservative circles can have only one mindset: She is an antisemite and probably believes in an early 20th century forgery. He only wants to blame it on Israel and/or Jews.
Richard: I am assuming this was for me:
What question are you asking about?
We both opposed the Iraq War, but for apparently different reasons (probably some in common, but the inference that the war was fought for Israel is our divide).
I am pretty sure, we have been here before. One last time: You are wrong. I never thought that the Iraq war was fought for Israel. Could we say you are generalizing? Somehow like: Phil and everybody reading his blog–with very, very few exceptions–thinks that the war was fought for Israel, thus you must think so too.
You have got to be kidding. Just about eVery post here blames the jews for just about everything so does just about every response.
None of your comments addresses Foxman's points.
Phil used the term "Israel-first" which is false. A coalition that was much wider than only "Israel-first" advocates, formed the executive decision to enter the Iraq war and the Congressional authorization to do so.
The thesis of preemptive military intervention was NOT historically new, or unique to neo-conservatives.
We had hoped that with the demise of the cold war, that the military posturing would have been dashed permanently, but the proponents of increased military were the defense industry, the pentagon, the 'patriots' here, the conservatives in general (with a couple exceptions).
I'm sorry that you folks have ingested this jaded tripe. I'm far more sorry that Phil has.
Phil used the term "Israel-first" which is false. A coalition that was much wider than only "Israel-first" advocates, formed the executive decision to enter the Iraq war and the Congressional authorization to do so.
Not exactly.
Phil states that "John Hostettler's book Nothing for the Nation … blames Israel firsters for pushing the Iraq war."
I think even Foxman would agree with him here.
This is getting absurd.
R.W: Phil used the term "Israel-first" which is false. A coalition that was much wider than only "Israel-first" advocates, formed the executive decision to enter the Iraq war and the Congressional authorization to do so.
Not exactly.
Phil states that "John Hostettler's book Nothing for the Nation … blames Israel firsters for pushing the Iraq war."
I think even Foxman would agree with him here.
This is getting absurd.
I've heard of the Oldest Profession
Propaganda right?
Did you read the review referred to in Phil's post?
Phil was taking a low blow shot at Foxman, a convenient target.
If the reality is that there is diversity within the Jewish community, within the Jewish moneyed community, within AIPAC even, then the thesis of monolith is false.
The weight of the thesis IS important. If Phil is saying, "a couple individuals added concerns about Israel to the mix of concerns and propaganda to conceive and promote the war", that is agreed.
It is NOT the gist. The gist of W/M and Phil's comment, is that Israel was the reason that the US got into the war.
Its a lie. If Phil wants to clarify that that is not his gist, then 1/80th of his posts would be on that topic, and rest on other issues.
Its not. Its his cul-de-sac now. His orbit.
Thankfully he is talking about energy a little.
What do WE do that contributes to the geo-political power struggle? What do I do?
30 ideas does not address the goal nor politics involved in it, but its a start.
Foxman's implication is that the "oldest answer to policy failues" is "the world's oldest social pathology". Anyway, both "oldest" are nonsense.
LeaNder: Iraq war on Israel's behalf
——————————————
Before the war started there was an interview in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung with Ruth Wedgewood. (A professor at Johns Hopkins and at the time member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, headed by Richard Perle.)
The Interviewer asked: "What would you say to convince me so that I say 'yes' to the Iraq war?"
Wedgewood replied: "I could be impolite and remind you of your history. Iraq is a threat to Israel. This is simply so."
(She went on to point to other European countries that were supporting the war and said Germany shouldn't isolate itself.)
Her point was: Germany should join the war in order to knock out the enemies of Israel! (This was in a large circulation German paper.)
Weiss: "People don't blame The Jews for Iraq either. We are blaming ultra-Zionist Jews who think nothing of the Israeli occupation and who wanted to reform the Arab world at the point of a gun for playing a decisive part in a disaster."
Despite this sentence, diaspora Jewish Zionist Richard Witty implies Phil is blaming Israel-firsters exclusively, which is itself an implication of scapegoating "the Jews."
Phil Weiss goes to the trouble of specifying "ultra Zionist Jews" and with a caveat of playing a "decisive" (not exlusive) role in getting the US into Iraq, and diaspara Jewish Zionist Witty (a supposedly moderate Zionist) says this is scapegoating the Jews, itself an implication of anti-Semitism.
What did I tell you Phil? No matter how much you give, it will never be enough. The Zionist approach is like Chinese water torture, where they just drip, drip, drip away until you are broken.
Until you and all other Jews of good-will understand you are dealing with an unreconstructed evil and bulwark yourselves appropriately, the Zionists will forever try to get you hooked on their heroin. It's their nature and pathology.
