Marty Peretz, running wild and free like a mighty horse in a Marlboro ad not stopping for commas: But [Chas] Freeman's real offense (and the So wait: You're disloyal to America when you're not loyal to Israel?
president's if he were to appoint him) is that he has questioned the
loyalty and patriotism of not only Zionists and other friends of
Israel, the great swath of American Jews and their Christian
countrymen, who believed that the protection of Zion is at the core of
our religious and secular history, from the Pilgrim fathers through
Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. And how has he offended this
tradition? By publishing and peddling the unabridged John Mearsheimer
and Stephen Walt book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, with
panegyric and hysteria. If Freeman believes that this book is the truth
he can't be trusted by anyone, least of all Barack Obama. I can't
believe that Obama wants to appoint someone who is quintessentially an
insult to the patriotism of some many of his supporters, me included.
I believe that Peretz has potted this idea from Michael Oren's weird/superficial completely-unpersuasive book on America's historical attachment to Zion. (If the argument is true, it means there is no need for an Israel lobby.)
Marty, seriously: This is precisely why I–and John Judis, implicitly, in a piece that you have apparently censored from your website–have questioned the intensity of your attachment to Israel's interests: it is a recipe for dual loyalty. And not just the recipe, the souffle!
These people are a fifth column, and at this particular time, the country needs to repair its damaged economy. It does not need these people distracting from that monumental task by attempting to write gotcha "drudge-report" pieces on Americans government officials that are (for a change) loyal only to the US.
Talk about a one-way street! The Jewish community needs throw these people to the wolves before they are all tarred with the same brush. People like Peretz have only themselves to blame when the tide turns.
Peretz: "the protection of Zion is at the core of our religious and secular history, from the Pilgrim fathers through Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy."
Only if one subscribes to Judeo-Christian continuity, as opposed to Replacement theology, which the vast majority of Christians throughout the course of Western civilization and early America believed. (It is Christian Zionist flakes like John Hagee who have attempted to rewrite Christianity as having a parallel covenant with God along with “Zion,” not the early Christian Founders and builders of America.)
As for America’s secular history, during WWII we had a compact with Stalin and the Soviet Union. Did that mean our compact with Communism should have continued into perpetuity? Of course not. Despite the arguments of certain Leftists (many of them Jewish, and out of Peretz’s cohort) we threw the Communist's under the bus at first opportunity, just as we should throw the Zionists overboard (if not necessarily under the bus) today.
Mind boggling set of assumptions Marty has! Most Americans have warm fuzzies re Israel but I'm afraid this is is just religulous.
Todd: The Jewish community needs throw these people to the wolves before they are all tarred with the same brush. People like Peretz have only themselves to blame when the tide turns.
I agree completely, and this is one of the reasons I am glad that Phil has put so much effort into this blog.
Running scared…
Freeman is Saudi Arabia's shaved poodle: "It is widely charged in the United States that Saudi Arabian education teaches hateful and evil things. I do not think that is the case."
He also took the Chinese government's side against protesters in Tianamen Sq.
There's a lot of concern being raised about his objectivity and his own loyalties from various sectors (not just the pro-Israel wing)–so hopefully this appt will be retracted.
Obama is a wise man, who like everybody else, sometimes makes some bad decisions.
Phil wrote:
"it is a recipe for dual loyalty."
Not actually, is it? Isn't it instead a recipe for *single* loyalty? (To "the protection of Zion."). And not just for jews or jewish Americans but indeed for *all* Americans? Because of course if that's why America exists, then there's no difference.
Would make things easier though; we could just dispense with the bother of having elections here and have Israel tell us what we should be doing so as to strengthen our duty to protect it.
Just wish he'd see some reciprocal loyalty being owed to the U.S. by *someone* at least.
FROM PERETZ: "…the protection of Zion is at the core of our religious and secular history, from the Pilgrim fathers through Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy…"
FROM ME: Clearly Mr. Peretz is delusional. I consider his statement to be both "blasphemous" and traitorous. It is nothing less than a declaration of war against this country!
