After last Monday's 92d Street Y panel on a liberal Jewish lobby, Justin Elliott of TPM did this wonderful interview with one of the panelists, Michelle Goldberg. Goldberg is a lover of Israel who is agonized about what Avigdor Lieberman means. She makes the following statements:
--"My sense is that American Jews have never grappled with the inherent contradictions...between Zionism and liberal democracy..."
--"Many of us would argue that the continuing existence of Israel is more important than the reconciliation of all of our ideals. Nevertheless, this is a sore spot." And Avigdor Lieberman exploits it. He is "Zionism without contradictions."
--The domination of one group by another "perverts the deepest ideals of Judaism."
--The "hysteria" against the South Africa comparison is symptomatic of "bad faith" on the part of Israel's defenders. "There are people in the Jewish community who understand that they are defending the indefensible." [This is brilliant. And it is precisely what
John Mearsheimer says: that Israel's defenders have been reduced to "smashmouth"
tactics.]
--The Israel lobby is a misnomer. It should be called the rightwing lobby, because it is rightwing Jews supporting right wing governments.
--Criticism of the settlement projects is being heard in quarters it has not been heard before.
--Elliott asks, Have you experienced "pressures" as a journalist not to say things?
"Yes, to be honest, there are certain things I'm not going to talk about [because I don't want this to be about myself]. Everybody knows that if you write certain things you put yourself beyond the pale of certain publications. And not just the obvious ones like the New Republic. I mean you take a certain stance and you consign yourself to the loony left. I think that is maybe becoming less and less true." She has been told on some occasions, "You can't write something," and there "is a degree of self-censorship as well."
Wow! Do I have a lot of responses. Mainly: I celebrate Goldberg for being so honest. She obviously feels some sense of duty not just to Jewish life, but to the American discourse. We need it. She's articulate, and thoughtful. Great for her to open up.
The last question first. Her description of the journalism world absolutely squares with my own view: I have 20 years in this business and haven't been able to make any money to speak of off the issue I care most about, and publications I used to work for have shut the door. Dan Drezner sniggered at me a few weeks back over the idea that there are career consequences for criticizing Israel--and in the same post he said that it would disqualify someone from senior level Presidential appointment, a statement borne out by the Freeman affair. Well Goldberg has said just what I say about journalism, and both of us decline to be more specific for reasons that Ivory Tower folks might not understand, it could hurt our careers.
Also note: When Goldberg says "Everybody knows" this, she means: Everybody knows this. Don't pretend that I have not been blacklisted. Our journalism is broken.
In this connection, I would note that during the panel discussion, Rabbi Steve Gutow, an establishment Jew, looked around at the liberals and said, Well this just shows the diversity in our community! This is crap. Because I am not on that panel, Jack Ross is not on that panel, and I believe only one Jew who expressed outrage over Gaza was on that panel, Jeremy Ben-Ami. It reminds me of Ralph Seliger of Meretz saying to me, Phil you demonstrate the diversity in the Jewish experience. But that alleged diversity is never honored. If you hold my views, you will get no support from the Jewish community.
That said, let me emphasize: I think communities have the right to define themselves as they please; and truly I may be outside the community; but consider how many feel the way I do, and what that means about the nature of the remaining community.
Goldberg hints at these issues in her statement that "many" Jews, apparently including herself, would argue for the continuing existence of Israel notwithstanding its absence of democracy for people who are religiously/ethnically different. This is presumably because she believes in the significance of anti-semitism (and indeed Goldberg has written alot about the snakehandling Christian right--skeery). But speaking as an unaffiliated American Jew who cares alot about the Jewishness that formed him, I think this is a disastrous call; and the job of American Jews is to help imagine a better path for the people of Israel/Palestine. Tony Karon, who was also not invited on that panel--and who, gosh, seems to write a lot more about Israel/Palestine in The National out of Abu Dhabi than he does for his primary employer, Time Magazine in New York--writes here that It's apartheid. On that point, Michelle Goldberg is merely in denial. Desmond Tutu says it's worse than apartheid. So did a South African I met in Hebron nearly 3 years ago.
How many American Jews will remain in denial, out of an ethnocentric failure to perceive others' suffering?
Now to Goldberg's claim that the lobby is just a rightwing lobby. Chas Freeman has said the same thing lately.
