Ralph Seliger says he and I are near the end of our dialogue. Here’s his latest. I have no response for now. Maybe later. But I like to give opponents the last word here anyway. Ralph:
Since you were curious about this, Phil, I consider myself
fortunate to have no relatives on the West Bank. Most of my Israeli
relatives are moderate to left-wing; one is very left-wing. But their
behavior says nothing about me. They know I’m a Meretz supporter. Some
disapprove, others are pleased, but they all know I mean them well.
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I don’t “extol” ethnic affinities. I only say they are natural and
should not be condemned out of hand. We should all aspire to be as
broad and universalist in our concerns as we can be, but universalism
doesn’t require that we turn our backs on our own people. In fact, I
take it as both my universalist duty and Jewish particularist
obligation to agitate and educate as I have for years for a sane policy
that ends Israeli rule in the occupied territories and leads to peace
and reconciliation in the area. Why you seem to hit me with the sins of
occupation is baffling.
should not be condemned out of hand. We should all aspire to be as
broad and universalist in our concerns as we can be, but universalism
doesn’t require that we turn our backs on our own people. In fact, I
take it as both my universalist duty and Jewish particularist
obligation to agitate and educate as I have for years for a sane policy
that ends Israeli rule in the occupied territories and leads to peace
and reconciliation in the area. Why you seem to hit me with the sins of
occupation is baffling.
As the Meretz USA executive director, Ron Skolnik, wrote in our publication
early this year: “Knee-jerk support for Israeli government policy and
actions isn’t right, and it isn’t smart: This year’s [Meretz
USA] Israel Symposium participants neither overlooked nor absolved
Israel’s mistakes and flaws: They recognized them as part of a
three-dimensional reality in which all parties – Palestinians, the
greater Arab world, the US, et al. – have too frequently blundered and
erred.”
early this year: “Knee-jerk support for Israeli government policy and
actions isn’t right, and it isn’t smart: This year’s [Meretz
USA] Israel Symposium participants neither overlooked nor absolved
Israel’s mistakes and flaws: They recognized them as part of a
three-dimensional reality in which all parties – Palestinians, the
greater Arab world, the US, et al. – have too frequently blundered and
erred.”
Like you, Phil, I also regret the way in which Israel has become a
“lodestone” of American Jewish identity – not because this is bad, per
se, but because it has done so largely in a crude, chauvinistic and
ignorant way. It is a sad fact that Israel has become an object of
worship for Jews who see too little else in their history and culture
to celebrate.
“lodestone” of American Jewish identity – not because this is bad, per
se, but because it has done so largely in a crude, chauvinistic and
ignorant way. It is a sad fact that Israel has become an object of
worship for Jews who see too little else in their history and culture
to celebrate.
You do not express yourself well regarding the issue of Jewish
donors. We are either free as individuals to donate and lobby as we see
fit, or we are not. I happen to “lobby” for two states and peace and
reconciliation; I have nothing to apologize for in this regard.
donors. We are either free as individuals to donate and lobby as we see
fit, or we are not. I happen to “lobby” for two states and peace and
reconciliation; I have nothing to apologize for in this regard.
You are factually wrong – as are Mearsheimer-Walt, Klein and
Matthews (since when is Chris Matthews an authority on anything?) –
regarding the weight of the neocons on the Bush administration’s
decisions (I believe, as does Daniel Levy, that the neocons were more
used than users) but this doesn’t mean that I support them in any way.
I and my fellow progressive Zionists are not part of the “lobby” that
you constantly harangue about.
Matthews (since when is Chris Matthews an authority on anything?) –
regarding the weight of the neocons on the Bush administration’s
decisions (I believe, as does Daniel Levy, that the neocons were more
used than users) but this doesn’t mean that I support them in any way.
I and my fellow progressive Zionists are not part of the “lobby” that
you constantly harangue about.
That you would say anything approving of the hate-mongers Martillo
and Atzmon does not reflect well upon you. You admit that “I don’t
study Martillo or Atzmon, but I find they have interesting ideas….”
