Mirabile dictu, Jake Tapper of ABC has, in a quiet and "How's the water?" tone, broached the obvious questions about Rahm Emanuel– noting Emanuel's service to the Israeli army and his extremist paternity (Emanuel's father was a member of a terrorist organization and has lately made racist comments about Arabs and assured Israelis that his son will take care of Israel in the White House). Tapper fearfully puts these questions off on the "Arab world" and Arab-Americans like Ali Abunimah. This is actually a symptom of the corruption in our society. It is not just Arab groups. It is non-Zionists, Arabists, progressive Zionists, the folks at the mom and pop store down at the corner whose boy is off marching in the gay parade down Main Street, and smart journalists, too–why it's Americans like you and me. Nope: swarthy Arabs.
Tapper does another journalistic service. He clears up some of the mystification surrounding Emanuel's dual loyalty, stating that Emanuel's service in the Gulf War, when he ran off to serve Israel in '91, not the U.S., was working at a military base as a civilian volunteer, fixing military vehicles.
How will Rahm Emanuel squelch this one? Or more to the point: Will he need to? Can't wait till Jeffrey Goldberg jumps on this story.
Should he need to.
He is nominated for chief of staff to Obama. He is NOT an officer of the US government.
In contrast, your assertion that "Arabists" should have preference, or not be subjected to the same scrutiny of ideological dual loyalty, is a bit troublesome.
Doesn't it seem like a double-standard in your evaluation?
Emanuel has other skeletons besides his father's political roots. (It is a principle of AMERICAN law that the debts of the father do not attribute to the son.) They are his aggressiveness in particular.
Obama is the boss. He is responsible.
Just like Bush was the boss, not Perle, not Wolfowitz.
How about this all you kameraden out there. Isn't it possible that Emanuel presided over a Democratic house takeover. Is a personal friend of Obama and by all accounts has the best attributes to be a good chief of staff. Couldn't it be that simple. Or does it always have to be the Jewish conspiracy. If you want him to be a successful president this is the type of guy he needs in a spot like this, not Willam Ayers or Maxine Waters.
Truth is only truth when digested and responded to soberly.
When truth is responded to angrily or vengefully in any way, it stops being an effort for justice or good governance.
When Emmanuel does that, and when you do that, and when I do that.
Rahm Emanuel comes from a terrorist family.
I'm sure Emanuel would make an excellent chief of staff except for that minor little issue of middle east policy.
What we anglos just can't stop worrying about is the unending and warranted hatred toward us by Middle Easteners due to our implicit backing of Israeli settlements in conquered lands.
This hatred could lead to the destruction of the jewels of our civilization: London, New York, Washington. And to the blood on our hands due to our response. As if we have not already lost plenty of treasure and blood.
These seem to me to be plenty good reasons for being "upset" with the stranglehold that US neo-cons (Emanuel?) have over US Middle East policy.
Some people might go "over the top" in their opposition to such a state of affairs.
I'm sure Emanuel would make an excellent chief of staff except for that minor little issue of middle east policy.
What we anglos just can't stop worrying about is the unending and warranted hatred toward us by Middle Easteners due to our implicit backing of Israeli settlements in conquered lands.
This hatred could lead to the destruction of the jewels of our civilization: London, New York, Washington. And to the blood on our hands due to our response. As if we have not already lost plenty of treasure and blood.
These seem to me to be plenty good reasons for being "upset" with the stranglehold that US neo-cons (Emanuel?) have over US Middle East policy.
Some people might go "over the top" in their opposition to such a state of affairs.
Yes I'm certain "Mega" will turn over our state secrets in a far more effective and efficient manner than was ever contemplated by our dual citizens before. No more pesky FBI agents getting in the way. Tel Aviv will get our intelligence briefings before our President. A Mossad wet dream I'm sure.
Goldberg has commented:
link to philipweiss.org
Quelle surprise, he's thrilled.
Do agree that the fact that Tapper will even touch this topic can be take as a sign of progress.
botched the link. sorry. try:
link to jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com
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Emanuel will directly get those 3AM phone calls, not POTUS. And Emanuel will get those daily intelligence briefing each morning, right along with POTUS. This per consensus of panel of former men in Emanuel's new position on C-SPAN less than an hour ago.
Emanuel pushed to remove a rider to the last Iraq War funding bill that would have required consent of congress to attack Iran.
Emanuel volunteered to help the IDF, not the US military, in 1991.
It will be interesting to see Obama's other picks. Treasury, DOD, State, Homeland Security, etc.
Phil:
To be fair, you should acknowledge that the article in YNET (which I posted in another thread) does not describe his duties as the lowly rust-proofing of military vehicles– a somewhat laughable job for the son of an Irgun member and already a politically connected Democrat in the Daley and Clinton teams.