Three years ago Goldberg wrote a largely-negative piece for Salon about Walt and Mearsheimer's LRB paper, saying they had stupidly picked up antisemitic ideas in blaming Jews for the Iraq war--a "horribly sensitive" issue. And on that occasion, Goldberg made the same argument she did at the 92d Street Y: that the lobby doesn't represent the vast swath of liberal American Jews, it's just a rightwing lobby. I don't buy this. When push comes to shove, as Goldberg says, "many" Jews will support Israel notwithstanding apartheid, and that "many" includes many liberals. When push comes to shove, their ethnic identification, or fear of anti-semitism, or strong belief in "the historic Zionist project" (as another liberal on the 92d Street Y panel, Eric Alterman, puts it) means They're sharing quarters with the neocons. Dershowitz is a liberal who I think opposed the Iraq war; but he has said that it is the "secular religion" and "sacred mission" of American Jews to support Israel, and many Jews share that belief. In her Salon piece, Goldberg attacked Walt and Mearsheimer for "crudely" mentioning that 60 percent of the money to Democratic candidates comes from Jews. But her comment now that "many" Jews would side with Israel notwithstanding apartheid means that you really have to talk about Jewish money in the political process, you simply can't avoid it. Even center-left Jewish money is invested in the Israel project-- as Mark Green demonstrates when he refuses to say a word about Gaza, and when his "left" network Air America fires its pro-Palestinian voice, Sam Seder.
Everybody knows you can't write about these issues. And not because of rightwingers. All the rightwing Jews went to McCain anyway, and still Obama is beholden to the Mel Levine/Howard Berman liberals. What does it mean that criticism of the settlements--a truly wicked project, now 41 years old--is only being expressed now in certain quarters, per Goldberg?
I want to get past the criticism. This site is trying to be about intellectual leadership. I'm excited by Goldberg's honesty and sensitivity and intelligence. And the only issue going forward is: Can J Street empower her? Can it work with other groups to reach out to the unaffiliated and alienated Jews like myself, and to the progressive realist gentiles like Steve Walt, and build a coalition? As I've said before, without that coalition, which will have to include big Jews (i.e., money), American foreign policy won't change, and Jewish life won't either.
Thanks, Phil:
Interesting how those who criticize or even name the fact of Zionism's evils are simultaneously cast out and used as sham evidence of Judaism's "diversity of views."
We have to keep standing up for the people who do speak out, because otherwise the Likud Lobby ostracizes one by one the thinkers–reporters, academics, and politicians–who support justice for Palestine.
… that the lobby doesn't represent the vast swath of liberal American Jews, it's just a rightwing lobby. I don't buy this.
I don't buy this either. The rightwing Lobby may not share the values of a "vast swath of liberal American Jews", but they damn sure do allow it to represent them. Jewish American institutions like AIPAC and CPMJO consistently support colonial Zionism. There are moderate Zionists within these organization, and they have stood by wringing their hands while extremists have spoken for them.
"The Israel lobby is a misnomer. It should be called the rightwing lobby, because it is rightwing Jews supporting right wing governments."
This is false, as this very site has demonstrated. "The Israel lobby" is expansive, and is primarily comprised of Zionist Jews across the establishment politcal spectrum, but weighed heavily to establishment left-liberalism. The Democratic Party has been the main base of operations for much of the Israel lobby for many decades.
The claim that the Israel lobby is right wing is designed to scapegoat conservatism for the crimes and hypocrisy of Jewish liberals, and is yet more evidence that American Jews still don't want to grapple "with the inherent contradictions…between Zionism and liberal democracy…"
They'd rather continue to blame conservatism for their own putrid conduct. Truly unbeleivable. The mental acrobatics necessary to maintain such a delusional state of mind would probably put most of these people in the category of clinical.
I frankly don't care about palestinian human rights, I just don't want terrorists flying planes into american buildings.
my interest in this issue is related to america's security not some kind of sociological thing about jews and zionism.