I say read them and study them more, not less; but your instincts are
so bad, your judgments so lacking in perspective that I still
doubt that you’d come to a saner conclusion about their ravings. This
is why I cannot regard you as a true liberal. I wish it were otherwise.
and Atzmon does not reflect well upon you. You admit that “I don’t
study Martillo or Atzmon, but I find they have interesting ideas….”
I say read them and study them more, not less; but your instincts are
so bad, your judgments so lacking in perspective that I still
doubt that you’d come to a saner conclusion about their ravings. This
is why I cannot regard you as a true liberal. I wish it were otherwise.
Seliger: “I don't "extol" ethnic affinities. I only say they are natural and should not be condemned out of hand. We should all aspire to be as broad and universalist in our concerns as we can be, but universalism doesn't require that we turn our backs on our own people.”
Seliger and other left-liberal diaspora Jewish Zionists never cease to amaze in their chutzpah and hypocrisy. They condemn out of hand all white ethnic affinities (ie white nationalists, or domestic European nationalists movements like the British Nationalist Party), and all person-of-color ethnic affinities that don’t toe the domestic American Zionist line (ie Al Sharpton, Cynthia Mckinney and Louise Farrakhan,) and have even started to butt heads with ethnic-identity-based Hispanic groups like La Raza in Los Angeles, but somehow when it comes to Jews, ethnic affinities are only “natural and should not be condemned…”
Jewish Zionists were the first group in America that was given a pass on the melting-pot, American-immersion mandate, and to ensure that they would never be singled out, worked steadily for open borders and mass immigration of other ethnic minorities (in conjunction with wage-suppressing-agenda Capitalists). Along those same lines, they encouraged other ethnic minority groups to adopt an ethnic identity as opposed to an American identity (identity politics) and assembled them into left-liberal voting blocks.
But suddenly, when it comes to America fighting wars for Zionism, all those ethnic identity groups are supposed to abandon their ethnic agenda, and ideologically unite behind “the spreading of democracy, freedom, and liberty in the Mideast,” and our “ally” Israel against the Islamic world (the Neocon view). All ethnic-identity groups should drop their selfish tribal affiliations, that is, except for Jewish Zionists, for whom the wars are being fought. After all, their ethnic affinities are “only natural.”
The Jewish Zionists mentality seems to be: “make up the rules as you go along; there is no right or wrong, only the interests of the tribe.” We are seeing the consequences of that mentality in foreign policy and Mideast warmongering, and we are seeing the consequences of that mentality on Wall Street, because the Establishment that makes the rules is now almost entirely Zionist, both Jewish and gentile.
The old “melting pot” paradigm worked much better, but may be a thing of the past because “the chosen”, as always, insisted on being an exception to the rule, and because American left-liberals, and eventually GOP “conservatives” too, adopted their elitist ethic: rules are for the little people.
I don't quite know if Ed is speaking from an extreme right or a left point of view; on balance, he sounds like a right winger. He has no idea how I feel about Sharpton, McKinney and Farrakhan, but this doesn't stop him from putting me in some "Jewish Zionist" box of his own design.
I have no idea of what he's babbling about in terms of immigration and the "melting pot," but it's clear that his bottom line is a blame-it-all-on-the-Jews mentality. Any reasonable person knows what to call this venomous way of thinking.
Ralph, you seem to have no idea. Period.
You've parted ways with this board, obviously in your insults to Phil, implying that he has been spouting a right-wing perspective, when any reasonable person can see otherwise.
The biggest mistake of the left in this country was to abandon universalism and cater to particularists like yourself. It was so obviously blinkered– one only has to look at the Balkans or the Caucasus to see what a blunder it might amount to for this country, going forward.
But here you are, taking up more and more of all of our time with your predictable self-serving, self-promoting rants.
I sincerely hope that Phil does not give you another opportunity for "dialogue". Don't let the door hit you on the a– on your way out.
Ralph, do you have any evidence supporting your position that the neocons "were more used than users"? (Apart from the fact that they are Jewish and thus by definition powerless victims?)