Jewish ideologues brought this same kind of ferocity to another of their ideologies: Communism (which, the more I think about it, was largely a front for their Zionist–Jewish supremacist–impulses). These people are irredeemable racists. Let them consume one another in Israel instead of existing parasitically off of the rest of us. Make an example of them. It will be a good lesson to the money-grubbing parasites of other persuasions, as well.
The review was eloquent, clear, accurate.
Then why do I feel like I'm coming down with a case of rabies after just the first paragraph?
Although self-publishing has gained increasing traction lately, the idea of launching one’s own publishing company "to facilitate the publication of my first book" makes John Hostettler’s "Nothing for the Nation: Who Got What Out of Iraq" an especially vivid example of chutzpah. And while Hostettler, a Republican congressman from Indiana from 1995 to 2007, defends his vote against the war in Iraq on several grounds, his contention that President George W. Bush depended on intelligence provided by neoconservatives "with Jewish backgrounds" — whose real interest was in promoting the security of Israel — demands our attention.
Translated out of legalese and without any feigned respect for etiquette, well, maybe it's just me, but it seems a little passive aggressive. Something like,
This schmuck thinks he should be able to publish a book by himself! And it says stuff we strongly disagree with! ("We" meaning I, The Only Official Organ Of Organized Jewish OpiniOn — The OOOOOJOO (or AJC).) What chutzpah! What a son of a bitch! LET'S BITE HIM!
But if Richard Witty, elevated spiritual guru and peace piper, says the reasoning is eloquent and clear and accurate, then it can only be thus.
Meager me, I wish to bathe in this eloquent puddle beneath Abe's deskchair. So let me wade in a little deeper…
Of course, Hostettler’s reasoning is nothing new, following the line of attack in "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by academics John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt.
WELL NOW I'M FOAMING! G-D DAMMIT! LET'S BITE THIS SON OF A BITCH! HE'S AGAINST US LIKE THEY ARE! LET'S BITE HIM!
Excuse me where were we?
OK:
His conclusions are similar to theirs: Individuals in government, who always [Eloquent Abe!] have Jewish surnames and Israeli connections, provided crucial intelligence on Iraq and were concerned not with the American republic but with Israel’s security [NOT EXPANSION]. Like his predecessors, Hostettler’s claim of "dual loyalty" by prominent Jews repeats age-old slanders of Jewish disloyalty to their countries and outlandish notions of secret [Accurate Abe! Because the Israel Lobby's machinations are a big SECRET!] Jewish cabals pulling international strings.
One of Canines for Decency's (or the ADL) best dog whistles ever is that the "settler" movement (Likud etc. expansionist zionism) is about "security". Progressives and Jabotinskyites alike repeat constantly. It unifies nearly all zionists, the belief that the war-making is in the interest of peace.
That's the clarity Witty is talking about here. Clear, like a dog whistle to your subconscious:
Security, Security, Security, not expansion. Just Security. Safety. Your family. Safe. Happy. Security. Home. Security. Expansion, Lobbying, Missiles, Nukes–ONLY FOR SAFETY. FOR SECURITY.
Likud-USA: Safety You Can Believe In.
Or our Foxman terrier will bite your fucking leg off.
But I digress. The eloquent writer was on a roll…
Hostettler claims that it was only after the "distressing news … of the lack of WMD" that he learned members of the Office of Special Plans had played a much more critical role in the intelligence "analysis" before the votes in Congress. He notes that OSP’s Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith had, in 1986, "established a law firm with partner Marc Zell, who was a resident of Israel [emphasis added by Abe for Anti-Semitic Jew-scaring effect--and eloquence]." He refers to others who had been in government, like David Wurmser and Paul Wolfowitz, and who suggested the presence of a WMD program in Iraq. [Witty is correct to say that much of Abe's piece contains accurate information--particularly the quotes.] Hostettler began to entertain the idea that the links among them "were something more than coincidental." Presumably, that something more is their being Jewish and not their shared politics.
No one's making ANY money here, either!
–I suppose. Because ultra-zionism isn't about profit, it's about SECURITY.
Where have I heard that before?
So Richard Perle is just securing The Realm (and a few oil contracts–HEY! Guy's gotta eat right?). Haim Saban, cash in hand, is now securing Barry and Bozo's testicles. And even that poor schmo Ehud Olmert is doing his part, securing one last little plot of Nakba Estate–with a view of the wall!–for Israeli developers to keep the Jewish people safe in.
I think Abe's message to us, the non-zionist community, and to Hostettler, is that we should just look the other way. So what, if our former Lady, Lady Liberty, is now the batty, washed-up U.S. government, who winks, lifts up its skirt a little, and puts its hand over the soft, feminine mouth it blows kisses to the war-mongering zionists who finance its political campaigns with?
Abe says it's a conspiracy theory, and we know conspiracies never happen.
Well who should I believe? Phil Weiss, or that foaming dog over there?
