Looks like I'm getting to the end of the discussion with Ralph Seliger. Here's the latest. Seliger answers my latest challenge re Meretz:
the war from the beginning, but we decided that since it doesn't relate
to our issue of Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab peace, we should
not jeopardize our 501c (3) tax status by articulating a position.
I've already explained this to you, Phil, but you insist on fighting us. So much for your kind words from the other day:
"I'm reminded that progressive Zionists have done real good work. Like the great Tammy Shapiro, of the Union of Progressive Zionists, who brought out the Breaking the Silence boys.
"So generally I think, Ralph's right, he and I share a lot. Plus we need each other right now in the U.S., to try and end the occupation in the American discourse."
I've even told you since that Meretz USA founded Tammy's Union of Progressive Zionists and was instrumental in seeing it though its first years. But no, you prefer to deliver a tired ideological attack on us as "Zionists."
Ralph is quoting an email I sent him. And I believe that. We're on the same side on the occupation generally, and we need each other in the political discourse. And I love Tammy Shapiro for bringing "Breaking the Silence" to American campuses. I watched Tammy face down the Zionist Organization of America. She's impressive. I applaud Meretz for supporting her.
But this blog is about ideas following a great disaster for American policy: Iraq, which has killed more than 100,000 Arabs and many Americans too. Just now on "Democracy Now" Naomi Klein quoted Milton Friedman as saying it was important to have the right ideas "lying around" so that when a crisis came, the politicians would turn to them. That's why he was for thinktanks, she said. And that is absolutely the neocon program re Iraq. When the crisis of 9/11 hit, where did President Stupid turn? The neocons. AEI. They had ideas. Their hawkish ideas drove the Iraq war. And sadly, had wide purchase in the liberal community.
The grotesque willingness of both left and right to defend Israel Lobby Denial serves
as further proof, as if any were needed, of
the extent to which elite opinion in this country has been Judaized. Few indeed are
those with the courage to argue against a
discourse deformed by Zionism.
"When the crisis of 9/11 hit, where did President Stupid turn? The neocons. AEI. They had ideas. Their hawkish ideas drove the Iraq war. And sadly, had wide purchase in the liberal community."
I, for one, am tired of pussyfooting around about the Neocons. Gal Beckerman isn't, thankfully:
"If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it."
Gal Beckerman
"The Neoconservative Persuasion: Examining the Jewish Roots of an Intellectual Movement"
The Forward
Jan 6, 2006
The three had been looking for an excuse to invade Iraq for a very long time.
They didn't have to look down to a pile of papers.
I did not make public comments criticizing Israel before 911 and the Iraq war. Fairly simple reasoning: They oppress Palestinians but as oppressors go they are relatively benign. I bought into the double standard argument that Zionists were always making against critics of Israel.
Two things changed all of that.
1) Realization that Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people is being bankrolled with my tax dollars.
2) The Zionists (under the guise of 'neocons) managed to get control of state power through the Bush administration and they led us to the Iraq disaster. US interests became subservient to Israeli interests.
Philip is not alone. A clear majority of Jews in the US opposed the Iraq war. And today it is Jewish intellectuals leading the reaction against the crazy situation where Israeli interests have higher priority than US interests when it comes to the ME. (That many of these people believe that these policies are not in Israel's interest either is not my concern).
Rather than impotently denying what has happened to US foreign policy, Witty and Seliger would probably better serve their cause by trying to educate the zealots inside Aipac that there could be serious backlash against Israel if they don't temper their policies.
"A clear majority of Jews in the US opposed the Iraq war."
This needs to stop now. It's an untruth.
According to the American Jewish Committee, most Jews they polled favored the invasion. The poll was done a few months before the invasion of March 2003. The below article is from JTA five+ years ago:
Most U.S. Jews support war against Iraq, poll shows
Friday February 14, 2003
NEW YORK (JTA) — A majority of American Jews — 59 percent — approve of launching a military strike against Iraq to remove Sad
Those were among the results of the American Jewish Committee's Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion. The AJCommittee poll o
The AJCommittee also found:
*Seventy-eight percent believed Americans will have to surrender some personal freedoms to make America safe from terrorism.