It describes him as having served in the IDF, period. It does not distinguish his service as civilian or fundamentally different from other forms of service in the IDF.
Here is the article:
link to ynetnews.com
Not really sure why people would rather believe American publications as opposed to Israeli publications with regard to such matters. As if the Israelis don't know what they are talking about? I don't get it.
"It is a principle of AMERICAN law that the debts of the father do not attribute to the son."
So you're saying Osama Bin Laden's son would've been perfectly suitable and acceptable for the job of Chief of Staff?
I've never quite understood what Emanuel did ifor the IDF, either. My guess is that he isn't the soldier type, but I don't really believe that someone with his connections would have spent time rust-proofing military vehicles. I think that the Israelis could have found better uses for him.
In contrast, your assertion that "Arabists" should have preference, or not be subjected to the same scrutiny of ideological dual loyalty, is a bit troublesome.
Would you be so kind and show me were Phil writes that?
Hilarious. I have to wonder if the partisans of Zion on this board would be quite as confident if Rahm's name was Ahmad and had the same ties to Saudi Arabia that Rahm does to Israel.
Imagine if the above mentioned Ahmad had a father in Saudi Arabia that was quoted in a Sauid paper yesterday saying, "Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Saud. Why wouldn't he be? What is he, a Jew? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."
You guys are better than the Three Stooges.
Keep your eye on the media, Phil.
(We still have a long way to go before these questions are no longer treated as "Jewish subjects." ABC's Jake Tapper is of course in-tribe.)
Interesting comment from Jeffrey Goldberg:
"Peace-processors take heart: Rahm, precisely because he's a lover of Israel, will not have much patience with Israeli excuse-making, so when the next Prime Minister tells President Obama that as much as he'd love to, he can't dismantle the Neve Manyak settlement outpost, or whichever outpost needs dismantling, because of a) domestic politics; b) security concerns, or c) the Bible, Rahm will call out such nonsense, and it will be very hard for right-wing Israelis to come back and accuse him of being a self-hating Jew."
I guess we'll just have to wait and see if this is really true. Emanuel's love of Israel could just as easily lead him to whitewash everything Israel does and demonize and delegitimize the Palestinians. Goldberg says he knows Emanuel pretty well, though, so we can hope that his reading is correct. The point that a Jew who has shown his commitment to Israel would be the perfect foil for forcing the Israeli government to change its course is a good one — if that Jew is inclined to push Israel in the right direction.
BTW–
The man is the scion of a prominent military family in a country where the military runs the show. He is extremely wealthy and has connections in both the financial and political worlds of the U.S. He was not in Israel fixing jeeps.
Let's save our credulity for important things (like "antisemitism").
I find it interesting that a media echo chamber that will question the patriotism of anyone as well as tar them with the same brush as anyone with questionable ties doesn't seem to ask why an American seems more compelled to enlist in the service of a foreign country than one's own. I think if the country was any other than Israel it would be featured prominently.
craig,
your comment sounds very fair and reasonable but it actually shows you are naive. the israel firsters have been using this excuse for decades-it takes an israel lover to be tough on israel. that's why nearly all the negotiators have been jewish.
gives new meaning to the word love or lover
you mean like in tough love? Never happened
better would be negotiations that do not get vetted before the USA
acts–by either side, especially not by one side as is the history
LanceThruster's right.
Am I alone in finding Goldberg's "peace-processors" language vaguely mocking? He knows, wink, nod, fully well the "peace process" is a sham but has the chutzpah to suggest the Rahm Emanuel is going to make a "Nixon goes to China" moment possible in some sort of settlement with the Palestinians.
Pull the other one.
Indeed, Peters. Craig sounds young and intelligent, but he is still in that particular stage when the pristine mondoweiss inhabitant believes strange things, including that the wittycist is something other than a kaballistic device of golemic character made for the purpose of impinging madness to the unaware.
By the way I was about to say things are really bleak when all the count does is stay inside his coffing all day long reading papers, resorting to sporadically opening his little window from whence he shouts something about ancient pazjewlian lore. But then I hear those flapping wings and here comes the biggest fangs in mondoweiss eager to draw some blood.
Anon: "Obama might be the most intellectual POTUS in our history. His models are Kennedy and Lincoln. That's not so bad."
It's ok as long as he doesn't also repeat their ways of using last words as farewell addresses.
Ezra: Imagine if the above mentioned Ahmad had a father in Saudi Arabia that was quoted in a Saudi paper yesterday saying, "Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Saudi. Why wouldn't he be? What is he, a Jew? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."
