An open letter to Mark Green from Phil Weiss:
Dear Mark,
You were always an inspiration to me as a young leftie. I loved the fact that you got your start with Nader. I had good friends who worked for your Senate campaign in '86. I did a little volunteering myself for you then, if memory serves. Cheerleading anyway. I've followed you over the years with pride. I cheer you on when you're on MSNBC. I think your wife is very cool.
A few months back, Susie Kneedler, a writer who has taught English at Ohio State University, sent me the following note:
I asked Kneedler if she had any proof. She wrote:
But Air America without explanation put in Ron Kuby (after only about a week's trial), who's too scared to discuss the problem fairly, or the horrors of recent Israeli violence at all. (When he does discuss his identity as a Jewish person, his words seem to have that paranoid flavor that implies: "please, don't say anything bad about anyone who's Jewish, no matter what.")
All I can say is that Air America replaced the intelligent Seder, who helped liberals across the country get elected--having new candidates on his show continually--who tried to help the US be a force for good around the world, including in Palestine, with someone who's pompously insipid. And actually, there's a bit more: Ron Reagan recently invited Bernard-Henri Levy on for an entire, sickening hour about how any criticism of Zionism is ant-Semitic.
I'd love to ask Mark Green about all this, but he doesn't take calls on his Seven Days show, and AA doesn't answer the emails I've sent.
I emailed Seder, who still has his own radio show, and had a conversation with him. He said he wasn't sure of the reasons that Air America didn't stick with him, "but I do not believe it was this issue."
Seder sounded to me like Jon Stewart on this issue: hungry for new, progressive ideas about Israel/Palestine. "I consider myself a strong supporter of Israel, but their policies are actually detrimental to their existence." As soon as J Street formed, Seder had them on his show. Seder said (as many progressives do) that while Jews are 75/25 liberal, that 25 percent is wreaking madness in government policy. The neocons. He was a vocal opponent of Joe Lieberman.
I kept meaning to email you, Mark, about this question. Then I saw you on GritTV yesterday with Laura Flanders. I was deeply disappointed. You pointedly refused to say anything critical about Israel's slaughter of 400 children in Gaza. When Ali Abunimah challenged you, asking if you had anything to say, you responded with indifference, "Not really." You contemptuously dismissed the idea of "the so-called Israeli lobby" in the U.S. You spoke approvingly of Ariel Sharon's plans for Gaza in 2005. You got upset, twice, that anyone would compare Israel's behavior in the blockaded strip to Nazi behavior--at a time when even the New York Times has broached the subject, and it is common to hear young progressive Jews making the Warsaw ghetto analogy.
I note that your brother, a leading N.Y. real estate guy who's your partner in Air America, has intimate connections to Israel. I wonder about you, what I wonder about so many liberal Jews of your generation. How Zionist are you? How invested in Israel's myth of itself are you? How closely-tied do you feel personally to Israel? Do you have relatives living in Israel? Do you feel that the Jewish state is necessary because of antisemitism in the west? I've heard you criticize Pat Buchanan on the Jewish question; what political significance do you ascribe to the fact that we are the wealthiest, most empowered minority group in the U.S.?
I am sure you are for the two-state solution. Who isn't in the mainstream, now that it is slipping away. But have you ever publicly criticized Israel's behavior, as the great Henry Siegman has, for putting off that state for more than 20 years now? Have you ever spent any of your progressive political capital criticizing Israel's apartheid policies in the West Bank: separate roadways, endless checkpoints and harassment? How would you describe these conditions? When Howard Dean and Barack Obama got hammered for suggesting a more evenhanded policy in the Mideast, did you ever give them support?
You run an important leftleaning source. Now it is important for the non-Zionist left to establish these issues among ourselves so that we can move forward post-Gaza, which exposed the brutal side of Israeli policy for all to see. It is important because confusion over this question damaged the leftwing opposition during the Iraq war debate. Leading leftwing Jews like yourself, who deny there is any such thing as an Israel lobby, bashed Bush endlessly over the Iraq war, as if Republicans were the only authors of this horror, and routinely granted the neocons a pass.
They thereby hurt the antiwar movement by ignoring a central ideological component of the war party: making the Middle East safe for Israel, a project that has patently failed, killing and maiming and displacing millions of Arabs. But a project that gained wide support among Jews. Today realists like Brent Scowcroft and John Mearsheimer and Zbig Brzezinski have been far more reliable on these central moral questions than the traditional Jewish left.
So I ask you, where do you stand on these issues? Where does your brother stand? Let's talk about this, on the record. It will be clarifying to all of us.
Sincerely,
Phil Weiss
Nice letter, Phil.
It's a powerful letter. I'll be very curious how (or if) Green answers.
I certainly can't endorse his views on this, but I wrote a similar kind of "open letter on Israel-Palestine" to right-winger David Horowitz (a friend) about eight years ago, and he posted it on his website and replied with great civility.
Israel connection has been scrubbed of Wikipedia entry. But he does business with Lev Leviev and with Israel-connected Russian Oligarchs.
I USED to teach English at OSU.
Thanks, Phil, for asking Mark Green to explain how he can call himself a liberal, yet parrot extremist far-right Kadima-Likud "propaganda"–to use Green's own word–about Palestine and Israel.
A Window for Israel/Palestine Peace?