*Eighty-six percent supported expanding spying on groups under suspicion.
*Sixty-five percent favored greater camera surveillance on streets and public places.
*Sixty-seven percent favored a national I.D. system for U.S. citizens.
Still, 62 percent rejected racial or religious profiling. Only 35 percent favored such law enforcement methods.
In the survey, more than half of Jews favor war with Iraq, although 62 percent fear it would increase the risk of terrorism against the United States and 56 percent said it would likely blow up into a wider Mideast war.
People feel "the threat of terror is real, yet that you can't turn the other cheek to terror and to Saddam," said Steven Bayme, the AJCommittee's national director of contemporary Jewish life.
Jewish hopes for an Israeli-Palestinian peace have continued to erode, reflecting a downward slide AJCommittee polls have tracked since the second Palestinian intifada erupted in September 2000.
Asked about their hopes for peace, 49 percent said they were less optimistic than one year ago — up from 42 percent in 2001.
Distrust of Arab intentions is also growing. When asked if the "Arabs" want Israel's destruction rather than the return of the West Bank and Gaza, 82 percent agreed and only 15 percent disagreed.
One year earlier, 73 percent agreed with that statement and 23 percent disagreed.
Despite those rising concerns, 49 percent of U.S. Jews favored the creation of a Palestinian state. Approximately 47 percent opposed one, though 98 percent felt Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is not doing enough to stop terrorism.
You wrong about this AC. The American Jewish Committee is one of many national organizations that purport to represent American Jews. ADL, AIPAC, etc. There is a major disconnect between what they believe and what American Jews believe. For one, these organizations do not criticize the West Bank annexation movement and many seem to support it either openly or through inaction. They all pushed the US into war in Iraq.
Therefore, the pol results published by AJC is a result that they desired. But it is not supported by other, more objective, pols.
Hi Syvanen-
According to the AJC:
"The sample consisted of 1,008 self-identified Jewish respondents selected from the Market Facts consumer mail panel. The respondents are demographically representative of the United States adult Jewish population on a variety of measures. The margin of error for the sample as a whole is plus or minus 3 percentage points."
Is the AJC just lying or are they unable to determine what the majority of Jews think?
Granted, I'd venture to guess that over 50% of the American public in general was in favor of the invasion due to the incessant propaganda and brainwashing via the mass media. My only point is that there's little to no proof to back up the assertion that most Jews opposed the Iraq invasion. 80% of Israelis were in favor of it also.
Jewish Zionist make up their own history as they go along, and will broadcast “facts” about what that history was in the light of succeeding events. Hence, “A clear majority of Jews in the US opposed the Iraq war" has become a favorite propaganda claim of liberal Jews trying to spin their people back into respectability on the Left (not that the American Left would ever hold them accountable, anyway) since the Iraq war has gone bad. If it had gone swimmingly, Jewish Zionists would have been bragging about how they had taken a leading role.
THIS TWENTY MINUTE INTERVIEW IS FASCINATING- (GREENWALD IS SUPERB)
Salon Radio: L.A. Times' Tim Rutten on Ahmadinejad
Is the U.S. failing to take the "Iranian threat" seriously enough, or is that threat being exaggerated and distorted?
Glenn Greenwald Oct 3, 2008
TO LISTEN-
Thanks for the the Greenwald link, John.
Tim Rutten is an interesting little bit-player in the entertainment industry. He's the "media columnist" at the LA Times. So that meant, back in 2003 when the campaign was being waged against screening Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ", he wrote "no less than six hyperventilating columns that dealt almost exclusively with breathless concerns over anti-Semitism."
Last year, when the new biography of Colin Powell came out which talked about the role of "the JINSA crowd" and mentioned Truman's historical pandering to "Jewish votes," it was Tim who was again leading the charge against this "anti-Semitic slander".
Now here he is again, courageously standing up againt the Iranian Hitler.
Is it anti-Semitic of me to wonder if he is Jewish?