That really strikes to the heart of the matter: the viscous racism inherent in neo-communist (by which I mean those who call themselves 'neo-conservative' or neo-liberal') culture. Certainly not all Zionists are racist. The exigencies of expansionist war and occupation have twisted the emotions and values of very many of them though.
I disagree with those who say that Zionism is a form of racism. In my opinion Zionism is a relict form of late 19th century European Colonialism. Relative to every other contemporaneous manifestation, i.e. the British, French, Belgians, Germans, Spanish, and Portuguese empires, it is very mild and humane, consistent with a long tradition of Jewish concern with morality. Unlike every other 'on the ground' implementation, Zionists are not mass murderers. Add up the body count from the other colonial and imperial enterprises.
However, this 19th century idea was implemented in the mid 20th century, when the rest of Europe had lost or were losing their empires. And we are now in the 21rst century. The values of much of the rest of the world have evolved into something better. What was an unexceptional notion then is an abomination now. I have read many articles where Israelis wished they could have a 'normal' state. A normal state doesn't reward those who behave like twisted moral freaks, it punishes them. If Israelis want a normal state, they MUST rein in the settlers, and end the occupations and the aggressive wars. They must deal with the settlers like psychopaths: you will never change what is inside of them, but you can get it through to them that their behavior is unacceptable, and that they will spend time in prison if they don't comply with societal norms, as expressed in law. If Israelis choose not to deal with this rot, they doom their state to decay and eventual dissolution. This is the kind of dissolution that Ahmadinejad was referring to in his infamous speech, the one deliberately misconstrued by extremist Zionists as 'proof' that Iranians want the bomb for purposes of extermination.
Err, I realize my last post was a little rough, and I hope I got my point across. When I talk about reining in the settlers, I mean all the extremists, both settlers and American neo-communists. This process needs to happen in both America and Israel.
Colin Murray: "Relative to every other contemporaneous [colonialist] manifestation [Zionism] is very mild and humane, consistent with a long tradition of Jewish concern with morality. Unlike every other 'on the ground' implementation, Zionists are not mass murderers. Add up the body count from the other colonial and imperial enterprises."
C. Murray, you are ignoring the millions of murders arranged and perpetrated by the Jewish Bolsheviks (with their Stalinist partners) in the Soviet Union, and the hundreds of thousands of killings arranged by the Neocons and Zionists in the Mideast. Communism and Neoconservatism are both largely manifestations of Judeofascism, and Zionism is a direct projection of Judeofascism.
The people “with a long tradition of concern for morality” certainly produce a large number of psychotic fanatics with an inordinate amount of blood on their hands, don’t they?
Organized Judeofascists serve as a counter-example as to how the Christian West should conduct itself, and Judeofascism’s contemporary conduct serves as a reminder to the Christian West of what it will lose, and how it will be at the mercy of scheming, savage forces, if it continues to turn its back on its own heritage by embracing left-liberalism, "Christian" Zionism and godless hyper-Capitalism (useful idiots and putty in the hands of Judeofascists all).
The West needs to either re-instate a zero tolerance policy for Judeofascism, or bend over and kiss its own ass goodbye. A necessary component of zero-tolerance will be to re-awaken the kind of Christianity that flogs Judeofascists and money-changers from the Western temples.
I read an article that claimed Jews made up a large portion of the early Bolshevik political police. I'm not sure how true this is; I have not seen a source I trust. Regardless, early 19th century Jewish Marxists had nothing to do with Zionism. They were committed, like their gentile brethren, to overthrowing highly authoritarian monarchies. Nor do I hold it against them: the path the Bolsheviks chose ended up in disaster, but none of them had any idea that it would be so. And before you call me a communist, I've been a fanatic anti-communist since I was 15 years old, after I read Robert Conquest's 'Harvest of Sorrow', and I enlisted when I was 18. They stood up and took responsibility for changing their society. They were our enemies, but they were also brave men, including the Jews amongst them. Please not that I am only referring to the Bolsheviks, the 'first generation', not the Communists whom they spawned. Any higher than average representation of Jews in the political police can be far more simply explained by the rabid antisemitism of Czarist Russia with its regular bloody pogroms. Recall 'The Pale'.
It is true that "hundreds of thousands of killings (were) arranged by the Neocons and Zionists in the Mideast". Those Americans responsible have committed capital crimes under US law, and should be held to account before a jury. I suspect that FBI counter-intelligence has a mountain of damning surveillance that would convict most of them, and even less doubt that it will never appear in court due to the almost complete stranglehold on prosecution of Israeli-firsters. Where others would go to jail, they merely get fired or have their clearances downgraded.