Let me thank "Madrid" for his or her kind wishes. As for Alana, the main reason that I say that the neocons were more "used" than "users" is that none of them, and not a single Jew (neither neocon nor con), was a cabinet-level office holder in the Bush administration when it made its fateful decisions regarding Iraq. In other words, they were not what Bush might call "deciders."
This is also an observation made by Daniel Levy — a co-founder of J Street and a think-tank intellectual and peace activist much admired by Phil — in his review of Mearsheimer and Walt's book published in Haaretz.
"not a single Jew (neither neocon nor con), was a cabinet-level office holder"
Whether cabinet-level or not, what evidence do you have that they were opposing the policies of their bosses? Because to say they were "used" does imply this.
Most observers of the careers of the neocons note that they had long promoted exactly the same policies as were enacted during their time of access to power. And interestingly, they were promoting the same policies when they worked for the Israeli government.
Seliger says I suffer from "a blame-it-all-on-the-Jews mentality."
Yet I specified "we are seeing the consequences of [the Zionist] mentality on Wall Street, because the Establishment that makes the rules is now almost entirely Zionist, both Jewish and gentile…American left-liberals, and eventually GOP “conservatives” too, [have] adopted their elitist ethic: rules are for the little people."
So in terms of blame, I specifically assign it to Jewish Zionists AND their elitist gentile partners. But Seliger, in typical Zionst fashion, dismisses this all as anti-semitism. How convenient for the corrupt elite partnership, which routinely hides behind this accusation. This is how Jewish Zionists both intertwine themselves and get intertwined with the corrupt elites, sometimes eventually getting thrown under the bus (scapegoated) when plans go awry.
I don't want to see only corrupt Jewish Zionists get thrown under the bus, but their corrupt elitist and imperialist partners as well. Is that scapegoating, or is it accountability? Holding powerful people accountable for their malice, greed, and lousy policies is what a democracy is all about. Next, the elites will be saying elections that don’t go their way are anti-semitic, and that refusal to allow elites to continue to rob and plunder the American people is anti-semitic. This kind of irresponsible ethnic demagoguery is routine for left-liberal elites who, for example, often maintain that strong border security is “racist.”
It’s unfortunate that more Jews don’t speak out against Jewish Zionist demagogues, but it’s understandable given that they have been conditioned otherwise. Weiss is one small voice challenging that conditioning, and look at all the grief he is getting from Jewish Zionists like Seliger. That kind of single-minded fanaticism is dangerous, and not just to gentiles.
By the way, my perspective is libertarian-populist.
Ralph seems like a well-meaning guy but really someone somewhere ought to explain to him what JINSA stands for.
Ed knows my evil Zionist self so very well.
The neocons were all staffers (some at a very high level it's true) but they were not the decision makers of the Bush administration. The neocons were really the promoters of "Plan B" for the Bushies, once the WMD were not found. "Plan B" was the notion that the war was about bringing democracy to the Middle East. Before that time, Rumsfeld actually had plans to start removing troops by the first summer of occupation in 2003, but this intention was waylaid by the massive bombings and other attacks that killed de Melo, the UN coordinator, and so many others. Rumsfeld had no interest in exporting democracy, unlike his neocon underlings.
The real reason to knock off Saddam Hussein was to take advantage of 9/11 by removing this irritant, avenging Saddam's attempt on Bush's parents and wife a decade earlier, and as an object lesson to the Muslim world that you don't mess with the US.
The neocons supplied the veneer of a higher purpose about democracy. This doesn't mean that the neocons didn't believe in this — they really did — but the Bushies latched onto it as a rationale for the invasion after the WMD were not to be found.