Thanks LeaNder for the italics, but your spelling errors are more enjoyable… grumble grumble… pinche german nitwit…
- "settler" movement (Likud etc. expansionist zionism) is about "security" – MM
A very philosemitic, pro-Israel friend of mine, who strongly supported the Iraq war, actually believed this propaganda.
Ever since I came to believe that philosemitism and strong support of Israel is a mental illness. (At least among the Germans).
Foxman's explanation sounds much more reasonable to me.
You really got on a roll there MM.
Finkelstein and now Foxman.
Lets roll out the cause celebres.
And, you complain about AIPAC evoking fear-stimuli?
Richard Witty harbors the classical Jewish anti-gentile stereotype:
- Gentiles are inherently irrational anti-Jewish.
They would even blame the Jews for an earth-quake.
The idea that there could be justified, rational blame on the Jews is not conceivable to him. But Immanuel Kant for instance thought so.
Anyway, Richard believes in the land of his forefathers (Judea and Samaria) – and a superior Jewish birthright to settle there.
That's as resonable as blaming the Jews for an earth-qauke.
Done.
No
Yes?
MM, concerning spelling errors. This rang a bell. "Excuse me where were we?"
were – where
cause – course
think – thing
cleaning …
But true it is getting really bad lately. Maybe I should ignore Witty. I have a subconscious tendency to commit blunders, if I start to criticize somebody. It's really peculiar. I've noticed this before. It's a recurring story.
Italic closer, I closed the italics after the citatation. It looked fine in preview.
I tested it again. With only the citation in italics. It was fine AGAIN in preview. But changed AGAIN after sending.
But this is really funny now.
If you look at it in preview, it's fine. But I am sure after I send this it's italic again.
What happens if you put this in italics? And close it.
Looks fine in preview.
My spelling should have been:
"That's as reasonable as blaming the Jews for an earth quake." Correct?
_____________________________________
My main point is: There should be a change in paradigm.
The old paradigm:
Anti-Semitism is a pathology of the gentiles.
The new paradigm:
Judaism (and its offshot Zionism) is a pathology
- and adversitity to it is a sound reaction.
I mean, every philosopher of the Enlightenment – from Voltaire to Kant – dismissed Judaism as a chauvinistic tribal religion. – Hitler wasn't in line with these people. He admired Judaism for its 'racial purity'. That's why he outlawed German-Jewish intermarriage. "We are not sorry about this" – said the German Zionist Rabbi Dr.Joachim Prinz from Berlin.
Good thread (my post in particular was brilliant) but the italics are a killer… gonna fall right out of my chair. I walk down the hall and I want to fall over.
Witty's views on the other hand don't need html tags, they're always slanted.
And still Foxman's comments to me sound more plausible than Phil's.
Both contained inferences, and reaction. Phil's contained the reaction that "any comment by Foxman is a caricature, an overcompensation".
I read Foxman's comments, and regard that inference as false.
Foxman essentially uses a stereotype, that of the 'old anti-Semite'.
This stereotype informs him about the old anti-Semite's reasoning (cabal, conspiracy, scapegoat thinking etc.).
If he can find one characteristic of this reasoning – say, 'interest in Jewish names' – he infers another stereotypical, old characteristic: the Jews as scapegoats.
Foxman can't get rid of his 'anti-Semite model' in his head.
"I am a Zionist," stated Senator Biden. "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist."
"My son married a young woman whose mother and whole family is a very prominent Jewish family in the state of Delaware, the Bergers."
And much, much more, from March 28, 2007 Shalom TV interview of VP-wannabe, Biden.
" I read Foxman's comments, and regard that inference as false."–Witty
Anyone who has any doubt about Foxman's selective bombast should google Foxman and "anti-anti-semitism." Read the Times article. Judge for yourself.
Here's MM's post again, which was pretty much ruined by Leander's idiocy. It breaks the two-paragraph length rule, but it's worth it. (And no, I'm not him in disguise nor am I getting any royalties from this.)–
———————————————————————————————-
The review was eloquent, clear, accurate.
Then why do I feel like I'm coming down with a case of rabies after just the first paragraph?
Although self-publishing has gained increasing traction lately, the idea of launching one’s own publishing company "to facilitate the publication of my first book" makes John Hostettler’s "Nothing for the Nation: Who Got What Out of Iraq" an especially vivid example of chutzpah. And while Hostettler, a Republican congressman from Indiana from 1995 to 2007, defends his vote against the war in Iraq on several grounds, his contention that President George W. Bush depended on intelligence provided by neoconservatives "with Jewish backgrounds" — whose real interest was in promoting the security of Israel — demands our attention.
Translated out of legalese and without any feigned respect for etiquette, well, maybe it's just me, but it seems a little passive aggressive. Something like,
This schmuck thinks he should be able to publish a book by himself! And it says stuff we strongly disagree with! ("We" meaning I, The Only Official Organ Of Organized Jewish OpiniOn — The OOOOOJOO (or AJC).) What chutzpah! What a son of a bitch! LET'S BITE HIM!