Margaret, I don't believe that Jews are in any danger in the U.S. at the moment. But if the economy keeps sinking and people start to really look at the statements of people like Peretz, some might even question the money and lives wasted in the Middle East. If that happens, all bets are off. Then again, maybe the U.S. is more stable than it appears to be. Or it could just be that most Americans are too stupid to get angry. Hopefully, we don't have to find out which is the case.
Suzanne, do you think you're converting *anyone* who may read your nonsense on this blog? Whether you're constantly referring to people on this blog as 'jihadists' or your partner in douchebaggery, Berel calls us all antisemites and nazis?
Go away.
"the U.S. is more stable than it appears to be." Unfortunately for leftist noodniks, this is the case. They are banking on the fall of capitalism, the rise of Iran, and the undisputed takeover of the NYU student lounge. haha!
There goes that arrogance about Americans being stupid again. Must be frustrating being a Jew hater. :-)
Now we come to the unholy alliance of the "christian sionists" and the Zionists. The christians are all rooting for Armageddon Now and to Hell with the unrepentant among the Jews and everyone else for that matter. I don't think that this will benefit Israel in the long run. These morons felt that Sharon's stroke was a result of G-d's displeasure for giving Gaza away. The prophecies of the 2nd coming of the Messiah require the existence of biblical Israel (maybe Nile to Euphrates). AIPAC courts these lunatics.
Can we please start distinguishing between the Christian Zionists and "the Christians" the way I take the time to distinguish between the Jewish Zionists and "the Jews"?
As we've seen, Christian Zionists, Jewish Zionists and liberal Judeophile "progressive" Zionists are all equally ignorant, and all implicated in the anti-American heresy of Zionist enablement, going back decades. To suggest that Christian Zionists have more blood on their hands than liberal Judeophile Zionists who reside in the Democratic Party (and have been financing Israel for decades) and the larger Zionist-enabling left-liberal movement, is fundamental dishonest and a red herring.
They’re all intellectually challenged, and always have been. It’s merely the foundations and "rationales" underpinning their ignorance that differ. Peretz demonstrates that "secular" and "religious" rationales in support of Zionism can be seamlessly integrated so long as the audience is suitably stupid.
@ Ed:
my bad, I meant "these christians rather that the christians when I thought I was obviously referring to christian zionists
"They’re all intellectually challenged, and always have been."
Since you're so intellectually superior to all these dummies, do you mind saying what you do for a living, Ed? :-)
'Protection of Zion' … oh Jeebus, more of the 'God grants real estate titles' nonsense. Zion ain't my problem.
From Wikipedia: In the Rastafari movement, "Zion" stands for a Utopian place of unity, peace and freedom, as opposed to "Babylon," the oppressing and exploiting system of the western world and a place of evil.
For Rastafarians, Zion is to be found in Africa, and more specifically in Ethiopia, where the term is also in use. Some Rastas believe themselves to represent the real Children of Israel in modern times, and their goal is to repatriate to Africa, or to Zion. Rasta reggae is peppered with references to Zion; among the best-known examples are the Bob Marley songs '"Zion Train," "Iron Lion Zion," and the Damian Marley song featuring Nas; "Road to Zion."
Yeah, well, I don't really want go to Ethiopia neither. But I'll gladly smoke a doobie and let Bob Marley take me there vicariously.
Everybody who took this Biblical 'Zion' sh1t literally was badly misled. Zion's a place in yo mind …
FROM PERETZ: "…the protection of Zion is at the core of our religious and secular history, from the Pilgrim fathers through Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy…"
ME: Mr. Peretz must have learned U.S. history from "Reverend" John Hagee!
What's this about Chas Freeman being connected to Mearsheimer/Walt?
Peretz: "the protection of Zion is at the core of our religious and secular history, from the Pilgrim fathers through Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy."