The PROFESSED values, interests and agenda of liberalism are coming into fatal conflict with the INNATE values, interests and agenda of ethnic fundamentalist Zionism, and left-liberal Jewish Zionists like Seliger are having trouble coming to terms with that. Elite left-liberals could successfully paper over those differences until the Iraq war and the “war on terror” (ie war on Islam for Israel) brought them into focus, and now the coalition is fraying, and will eventually completely crumble. Left-liberal diaspora Jewish Zionists are being forced to choose between their professed universalist liberal values, and their dedication to the ethnic fundamentalist state of Israel. And they have been coddled and pampered by the left for so long, they don’t like the forced choice one bit. I guess they thought they could have it both ways forver.
I'm feeling kind of generous today, so here's a free clue for Ralph.
Seliger: "The neocons were really the promoters of "Plan B" for the Bushies, once the WMD were not found. "Plan B" was the notion that the war was about bringing democracy to the Middle East."
More Zionist spin and lies. Jewish Zionist Neocons like Wolfowitz and Feith in the Office of Special Plans were instrumental in cooking the books to make it appear that Saddam had WMD. It has yet to be proven, but there is plenty of evidence that they did this in collaboration with Israel. Israelis were practically granted open door access to the Pentagon during the run up to the Iraq war. In fact, its unclear of the dunce Bush knew what they were all up to, although Cheney, who installed Wolfowitz and Feith, most certainly did. The Cheneyite/Jewish Zionist axis is the prototype of how corrupt Jewish Zionists collaborate with corrupt gentiles to deceive, manipulate, exploit and plunder the American people. Left-liberal Jewish Zionists provide them all cover by accusing critics of Zionism of anti-semitism. Their penchant for ethnic demagoguery serves the corrupt Washington establishment well.
Does the Clean Break strategy mean a thing to anyone here? The authors of that plan hold major positions in the Bush Administration.
Ralph, who were the decision makers on Iraq, in your view?
Joshua, I'm sure most of the readers of this blog know about Perle, Feith, and Wurmser's earlier work for Israel.
However I suspect Ralph Seliger may have been too busy with his work promoting Zionism to have educated himself on matters like that.
Let me see if I've got this straight, Ralph. The real reason for the Iraq war was "avenging Saddam's attempt on Bush's parents and wife a decade earlier, and as an object lesson to the Muslim world that you don't mess with the US." That was Bush and Cheney's motivation. Wolfie, Doug, Scooter, et al. ALSO wanted a war, but they weren't interested in messages to the Muslim world, but with "higher" goals–democracy, women's rights, etc. Is that it?
So the neocons were "used" in the sense that although they got exactly what they had been campaigning for for the past twelve years, they got it for the wrong reason?
(Oi vey.)
Ed is certainly correct about Wolfowitz and Feith "cooking the books" regarding WMDs. I know of no evidence that they did so in connection with Israel. Iraq was very marginal in Israel's security concerns.
To respond to Joshua, the real decision makers were Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, with Rice, Powell and CIA Director Tennet basically caving in to the demands and priorities of the first three. But Bush and Rumsfeld were not inclined to do "nation building" — which was a neocon priority, along with "democracy." It's only when Ambassador Bremmer made the bone-head decisions to fire Saddam's army and to shut out all members of the Baathist party from public employment that the Sunni insurgency began in earnest and the neocons had their laboratory for their hairbrain schemes.
As for "Clean Break," I believe that the only author who had a paid Bush administration staff job was Douglas Feith. Richard Perle had an unpaid position for a short while on the Pentagon's advisory board. BTW, "Clean Break" was entirely ignored in Israel — even when Netanyahu was prime minister.
I don't know what MM is trying to prove with his mention of JINSA.
Re "Clean Break," I had forgotten that Wurmser was also an author who became a Bush admin. official. My point is not to defend the neocons but to try to convince you guys that the US went to war in Iraq because of the decisions and priorities of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, not because the neocons made them do it.
The neocons are very much in eclipse during W's second term. Even Bush knows that they haven't served him well. Unfortunately, some of them are likely to stage a comeback if McCain is elected. McCain is more genuinely in sync with neocon ideas than W was.
