‘The American Left (Dailykos) Also Is Claimed by the Israel Lobby’

On (non front-paged) diaries just examining neoconservatives or Israel, I've seen a concern that people are afraid to properly discuss the topic. Its sad.

"It shows that, as Mary-Kay Wilmers of the London Review of Books said to me so sagaciously 2 years ago, The American left is also claimed by the Israel lobby."

That is a totally bullshit conclusion.

It means that like YOU, they have no concrete conclusion that satisfies them, that they listen rather than talk.

The left is spineless because they have joined the Zionists in rejecting religion. Apparantly without religion morality is not binding, tho Chomsky seems to be a counterexample.

The majority of Orthodoxy has got in bed with the Zionists because they were bought off with money and power. They would rather be a State Religion than follow their religion. They are apostates, tho they blind themselves to this.

God will surely give the 'Jews' what they deserve, and now that we have serious troubles of our own we should turn our backs on them.

Phil should change the topic of his blog from Jews to Americans. The great majority of 'Jews' are a lost cause. Maybe this is true of Americans as well, but the situation is still somewhat fluid. See my remarks in the financial crisis thread.

You have got to be fucking kidding me. The Daily Kos and the Nation are two of the most anti-Israel sites this side of mondoweiss and martillos nazi ravings. Not to mention the bard of Seattle, who is a caricature of a spineless left wing Jew. right down to his little beard.

Gee, SOG, with all that "anti-Israel" sentiment out there, why is Washington still providing the Zionists a blank check to kill Palestinians and plunder Palestine? Because Israel is a “democracy”? Christian Russia is a nominal democracy, just like Israel, yet we're on the cusp of going to war against it, too. In fact, Israel and the US largely armed and trained the recent Georgian attack on its people in the breakaway enclaves. And Washington supported the Islamic insurgency in Kosovo against the Christian Serbs (which is consistent with Clinton’s bombing campaign, too).

Zionism is the religion of the “secular" elite, and it shows.

otto,

how many of the “significant group of people” you describe above are Jewish, and how many of them are non-Jewish but have internalized the Arab-hating Jewish Zionist ethos (or acquiesced to it) simply because that's where the money is?

And within the parameters I just described, doesn't the "significant group of people" comprise the vast majority of the Democratic Party?

There’s really no getting around it. Both parties in the two-party regime are irredeemably corrupt.

yawn, witty.

Richard,

Have you considered starting your own blog?

As I have posted also on TikkunOlam, as a fellow daily reader (and often, appreciator) of the DailyKos, I had to wholeheartedly agree with Richard's post on this issue, and only regret failing to mention anti-war.com as fellow brave souls (OK, there's always Amy Goodman, Glen Greenwald and actually, a surprising number of others). The Lobby-Denial-Syndrom (LDS) has unfortunately extended its reach among jewish Americans across all religious and political affiliations. be that it could have been confined to neocons, but alas, as the US congress has demonstrated time and again, that is hardly the case. The stirrings of conscience (cf those that are willing the entertain the fantastic possibility that people of Arabic descent, not to mention muslims, may just, just be, well, human?) are really in evidence only among the younger generation of jews in this country – for all the reasons your blog points out day in and day out.

I would like to add NPR as another casualty of "The Mind-Set" as this outlet has apparently veered away from any honest reporting on the I/P conflict – something that it used to do in the past, often enough. Probably because they need funding and guess who are the biggest contributors to generally progressive media outlets. Clearly the LDS has infected the progressives, be they more or less observant – or hardly religious at all. And talking of religion, we should probably include Rabbi Lerner on the list of the braves, whether one totally agrees on everything he says or not (tip imaginary hat here).

Ed is correctly pointing to the power of money behind this interesting phenomenon. I'd like to add however that it's money not only in the sense of "using" (as in…."bribery"?) since most who consider themselves progressives would recoil at such crude usage of means, should they have them. The latter show their discomfort with a topic simply by "withholding". Something tells me, for example, that had this blog walked more gingerly on the sacred ground, ample funds to keep it in the black would have mysteriously materialized.

Other than money (or absence of it) there's always old-fashioned infliction of jewish guilt (cf, we don't wash dirty laundry in public). I suspect Phil knows much about that, unlike some of us slow learners. The danger of developing thick enough skin to deflect the guilt arrows is brittleness. more on that in my upcoming blog (soon to see the light of day, hopefully….)

If you search the Sacramento Bee's website for neocon or neo-con, it only shows up twice, both for some Family and Home section article: "Forget the great neo-con liberal debate, the big issue that divides us is: dirt." On the McClatchey DC Bureau site, there are 8 citations going back three years. During the same period, there are 87 articles on sacbee.com returned when you search on "holocaust." Why is that?

