Glenn Greenwald has a brilliant piece of analysis of the Rasmussen poll of American attitudes re Gaza. Greenwald points out that while Americans are generally split on sympathy for Israel or Palestine, Democratic voters are lopsidedly critical of Israel over Gaza. But their Democratic party leadership is as lockstep as the Republican leadership in support of Israel. And the progressive base that built the Obama movement is surely angered by Gaza, and thoroughly unrepresented politically. Though we all wait for Obama the sphinx to speak.
Typically, Greenwald stops short of the important last step in this analysis. Why is the American elite out of touch with the American street? And so forcibly out of touch, from Iraq to the occupied territories. Rome was not built in a day. To engage this question honestly means embracing the Israel lobby theory, and the significance of Jewish conservative influence in the American establishment: the fact that Obama never ran against the neocons openly! the fact that Clinton and Bush ran against each other in '92 both campaigning in favor of the evil settlements!
Why why why. If you are to have intellectual honesty about the matter, you must broach questions of Jewish wealth (we are the top, among religions) and the Jewish prominence in the media and Democratic Party giving. And the issue of Zionism as a fervid belief inside the Jewish family. Dividing families. Divide more, please–we won't get to the promised land till the foodfight breaks out in public! I've said before that I don't think Greenwald goes after this issue forcefully because he's afraid of reaction against Jews. Yes, I'm mindreading–Glenn, when are you and I going to talk about this?
I'm a lefty too, by the way. But the left is generally hamstrung by its materialist/Chomskyian/imperialist view of American foreign policy, and its love of Jewish progressivism, which are all good so far as they go–and believe me, I demonstrated against a war-for-oil, in 1991, even as my new guide, realist John Mearsheimer, was promoting that war– and thereby the left ignores the rival culturalist school of Michael Walzer, which matters far more than materialist motivation in Jewish life. What culturalism says is that We are all the tribe we are born into and feel allegiance to that tribe. Parochialism. Ethnocentrism. And culturalism is still regnant. Which is why most American Jews, even J Street Jews, are way behind the curve on dividing Jerusalem.
Here is a Culturalist datum: "Chaired by [Obama adviser] Dennis Ross, the JPPPI [Jewish People Policy Planning Institute] seeks to formulate an overarching 'Jewish policy' with an eye towards strengthening the status of Israel as the 'center of Jewish life.'"
And here is a leftwing fallacy: Scott Horton's claim in Harper's that the dog is waggin the tail in Gaza. He's wrong. Israel is a militant Zionist state. The tail is waggin the tail.
Related posts:
- Leading lobbyist says Democratic base is turning against Israel
- Poll: Obama’s progressive base will support him in getting tough on Israel
- Obama’s progressive base seems to be turning on Israel
- Jews ceded leadership to wealthy philanthropists
- ‘J Street’ finds a wedge issue to realign Jewish leadership: ‘extremist settlers’
{ 11 comments }
I still don't understand why Phil ( its charming to shoot Jews ) Weiss is still writing these polemics. Didn't he say it was all over? And didn't he feel "totally fabulous" about it?
If you read the fine print you find that 80% of americans don't give a flying fuck if every Palestinian is killed in Gaza tomorrow.
Change is here!!!!!!!
I don't understand why SOG, aka sweet traitor fella Bill Pearlman, is still
dribbling juvenile pap on this blog. Hasn't Bill, through his many
devious sock puppets (including his totally venomous use of some real people's names) waxed euphoric playing like his comic mirror-image mentor, Julius Streicher?
Journalist =SOG=Bill Pearlman. He flits from PC to PC, uses fake names and real ones, just to crap on Phil's earnest Blog and the earnest comments on there, a tiny ray of hope for the future.
Glenn Greenwald is a brilliant, courageous analyst and essayist. But my brain turns off when he starts analyzing public attitudes in terms of an obsolete Democratic/ Republican, left/right framework. Wrong premise, bad conclusions.
On an orthogonal statist/libertarian spectrum, Demopublicans and left-rightists are all statists. They may disagree about priorities, but all believe in the might and right of the omnipotent state … as does Saint Barack.
Von Mises' principle that intervention is never effective, only breeding more intervention to correct the distortions induced by the preceding intervention, is on vivid, dispiriting display now. Economic crisis has engendered a tidal wave of statist initiatives from the ongoing Bush and incoming Obama administrations.
The one true thing George Wallace ever said is that there ain't a dime's worth of difference between them. His real name is Barack Dubya Obama. Sorry, Glenn.
I agree with Phil that Glenn's analysis in brilliant. But I am not missing anything.
In fact beyond the "Lobby thesis", which no doubt is part of the larger scenario, I am–as German–enamored with the following imagery.
Try to visualize two records, one the "clean slate" with the good America has done one the "dirty slate". As a German it feels WWII is a powerful item on the clean side and this item is heavily connected with "the Jews" and ultimately Israel. This is a deep bond and a valuable offer to the American mind the lobby has to offer.
As it has been pointed out by annotators/commentators deep down their may well be a shared settlement mentality?
then the opposite a "dirty slate".
Sorry. I should take more care, and at least reread what I wrote once.
(including his totally venomous use of some real people's names)
He is training your perception beyond what the name suggests.
Personally, I find Greenwald priggish and dull.
'Yes, I'm mindreading–Glenn, when are you and I going to talk about this?'
I for one would pay good money for a seat at that one. Greenwald has been fantastic in recent years on a range of issues, but can't go the whole hog and recognise the Dems as part of the problem, rather than his cherished conception of them as the potential solution. As the real Jim noted, the left/right dichotomy is for Greenwald almost as central as it is for Ed, and that lens tends to fog things up nowadays.
I would also "pay good money" (figuratively!) for a Philip Weiss-Glenn Greenwald dialog on the dynamic of Zionism in the American political process, and how popular pressure on the Obama administration can affect it.
What's holding that up? Don't they have ponies nowadays that can carry messages from one end of New York state to the other?
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