November 2003: Former CIA Analyst Says Iraq War Largely Motivated by Israel’s Strategic Objectives
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern says: “The war on Iraq was just as much prompted by the strategic objectives of the state of Israel as it was the strategic objectives of the United States of America. Indeed, the people running this war are people who have worked for the government of Israel in the past, people who have prepared position papers for former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others. These are people who are well attuned to Israel’s objectives. The authors of the Project for the New American Century [PNAC—see September 2000] have set out for the United States to become the dominant power in the world. And, Israel, for its own part, is hell bent on remaining the dominant power in the Middle East.” [SOJOURNERS, 11/2003]
Seliger: "Ed is certainly correct about Wolfowitz and Feith "cooking the books" regarding WMDs. I know of no evidence that they did so in connection with Israel."
—-
A Religious Movtive for Iraq War Deceptions?
link to counterpunch.org
According to a 2004 report in Asia Times by Jim Lobe, 'Wolfowitz was investigated in 1978 for providing a classified document on the proposed sale of a US weapons system to an Arab government to an Israeli official via an [Israel lobby] AIPAC staffer.
'In 1992, when he was serving as under secretary of defense for policy, Pentagon officials looking into the unauthorized export of classified technology to China found that Wolfowitz's office was promoting Israel's export of advanced air-to-air missiles to Beijing in violation of a written agreement with Washington on arms re-sales.'
Douglas Feith, who served under Wolfowitz in the run up to the Iraq war, also has a checkered past of covert dealings on behalf of Israel. He was removed from his position as a Middle East analyst in the National Security Council in 1982 when he came under suspicion by the FBI for passing classified material to Israeli embassy officials, reports say.
In 2004 respected scholar James Petras took critical note of the large number of committed Jewish nationalists working in the Pentagon under Wolfowitz and elsewhere within the Bush administration and found that they were the driving force behind the Iraq war:
'Wolfowitz, Feith, [Elliot] Abrams, [Richard] Perle, [Michael] Rubin et al were the most zealous promoters of the war against Iraq. They worked closely with other Zionist ideologues like Bush speechwriter David Frum to promote the notion of 'axes of evil,' to engage in a sequence of wars against Muslim regimes hostile to Israeli colonial policy in Palestine and beyond. Wolfowitz, Feith set up the parallel 'intelligence' agency (the Office of Special Planning) run by fellow Zionist Abram Shulsky using [Ahmed] Chalabi to provide phony data on Iraq to precipitate that war. An army of 'Israel First' academic and journalist ideologues wrote, spoke and acted to justify the US attack on Iraq as the first part of a regional war to destroy any and all regimes critical of Israeli expansionism.'
Certainly President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were well-aware of the record of shady dealings on behalf of Israel by Wolfowitz, Feith and other Jewish nationalists eventually hired by the administration. Federal agencies perform exhaustive security clearance checks on all recruits to national security-sensitive areas of the government prior to their employment, which means that the administration knew exactly what it was getting when it brought them into service–and likely waived any national security concerns raised.
Ralph, no one is saying that the neocons FORCED the administration into a war against its will. Only that the neocons were among the forces pushing for a war. You're arguing with a strawman.
As in every administration, there were people on both sides of the issue. Powell, Rice (and initially Rumsfeld) opposed the idea. The neocons liked it. Cheney had his own ideas. George is probably best regarded as a blank slate. In the final analysis, the scales tipped towards war.
Your only argument can be that the neocons were ineffectual, their ideas didn't matter and there would have been a war anyway. But even if that's the case (and you would have to ignore their allies in the media to argue it) , I'm not sure why that should make you feel any better about their motivation.
BTW, we have the testimony of a former employee of the OSP that Israeli military staff had clearance-free access to Feith, and were a constant presence.
Ralph, Dick Cheney was on JINSA's Board of Advisors before becoming vice president, where he was joined by Ledeen, Feith, Perle, James Woolsey, and John Bolton. JINSA's stated policy aims included regime change in "rogue" nations such as Iraq.
Is it hard for you to accept that JINSA was probably interested in invading Iraq for zionist (and other) reasons?
How can you breath with your head in the sand like that?