Phil,
You are mostly right, but not completely.

There are a few kos diarists who criticize, AIPAC and zionism. As evidence, here are a couple of diaries by yours truly. In one of them I'm actually touting YOU and this blog!

You are a trail-blazer, Phil, but you are not alone, and not unsupported.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/9/9342/79773/597/492650

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/8/152725/1251/629/511941

The first reply I received on my first KOS diary began

"and I wish there could be an open discussion about this..but it never has happened in here that I have observed, it is much too touchy a subject to even raise and most don't."

Apropos entry, Phil. Its a little tiring to hear about the "Bush administration" or "Just like Bush" when the policies people are chafing against are neoconservative in origin. Its a serious problem that neoconservatives aren't properly discussed in Television so both Democrats and Republicans are able to appropriately tag issues with neoconservative foreign policies with its proper association. Furthermore, its particularly stunning on the dearth of coverage the neoconservative movement receives on television.

Nearly everyone I talk to, from disaffected republicans who feel guilty on why their party no longer represents them (its not their fault) to democrats who are aghast at the current shift in the GOP are wholly unaware of the neoconservative movement.

"Too much dissension and disagreement.”

that's what I don't get about democrats. dissension and disagreement means action. it means ordinary topics get hundreds of comments. most people who write blogs want dissension and disagreement. it's the lifes blood of intellectualism.

if you've ever been to democratic undergroud you know what I'm talking about. you aren't allowed to promote candidates who aren't democrats. if one of pat buchanans brilliant columns is posted, it's only done so with a long series of disclaimers and fake wonderment (fake because they have posted dozens of his columns ) that he could be so right. it's creepy and it has stunted the growth of the left. No, they are never going to be libertarian or for states rights, but they are stuck in a stale mold and refuse to evolve.

"I thank editors all across the globe when they resist the indecent proposal that Jews or supporters of Zionism should NOT speak their mind, in press or politically."

Is this is an intentional attempt at disinformation, Richard, or is this honest? First, you conveniently include "Jews" and "supporters of Zionism" in the same breath, a nice umbrella categorization which takes care of anyone who opposes Zionism: Now we can an all be lousy "anti-semites" as well.

The more important problem, however, is that you completely turn the problem in the media on its head. You assert that Zionist voices are suppressed in the media, or that they would be if not for the courageous editors (without doing a scientific study, it is quite safe to assume, based on rational evaluation, that the majority of said editors are Zionists of one flavor or another, or are working within the constraints put on them by their bosses, the owners of the media, who again are predominantly Zionist).

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" – Upton Sinclair

Richard, Zionism is so rooted in the media that it isn't even discussed. How can pressure be put on writers or editors not to write about Zionism, when Zionism isn't even out in the open? This is akin to asking a blind man to not look at a particular picture because it might be offensive or discriminatory in some way. It's plainly ridiculous. The arguments you put forth are perfectly valid for ANTI-Zionist voices, who are practically nonexistent in the media.

The Chomsky-Herman media model could well be applied to this situation. Their is a tacit understanding among the media, whether consciously intentional or indoctrinated (and I imagine it's a combination of both) to not talk about Zionism, its history, etc.

Left of whom? Cheney et al? That doesn't take a whole lot of scooching down the bench.

That would be a valid criticism of the neo-conservative thesis, that it is a shill for commerce, and specifically for continued dependance on oil and fossil fuels.

The insistence that it was for Israel is invalid, and only appeals to those with conspiratorial learning disabilities.

Paul,

There's a great story in today's NYT (yesterday's for you) about Taipei food, including stinky tofu, hot pot, and all those other wonderful delicacies. What I miss most is the street full of seafood restaurants, with all their fresh catch displayed on ice in front. You pick this and this and this, and they cook it for you on the spot.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/travel/21Taipei.html?8dpc

But an even better story, and more to the point of Phil's essay, is one about the impending closure of the New York Sun. I laughed out loud at this line:

"When the first issue of The New York Sun hit the streets six years ago, reviving one of the storied names in American journalism with a new conservative tone, some of the analysts who follow the newspaper industry predicted that there would be rough going."

CONSERVATIVE? You gotta be kidding me. Surely stenographer James Barron meant "neoconservative." In fact, he admits as much, way down in the 18th 'graph:

"Scott Sherman, writing in The Nation last year, described The Sun as 'a paper that functions as a journalistic SWAT team against individuals and institutions seen as hostile to Israel and Jews.'"