But if Richard Witty, elevated spiritual guru and peace piper, says the reasoning is eloquent and clear and accurate, then it can only be thus.
Meager me, I wish to bathe in this eloquent puddle beneath Abe's deskchair. So let me wade in a little deeper…
Of course, Hostettler’s reasoning is nothing new, following the line of attack in "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by academics John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt.
WELL NOW I'M FOAMING! G-D DAMMIT! LET'S BITE THIS SON OF A BITCH! HE'S AGAINST US LIKE THEY ARE! LET'S BITE HIM!
Excuse me where were we?
OK:
His conclusions are similar to theirs: Individuals in government, who always [Eloquent Abe!] have Jewish surnames and Israeli connections, provided crucial intelligence on Iraq and were concerned not with the American republic but with Israel’s security [NOT EXPANSION]. Like his predecessors, Hostettler’s claim of "dual loyalty" by prominent Jews repeats age-old slanders of Jewish disloyalty to their countries and outlandish notions of secret [Accurate Abe! Because the Israel Lobby's machinations are a big SECRET!] Jewish cabals pulling international strings.
One of Canines for Decency's (or the ADL) best dog whistles ever is that the "settler" movement (Likud etc. expansionist zionism) is about "security". Progressives and Jabotinskyites alike repeat constantly. It unifies nearly all zionists, the belief that the war-making is in the interest of peace.
That's the clarity Witty is talking about here. Clear, like a dog whistle to your subconscious:
Security, Security, Security, not expansion. Just Security. Safety. Your family. Safe. Happy. Security. Home. Security. Expansion, Lobbying, Missiles, Nukes–ONLY FOR SAFETY. FOR SECURITY.
Likud-USA: Safety You Can Believe In.
Or our Foxman terrier will bite your fucking leg off.
But I digress. The eloquent writer was on a roll…
Hostettler claims that it was only after the "distressing news … of the lack of WMD" that he learned members of the Office of Special Plans had played a much more critical role in the intelligence "analysis" before the votes in Congress. He notes that OSP’s Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith had, in 1986, "established a law firm with partner Marc Zell, who was a resident of Israel [emphasis added by Abe for Anti-Semitic Jew-scaring effect--and eloquence]." He refers to others who had been in government, like David Wurmser and Paul Wolfowitz, and who suggested the presence of a WMD program in Iraq. [Witty is correct to say that much of Abe's piece contains accurate information--particularly the quotes.] Hostettler began to entertain the idea that the links among them "were something more than coincidental." Presumably, that something more is their being Jewish and not their shared politics.
No one's making ANY money here, either!
–I suppose. Because ultra-zionism isn't about profit, it's about SECURITY.
Where have I heard that before?
So Richard Perle is just securing The Realm (and a few oil contracts–HEY! Guy's gotta eat right?). Haim Saban, cash in hand, is now securing Barry and Bozo's testicles. And even that poor schmo Ehud Olmert is doing his part, securing one last little plot of Nakba Estate–with a view of the wall!–for Israeli developers to keep the Jewish people safe in.
I think Abe's message to us, the non-zionist community, and to Hostettler, is that we should just look the other way. So what, if our former Lady, Lady Liberty, is now the batty, washed-up U.S. government, who winks, lifts up its skirt a little, and puts its hand over the soft, feminine mouth it blows kisses to the war-mongering zionists who finance its political campaigns with?
Abe says it's a conspiracy theory, and we know conspiracies never happen.
Well who should I believe? Phil Weiss, or that foaming dog over there?
Posted by: MM | August 23, 2008 at 12:29 PM
The world should believe Foxman on this question.
I don't know who you should believe.
This criminal comment:
===========================
Good thread (my post in particular was brilliant) but the italics are a killer… gonna fall right out of my chair. I walk down the hall and I want to fall over.
Witty's views on the other hand don't need html tags, they're always slanted.
Posted by: MM | August 23, 2008 at 06:24 PM
============================
Almost got me a ruptured pleura.
The world should believe Foxman on this question.
Even when he misrepresents Hostettler by summarizing his argument,
"His conclusions are similar to theirs: Individuals in government, who always have Jewish surnames and Israeli connections, provided crucial intelligence on Iraq…"
If Foxman were a student in my old freshman comp class, the word "always" would've been circled in red, with ten question marks next to it like this ??????????, and the grade would've been a D+.
(Neither Hostettler nor W&M say that neocons are ALWAYS Jewish or connected to Israel–but as Klaus astutely noted, Foxman has an anti-Semitic pattern to follow, facts be damned.)
But shoddy scholarship is only a problem for Rihard Witty if it's W&M's book, which he's never read.
(And thank you D. for reformatting my work.)