Just Foreign Policy and Jewish Voice for Peace have launched a campaign to urge President Obama to reform U.S. policy toward the Palestinians so that George Mitchell's diplomacy can succeed: lift the blockade on Gaza, authorize U.S. diplomats to talk to Hamas officials, get serious about ending Israeli settlements in the West Bank, insist that US weapons supplied to Israel be only used for self-defense, as required by US law.
You can sign their letter here-
link to salsa.democracyinaction.org
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He will respond likely nearly exactly as he did to Ali Abunimeh's insults.
And YES, there is likely a very large difference between Mark Green's views and Marty Peretz.
Great letter.
I don't know much about Mark Green, but I betcha no one can find anything with his name on it opposing the war from 2002. (Just like no one has ever found anything from Richard Witty
So why don't you delineate that difference for us, Richard?
Does he believe the Nakba is justified, or justified?
Does he want U.S. taxpayers to back Israel unconditionally, or unconditionally?
The problems with Mark Green’s claim to be liberal:
Green’s assertions are easily countered:
1. "But the glib analogy to concentration camps and responding to rocket attacks on sovereign soil, is, I think, propaganda."
Green’s legerdemain: Palestinians aren’t allowed a state, so have no “sovereign soil,” and hence—according to Green–no right to exist or resist.
2. Ali Abunimah is "reprehensible to make a historic comparison to what Germany did to six million Jews and what Israel did in response to rocket fire into Israel."
Green is drawing “Reprehensible” and “glib” [false] equivalency between mere words and horrific killing.
3. "We could have an interesting debate" [about the easily disproved facts he alleged], followed by a glib Green accusation that Ali Abunimah made a "glib analogy to Nazi concentration camps on sovereign soil."
Green's condescending admission, that "we could have an interesting debate [a phrase he used twice]” [about the grisly facts of 400 pulverized children and 1,000 other people slain], to which he added: "It's a gritty subject."
Green’s insouciance about staggering slaughter was gob-smacking. As Jon Stewart might sing out,
“Beach volleyball is 'a gritty subject' about which 'we could have an interesting debate'!"—not White Phosphorus, not 1400 dead souls!
The poles of political thinking in this country are realigning from liberal versus conservative to liberal versus empire. I’m sad that a formerly admirable, progressive thinker like Mark Green seems to be choosing reactionary, war-mongering empire for the sake of defending arch-right Likud-Kadima-Lobby butchery.
LOL, funny MM.
Beautiful letter, Phil.
Russian oligarchs have tentacles everywhere. From Abramoff to McCain's campaign hopes for Georgia… and Wiki is constantly deleting is there religious background. It would be illuminating to see a Russian Oligarch/US Neocon/Likud/Madoff family tree.
"their religious backgrounds"… sorry for the grating typos.
I’m sad that a formerly admirable, progressive thinker like Mark Green seems to be choosing reactionary, war-mongering empire for the sake of defending arch-right Likud-Kadima-Lobby butchery.
What do you expect? He's part of the formerly free-wheeling Jewish liberal over-55 crowd who are 'finding religion' as they age, like David Mamet who has become insufferable about it. Nothing worse than a convert. Not all can be M.J. Rosenberg or Jeffrey Blankfort, or that great, principled British MP.
Phil.
Great letter.
Does he believe the Nakba is justified, or justified?
Does he want U.S. taxpayers to back Israel unconditionally, or unconditionally?
Posted by: MM
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Reminds me of Stephen Colbert when he would ask, "George Bush…great president? Or the greatest president?"
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susie, I sympathise. As an english teacher at university level, you must hate it as much as I do when people use these horrific terms like 'gritty subject'. They shouldn't be allowed to speak at all, when they use language so dishonestly and cruelly – they are the linguistic equivalent of a dangerous driver who refuses to fix his steering, brakes, or exhaust.
air america is definitely zionist occupied territory. rachel maddow's first reaction to the gaza pogrom was without hesitation to run to the defense of israel. i lost all respect for her in 5 minutes. and thom hartmann is fantastic…(all together now:) except when it comes to israel-palestine.
cartoon from pal think tank:
chimpsky, in general, we can see a spurious but momentarily effective alliance between zionists and GLBT activists. This is probably a matter of tactical funding by 'liberal' Jews who just happen to hate Islam, because of its supposed barbarity towards 'gays'.
chimpsky – can i get a link to the cartoon? thx
thom hartmann is fantastic…(all together now:) except when it comes to israel-palestine.
Posted by: chimpsky
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Believe or not, I recently heard Thom Hartmann speak out against Israeli actions in Gaza and was surprised myself. I don't hear his show as much since they moved his time slot a while back, so I do not know if this criticism of Israel was the exception rather than the rule, but it was welcome nonetheless.
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can i get a link to the cartoon? thx
Posted by: anonymous
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Here is the link for the cartoon of the day by Mr. Fish:
http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/01/27/2965/
Thanks, Rowan: Yes, and you said it beautifully, "they use language so dishonestly and cruelly – they are the linguistic equivalent of a dangerous driver who refuses to fix his steering, brakes, or exhaust."
See also Orwell about [malicious] phrasing designed to distort [though I bet you already know it]:
"Politics and the English Language"
http://www.george-orwell.org/Politics_and_the_English_Language/0.html