Ahhhhh … now THAT'S more like it, Jimmy. Why couldn't you just be honest with us up front? Substituting "conservative" for "neocon" is like saying "liberal" when you meant "neoliberal" — two entirely different connotations.

The rest of the article is devoted to discussing various commercial exigencies which afflicted the Sun. But Stenographer Barron is uninterested in exploring whether advocacy journalism on behalf of hardcore zionism is a shrinking fringe market. He really should be, because the Slimes may be just a few years (or months) away from having its own obituary written by the bloggers.

The Old Grey Meretrix died of senility, acid reflux, and cerebral atherosclerosis, they'll say, after years as an intellectual shut-in. And she left no survivors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/nyregion/22sun.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Anonymous kos-person says:
"“Because there’s just no upside in it for us. Too much dissension and disagreement.”
There's the pathology writ large.
Carrying that bogus sentiment around while valiantly attacking all kinds of "safe" rightwing b.s. – dissension and disagreement being the main thing, the only reason Dailykos matters in the first place – is nothing but timidity and hypocrisy, and it's why no change comes.
The philo-Semitic power in this country at this time is overwhelming, vicious and nasty. Selfish unnecessary harm to other people for your own benefit. Evil by definition, if evil exists anywhere.
Two pieces of federal legislation that have cut the legs off the American experiment in freedom and democracy – the Patriot Act and the current $700 billion dollar free money bailout – the implementation of both are overseen by Jews in high office. The financial crisis is only talked about as occurring in acronymed faceless entities, Fannie Mae AIG etc. No names get named, yet it's obvious Jews are way over-represented on the benefit side, even as Lehman Bros goes down, and retirees see their slim hopes of comfortable twilight disappear.
Can't be discussed as what it is, so it can't be healed.
This contributes to a growing anti-Semitism of the traditional irrational kind, the kind that hurts powerless Jews.
Stifling and sabotaging dissent, silencing even mere discussion of these things, pours fuel into the flames.
-
R.e. Witty's unsupported assertion that the destruction of Iraq wasn't and isn't about Israel, it helps greatly that most readers don't know anything about historical Babylon and the Jews led into slavery there, and can't remember back to Gulf War 1, when Saddam threw 80 some missiles into Israel.
Vengeance for a vengeful people.
Add in the strategic benefits to Israel of an Iraq broken militarily and economically for the foreseeable future, and the rabid near-psychotic bloodlust for Iran, and you have a set of symptoms that could lead to healthy confrontation and change, if they were ever discussed openly and honestly.

More on Witty's "shill" comment. Apparently he wants to suggest that Neocons aren't really Zionists, but rather are pretending to be in order to attract sympathy and support for their true cause, commerce and oil imperialism, and to grease the skids of Empire.

This is patently absurd. Nearly the entire Neocon brain trust is Jewish and Zionist. Most of its world view and desire for "preemptive" conquest is the result the Jewish Zionist mindset. The phrase, "For the Neocons, it’s always 1938" (Munich) has resonance for a reason. Imperialists (ie Cheneyites) may have harnessed Jewish Zionism's ambition, money, determination and paranoia on behalf of their own quest, but the Jewish Zionists were also harnessing the imperialists on behalf of Israel. Who was using whom? Who was playing whom? None of them. They were all in it together, and new exactly what the other was doing, and why. This makes the crime of lying America into the Iraq war a crime of collaboration, and a crime of premeditation.

Left-liberal Jewish Zionists like Witty and the crew at Daily Kos and other mainstream left-liberal mediums, who want to scapegoat only the “conservative” Cheneyites for the crimes of the partnership, are actually preventing the entire cabal from being brought to justice because they know it will all lead back around to them via their connection to the Jewish Zionists. So their condemnation of oil and imperialism is really only cover to keep the base appeased, with no real intention of ever getting to the root of the problem because the root of the problem implicates them, as well.

As I’ve said: the two-party regime is corrupt, through and through.

i like lds, lobby denying syndrome. now it is identified correctly as a pathology we can perhaps go about researching treatment. the problem is even stickier than just money and guilt though. i have observed the denying goes deep, to TRULY BEING IN DENIAL. witness witty. witty BELIEVES WHAT HE IS SAYING.
there are also many many overeducated gentiles whose indoctrination is so entrenched that it amounts to denial.

the Iraq war was fought for american interests, the Saudi ruling clan and Israel are just vassal states extending american influence. If the Israelis were shrewd (which they are) they'd start moving away from total dependance on the bully du-jour and start building a long lasting peace. When the American Century collapses the changes in the Middle-East will be great and messy. Those that have Israel at heart better start working on integrating the Palestinians as a bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism. AFAIK, Palestinians have a high literacy rate compared to other Arab and Maghrebi so they are more amenable to reason.