Maybe in Zion, Utah. As for the rest of us, we subscribe to the separation of church and state.
@ jim byers,
I hope I didn't come across as whiny. I've just noticed that certain left-liberals (not you, I don't know what your politics are) attempt to pass Zionism off as an entirely right-wing enterprise, when in fact many of the early Zionists were leftists and Israel has long been quite socialist; when in fact the Neocons nearly all came out of the Democratic Party, and were originally ushered into the corridors of power by Democrat Scoop Jackson; when in fact Jewish Zionists continue to play a predominant role in the Democratic Party to this day.
I regard Christian Zionists as complete buffoons, but their support for what is the Israel of today’s clear Jewish supremacism is at least consistent with their rogue-Christian religo-political beliefs of religious Jews as God's chosen per their literal reading of the Bible. But the racial supremacism of Israel is so diametrically opposite of what the Democrats profess to believe, and have made a ton of politically hay professing to oppose and implying that the opposition supports, that their support for Israel is in many ways more disgusting, and more of a Judas-like betrayal of ostensibly deeply-held principles than that of even the Christian Zionists.
—
@ Suzanne,
Got your eye on my wallet already, eh?
This has got to be the first time in human history when ultra-nationalism has been inextricably tied not to unblinking obedience to the state … but to a foreign power.
MX: This has got to be the first time in human history when ultra-nationalism has been inextricably tied not to unblinking obedience to the state … but to a foreign power.
Not the first. Communist activists idolized the USSR, and in France, at least, took their loyalty to Moscow so seriously that they sided with Hitler against France after the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.
I'm not sure if I would call either Zionist or Communist activism ultra-nationalism, though, in the sense that Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy were ultra-nationalist. The loyalty of Communists and Zionists is more idological than bound to a homeland in a traditional sense.
In other words, American Zionists seem more devoted to an ideological vison of Israel rather than Israel as an actual nation. Most American Zionists, for example, seem to have no particular desire to live in Israel or serve in the IDF.
David,
What I mean specifically is the union between the far right (the super-patriots) and the far left (the reverse xenophobes). You're probably right that this isn't the first time, but what's unique about it is that traditionally the leftists (and their identification with a foreign country) are at odds with the Establishment. Usually, as with Communist sympathizers, the loyalty to a foreign power is denounced as treasonous and unpatriotic. Now the reverse is true: Loyalty to the US above Israel is denounced as unpatriotic.
"Unfortunately for leftist noodniks, this is the case. They are banking on the fall of capitalism, the rise of Iran, and the undisputed takeover of the NYU student lounge. haha!
There goes that arrogance about Americans being stupid again. Must be frustrating being a Jew hater. :-)"
Suzanne,
Is there a group of humans that you put on par with ethno-centric Jews? Just curious. :-)
I'm not a leftist. And the U.S. hasn't resembled a capitalist nation for many decades, if it ever was one.
American Zionists seem more devoted to an ideological vison of Israel rather than Israel as an actual nation. Most American Zionists, for example, seem to have no particular desire to live in Israel or serve in the IDF.
There is no better example of the irrationality of ideology.
Why would 70 million americans think that being a zionist means they have to have a desire to live in Israel or serve in the IDF?
Can there be a better example of forced ideology then that espoused by Kelly?
better root your snout around for a real acorn, chris–"forced ideology"?
I wonder how long it's going to take to get Freeman's appointment rescinded. Obama's admin didn't do such a great vetting job with this one…he has some questionable affiliations and has uttered some strange things that don't reflect American interests.
He wouldn't be able to do his own bidding in this role anyway…his hands are tied…but still–sends a wrong message.
Actually from the quotes attributed to him by the ZOA, he has uttered things only strange in that they
put American security and values and world-wide humanitarian interests first–before Israel.
You've got your linear thinking well memorized, Citizen. Are they going to teach you something new at David Duke university so you can add it to your vocabulary? :-)