Leila Abu-Saba knows Max Rodenbeck and describes him as an Arabist. Rodenbeck is the writer for the Economist whom the Times assigned on Sunday to machicolate Ken Pollack (the sage to whom the Times had formerly turned to, in 2002-2003, to urge the path of war in Iraq). She reports:
Abu-Saba points me to Rodenbeck's pedigree: he is the son of John and Elizabeth "Buffy" Rodenbeck, expatriate Americans living in Egypt and profiled by Al-Ahram here. Father John , an academic, reminds me a little of Simon Malley, Rob Malley's father, the literary Fanon-influenced Egyptian-born Jewish editor.
Al-Ahram of Egypt reported 6 years ago of John Rodenbeck:
He has sent off two Parthian shots, [I guess this means letters] one to The Cairo Times and one to The Guardian, both on the Israeli-Palestinian question. "Everyone seems to have lost sight of what's obviously the easiest and simplest and most available solution to the Middle East problem, and that's for the Israelis to pack up and go to the US." This is simple, preamble-free, Rodenbeck logic.
(That's funny. Chomsky once said that the Israelis should by all logic get New Jersey before Palestine. Dennis Drew jokes, "one of my brothers says we should give the Palestinians the burned out areas of the Bronx — as former Jewish land.")
It's interesting that Malley got unfairly disqualified from service to Obama partly because of his dad's work. Rodenbeck is getting in under the concertina wire to the Times. Progress.
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Rodenbeck: "the easiest and simplest and most available solution to the Middle East problem, and that's for the Israelis to pack up and go to the US."
Chomsky (paraphrased): the Israelis should by all logic get New Jersey before Palestine.
Yeah, right, great. Just transfer the Judeofascist tribe to America. Look how much its diaspora has done for this country in the last 20 years, since it ascended to the status of "elite." Why, in another 20, we'll all be living like Cossacks under the Jewish Bolsheviks (those that are left living, at least). But hey, at least the Arabian peninsula will be completely Islamic.
Wrong. Transfer the Judeofascists to Israel, and arm the Palestinians. There’s no other way.
Rodenbeck: "the easiest and simplest and most available solution to the Middle East problem, and that's for the Israelis to pack up and go to the US."
No thanks! There has to be a time when Israel isn't my problem, and bringing Israel to America isn't a solution.
“bringing Israel to America isn't a solution.”
Todd, Israel already is in America.
Some call it "the Israel Lobby" (Walt and Mearsheimer) ; some call it "Judonia" (Joachim Martillo); some call it “The Zionist Power Configuration” (Petras); some call it “the Diaspora” (Zionist Witty and SOG types); I call it “the nation within a nation of Zion.”
However you cut it, it’s already HERE, but it belongs THERE. And deep down, everyone knows it.
Ed, I agree that Israel has set up camp in the United States, but I don't want the rest of the population of Israel on U.S. soil. If we could just send the U.S. faction packing, we might make some progress.
Woah, Phil, John Rodenbeck reminds you of Simon Malley? But Rodenbeck is a WASP (or part German-Protestant? Not positive) and an old-school Anglo-establishment type. (Ph.D. English from Harvard) You should read his essay criticizing Edward Said's Orientalism. Simon Malley was a Communist I believe, and Sephardic. Very anti-American Politically Rodenbeck and Malley Sr. could not be further apart.
Is the connection that they both love Egypt? Hmmmm… Or that they both criticize Israel?
From my personal encounters with John and Max Rodenbeck I would say that Rodenbeck senior's critique of Israel arises from his fundamental and unswerving loyalty to the US and what he perceives as US interests. Rodenbeck jr., however, is not a US loyalist or partisan.
Oh yes, and thanks so much for the nod.
Have to add one last shot here:
Note that the Times won't publish an Arab making these kinds of remarks. Rodenbeck Jr. has these impeccably non-Arab credentials – The Economist, well-received book out with Random House, father a publisher and academic with Ford Foundation connections. God forbid they should publish critical remarks by some academic or journalist of high standing with an Arabic name, unless it's Fouad Ajami, who turned in his Arab card long ago and now trots after Leon Wieseltier hoping for pats on the head.
Max Rodenbeck (Jr): "What is troubling about Pollack’s view, which is fairly representative of his fellow liberal interventionists, who are likely to be in power soon, is its lack of clarity. Can’t we just admit that American support for Israel is strategically burdensome and is driven by the passion of several domestic constituencies rather than cold cost-benefit geopolitics?…No matter what good will America’s “policy community” proclaims toward the Middle East, this mix of blinkered indulgence of Israel and disdain for the rest of the region, as well as a predilection for Wilsonian dreams over achievable goals, suggests we will remain in the wilderness for some time to come."