The need for “crime scene” levels of evidence linking ACB followers’ complicity in the actions of the U.S. Government at Israel’s behest is unnecessary. Many U.S. actions are simply so inexplicable that consideration of their chief benefactor, Israel, is the only reasonable explanation. And as Americans dismiss Arab government charges that Israel is attacking them by proxy across the region, the evidence shows that the Arabs are correct. “A Clean Break” is, at heart, an Israeli proclamation of “Dirty War”.

Core members of the group have been able to raise the primacy of Israeli issues to a level that Americans would find absurd if the group were promoting the interests of any other state, (such as Italy or Mexico). Their level of vitriol, hubris and war-mongering by power of the pen and influence over American policy has been stunning. Many have personally engaged in activities that derailed official U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the interest of improving Israel’s power. Others have systematically chipped away at the U.S. constitution by supplanting Israeli interests for legitimate U.S. interests in the Defense Department and Executive branch of the U.S. government.

The gaping divide that separates this group’s lobbying on behalf of Israel and the true interests of the United States also defines this group with the very label they so frequently hurl at others: traitors to the United States of America.

http://www.irmep.org/Policy_Briefs/3_27_2003_Clean_Break_or_Dirty_War.html

The reason the United States is engaged in the middle east is because of the oil.

The reason the United States attacked Iraq was because of zionist influence in the U.S government – and so for Israeli hegemony in the region.

The War in Iraq was fought for Bush's and Cheney's and Rumsfeld's understanding of what was the best way to secure the supply chain for oil.

That there were multiple voices that appealed to that, for a wide variety of reasons, isn't all that consequential.

My criticism of the neo-conservatives is that they are conservative, that they regard free market commerce (low taxes, aggression in defense of interests, unregulated markets) as primary.

In that they share more with Pat Buchanon and Ron Paul than they do with me.

So, rather than question fundamental values and loyalties, you gamut of anti-neo-conservatives, are BOUGHT by a side-show.

Let's not forget "Talking Points Memo" – which is also run by a "crypto-Zionist" who bans critics of Israel.

I was a heavy critic of Israel on TPM. That attracted a ton of what can only be called "Zionist freaks" who immediately attacked me and others on TPM for being "anti-Semitic." At no time did I ever criticize Jews in general, or make any reference to Jews in general.

For the record, I have absolutely nothing against Jews as an ethnicity and never have. ALL of my criticism of Israel and Zionism is based on the illogic of the concept of the Zionist project and the illegal and rogue actions of the Israeli state.

However, this apparently wasn't sufficient for Joshua Micah Marshall. He began to engage in "drive-by snark" proclaiming me an "eliminationist" (whatever the hell that is) because I suggested that Israel in its present form would not survive – possibly as a result of the theft of an Israeli nuclear weapons by terrorists, which in turn, even if not actually detonated, would force the world to demand that Israel disarm itself of nuclear weapons.

Marshall began proclaiming that the arguments on TPM between pro- and anti-Israeli partisans was bringing down the civil conversation on his site. He decided to set up a series of rules to govern what was permissible posting on his site. He swore to his readers that he would not ban anyone without prior notifications and reasons for the action taken. Everyone, including myself, recognized the need for these rules and I personally agreed to abide by them – and did so at all times subsequent to his declaration.

THAT WEEKEND after making that pronouncement, a particularly intense argument occurred between myself and the known Israeli supporters. Again, I did abide by any and all the rules.

Marshall proceeded to ban me (and possibly others) without notification and without reasons. ALL of the pro-Israel posters were allowed to remain on the site – where they continued for months to attack everyone criticizing Israel as "anti-Semitic" without any comment from Marshall or his staff.

Eventually even M. J. Rosenberg, a "classical Zionist" who posted articles on TPM, had to complain about the virulence and verbal violence and racism of the pro-Zionist crowd, and some few of them were apparently suppressed.

Marshall has never acknowledged that he was a hypocritical intellectual coward for refusing to engage his readers on the subject and for refusing to abide by his own rules. Nor has he ever admitted to being a "crypto-Zionist" for whom Israel can apparently do no wrong. He prefers to hide behind his "All Republican Corruption All The Time" front page.

Clearly what matters to him is that any criticism of Israel might cause his site to be attacked by the Zionist organizations and reduce his ad revenue as well as personally pressing his hot buttons about Israel.