The neo-coms responsible for the more than million deaths in Iraq are the fringe of the extreme of Zionism. The data I have collected leads me to conclude with a very high degree of confidence that the neo-coms are not representative of 'mainstream' Zionism. That said, I also conclude that mainstream Zionists have most certainly provided social and political cover in government and media for the neo-coms. There is some kind of 'circling the wagons' thing going on, which I do not understand yet.
Finally, I would like to point out that your use of the term 'Judeofascist' is ridiculous. Jews were not involved in ANY fascist regime, ever. I believe in calling a spade a spade; give blame where it is due, and not where it is not due. Demonization will not solve this problem, finding and cultivating common ground will.
Colin Murray wrote he couldn’t find “a source I trust” confirming Jewish Bolshevism.
Do you trust Alexander Solzhenitsyn as a source? He confirms ongoing murderous Jewish Bolshevism in the Soviet Union.
http://www.vho.org/tr/2004/3/Strauss342-351.html
How about the Jewish scholar Yuri Slezkine? He called Jewish Communists "Stalin's willing executioners."
http://www.vdare.com/misc/051105_macdonald_stalin.htm
Anyone who can't find evidence of Jewish Bolsheviks systemically murdering millions of non-Jews as part of their Communist ideology isn't looking very hard, or simply doesn't want to find it because it is overwhelming to their narrow, indoctrinated intellects.
Colin Murray wrote: “your use of the term 'Judeofascist' is ridiculous. Jews were not involved in ANY fascist regime, ever.”
Jewish Communists, Neocons and Zionists are all animated by a fascist interpretation of their religion or religo-ethnicity. Their religo-fascism is projected onto their political ideologies in many, but not all, aspects, depending on the extent to which they believe they need to hide their fascism from their would-be gentile comrades and useful idiots, and in order to prevent an anti-fascist backlash against them and their ideologies. Don't look at what the SAY, look at what they DO. And what they DO is fascism.
Actually I don't trust Alexander Solzhenitsyn as a source. There is a certainly an enormous amount of truth in his books, but he has been caught making stuff up. I'm not a professional political or social scientist, and my time is limited: I simply can't make the careful study necessary to use him as a data source. I prefer to gather my own, a piece at a time from various sources over years, and do my own analysis. I realize that this necessarily biases my 'data pool' to the recent past in that for historical context I mostly rely on a lifetime of avid history reading which did not have Judaism as a focus.
ASIDE: That has changed in recent years, and I highly recommend Neil Faulkner's "Apocalypse" to any readers interested in either Jewish or Roman history. It and Teodor Shanin's "Roots of Otherness" are superb. The latter focuses on the 1905-07 Russian revolution. It is the first, as far as I know, quantitative sociological analysis of violent revolution.
I view the Israeli problem as having three parts. First, understanding what IS happening now. (a snapshot of clinical reality, if you will) Second, understanding why it is happening. (how did people living now come to their political and social values, and how can we best sort and abstract the views of so many millions of people into small enough sets of people with common outlook for useful analysis of interaction amongst them. The third is prognostic. Can we 'map the sociopolitical spectrum' well enough to suggest useful ways to go forward and solve the Israeli problem by finding common ground with as many people as possible, isolating and circumventing the extremists as necessary. Of course assessments of the acceptability of various potential outcomes will vary amongst the participants. My primary goal, working on my tiny little piece of the vast jigsaw puzzle, is to see my country disentangled from endless pointless (to me) foreign wars. Secondarily I want us to be able to, insofar as possible, mollify and reassure American Jews, who are frightened and anxious, that America is a straight-backed country in which they do not have to feel afraid of the rest of us. I think it important from a moral point of view to find some way that Jews already living in Palestine can stay there if they wish. The state of Israel as it is currently constructed is doomed. America may be able to play a role in devising a settlement that everyone can live with (not like!) This however requires that the Israel-first lobby in America be marginalized, either by transformation or shameful discredit. Whether this is possible before coup and civil war destroy Israel is anybody's guess.
I thank you for bringing Slezkine's "The Jewish Century" to my attention. Based on the blurb on Amazon, it looks outstanding, and is at the top of my 'pent up material wants to be satisfied after my first paycheck once I find another job' list.
I stand by my assertion that the term Judeofascism is nonsense. Look it up in any dictionary or encyclopedia. There may be a better word to describe whatever you are thinking, but fascist is not it. Words do matter. If you have read this far, kudos to you for being willing to hear what others have to say.
Oh, and incidentally I have read "The Gulag Archipelago", when I was 13 or 14 so its all hazy now. The nuns caught me reading "Decline and Fall of the Third Reich" and tried to censor me, the lure of forbidden fruit led me to Solzhenitsyn.