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Leila Abu-Saba: "Rodenbeck senior's critique of Israel arises from his fundamental and unswerving loyalty to the US and what he perceives as US interests. Rodenbeck jr., however, is not a US loyalist or partisan."
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Based on the briefs above, Rodenbeck Jr. sounds more like a sensible anti-interventionist paleocon to me, whereas Sr, who wants to transfer Israel's Jews to America, sounds like a typical air-head WASP of a certain generation who thought the US could swallow the Jews whole with no ill effects, and wound up giving succeeding generations a terminal case of indigestion.
As my favorite prophet Jeremiah said: 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and their children's teeth are set on edge'
These smug, greedy internationalist WASP airheads should be banished to Israel along with their Judeofascist brethren. Let them cannibalize each other in Israel instead of sucking blood from the rest of us.
Nothing sets my teeth on edge like colonial-minded parasites, who inevitably wind up feeding on the homefront, as well.
Rodenbeck demolished Pollack and his world-view in few words, and certainly words i never thot i'd see in the NYT
Max Rodenbeck's book Cairo: The City Victorious is excellent. I glanced at his review of Pollack, and nearly skipped over it because I thought at first he was Max Boot, the warmongering neoconservative. But I also agree with Leila; an Arab would rarely, if ever, get to comment in The Times like this.
Ed, since you don't know Dr. Rodenbeck (Sr.), (Ph.D. English from Harvard, AUC Press publisher who was first to publish Mahfouz in English and also edited him, edited numerous other books on Egypt, professor of English literature, etc. etc.) your characterization of him as an airhead is merely laughable. He may be many things, but airhead is not one of them.
You seem to have a beef against somebody; however you're projecting that beef onto somebody else who doesn't match your imaginings. Try again.
I hope Dr. Rodenbeck stumbles upon this little discussion – he might laugh heartily to see the several ways he has been portrayed here by folks who know nothing of him besides that squib in the Guardian and the Al Ahram profile. "Like Simon Malley" or "WASP airhead." Which could it be? Hmmmm
Leila, a lot of very accomplished people are utter airheads on the Jewish question.
Did John Rodenbeck say the following, or not?:
"Everyone seems to have lost sight of what's obviously the easiest and simplest and most available solution to the Middle East problem, and that's for the Israelis to pack up and go to the US."
Did you, Leila, write the following, or not?
“Let the WASPs sneer at us Semites for our wheeling and dealing – it's part of our ability to succeed. Russians, Senegalese, Chinese traders also exhibit this trait and use it to get ahead. Combine it with a love of learning and your children will conquer civilization.”
Posted by: Leila Abu-Saba | June 09, 2008 at 04:43 PM
Given your apparent regard for Rodenbeck patri (someone who advocates the wholesale transfer of Israeli Jews to America) as having a “fundamental and unswerving loyalty to the US,”; and regard for his son (who criticizes Wilsonian/Neocon/Neolib invade the world, invite the world policy) as being anti-American; combined with your fantasy of scheming ethnic wheelers and dealers “conquering civilization,” (America?) well, I can only imagine what your politics are.
Let me guess: left-liberal internationalist (read: neo-Communist). Not very “doveish.” But then again, the Communists always did disguise their malignancy behind a lot of empty “social justice” rhetoric.
You and your statist, internationalist left-liberal cohorts are all on a line from the Trotskyites to the Neolibs to the Neocons. And a lot of money-grubbing, globalization-advocate WASP airheads are your useful idiots.
That's my "beef."
I think I have a troll! Sometimes his name is Ed, sometimes he's anonymous… How utterly charming! I feel so popular… My head is getting positively airy. Excuse me while I go sing the Internationale…
Can't we just acknowledge US aid to Israel enables and compels it to adopt the failed American way of war?
Can't we just accept the fact that major American promoters of Israel's endless regional conflicts are also the US arms industry's principle errand boys?
Can't we just realize that dissolving the US-Israeli alliance would enable Israel to become an authentic Asian nation and increase its security?
Can't we just recognize that The New York Times moved to 620 Eighth Avenue and this changes everything?
Sure we can.
Just a side note – Max Rodenbeck's book Cairo is not out of print. You can still buy it here http://aucpress.com/p-3007-cairo.aspx (At least if you live in the Middle East…)
It is definitely the best book ever written by a foreigner about the city.
'Combine it with a love of learning and your children will conquer civilization'
Can't we get past this need to 'conquer'? Isn't that the problem rathe than a solution? How about 'co-exist peacefully'?
'You and your statist, internationalist left-liberal cohorts are all on a line from the Trotskyites to the Neolibs to the Neocons'
Your analyses Ed, which are often right on the money, do suffer from this tendency to apportion blame to this particular subset of the elite that is running your country into the ground. And it is easier to feel more contempt for the prog wing of the monster, given it's pious, self-satisfied notion of a mission to improve us all, but don't forget where the real authorship of your country's troubles resides.
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