Also see Ethan Bonner's piece this morning on the Israeli IDF Rabbis in the NYTimes: link to etext.virginia.edu
/>
This was the canon from which our founding fathers drew wisdom in designing our Constitution and other social institutions. It ain't the Talmud. I believe Lincoln spent years at the Library of Congress [the original core of which was donated by Jefferson], remedying his lack of a formal education, and I always wondered if he followed Jefferson's advice on what to read. You're doing a great service through this blog, in exposing and permitting analysis of Jewish thought on the most important issue of our times. But Ronzki's warning that Jewish thought must reject humanitarian ideals that conflict with Israel's divine entitlement to the land of Israel must be met with an American reaffirmation that America must reject Neocon and Likud goals that conflict with American core values.
Phil
I think you are mistaken when you say American mideast policy will NEVER change unless realistic Jews and gentiles come together to bring this about. To be sure such a coalition is long overdue but even if it never develops there will come a point when US Mideast policy becomes too costly to continue under any circumstances.
The tippling point probably will arrive when the dollar finally collapses under the weight of unprecedented deficit financing and money printing as far as the eye can see. When the nation is faced with a choice of either dramatically reducing its overseas commitments or witnessing a plunge in living standards far beyond anything we have seen to date — it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what the choice will be, the Israel lobby notwithstanding.
lester: "I frankly don't care about palestinian human rights, I just don't want terrorists flying planes into american buildings."
If you don't want Islamic terrorists flying planes into American buildings you should demand that your government stop financing Jewish terrorists in Israel. And you should dedicate yourself to rooting Zionists out of Congress and other American institutions which they've infiltrated in order to ensure that the American taxpayer is forced to finance Jewish terrorists.
"Israel's divine entitlement to the land of Israel"
Nobody ever tells me anything. It's not like I haven't had the same goddamned address and phone number for the last twenty years.
Thank You, Mr. Weiss.
I sincerely hope that this country wakes up, and in that moment you will be the most sought after guest on all TV news (at that point, actual news, not "news") shows.
One can dream, hey?
Lester doesn't give a damn about human rights in the Middle East, he only wants to prevent terrorists from flying planes into U.S. skyscrapers. Gee, Lester, did it ever occur to you that if you DID give a damn about human rights in the Middle East, you wouldn't have to lay awake at night worrying about Middle East terrorists plowing airliners into Manhattan's tallest buildings?
Probably not. You're like the great unwashed, the people in the flyover states who wonder what the hell peace in the Middle East has to do with them? How about $30 billion of your tax dollars over the next ten years going to subsidize an apartheid beyond all imaginings in Palestine? What happened to this country — we claim to be so politically correct, but our Congress so sees the Palestinians as subhuman, they almost unanimously support a resolution authorizing Israel's IDF to vaporize women and children with white phospherous weapons? We have a manistream press that won't even tell the American people the truth, we need amazing people like Phil Weiss to pull together the real story?
And yet you read the dialogue on this website and say you don't give a damn about human rights, you only care that we prevent the terrorists from attacking us? Sorry, Lester, Mondoweiss is graduate school foreign affairs, and you're still struggling through third grade social studies. Adult swim only.
It was another meandering rant.
Its not unreasonable for there to be an acceptable range of opinion that gets expressed in the mass media.
And, if your comments extend beyond that range in tone and content, then that's the way it is.
You don't have to write only about Israel/Palestine.
There are no areas that I'm aware of where the mass media is interested in my opinion.
I frankly don't care about palestinian human rights, I just don't want terrorists flying planes into american buildings.
my interest in this issue is related to america's security not some kind of sociological thing about jews and zionism.
you ought to interest yourself into what knocked down building seven of the world trade center….i hear it was an invisible plane made out of a secret metal that keeps it from being seen.
coup de etat.
There are no areas that I'm aware of where the mass media is interested in my opinion.
Posted by: Richard Witty |
You should try making a rap video, and it'll go viral. You'll be right up there with Sir Mix-a-lot before you know it, Richard.
Vaguely familiar with the term hasbara , I had to look it up on Google to understand what all these accusations of "hasbara troll" meant. Okay, now I get it.
I hate to interrupt this anti-Jewish circle jerk you all have going on here, but it's quite amusing to see the inane responses and reactions to those who disagree with the majority pitchfork mob. For me, I get my Iranian ethnicity questioned, conflated or equated with someone named "Suzann," called a "hasbara troll" repeatedly, referred to as a "moron" or "idiot," and then there's my favorite, "Ziopig fucktard."
Okay, that aside, I welcome any healthy discussion or exchange of ideas on the issues raised here. Clearly, the blog admin, "Phil," all but hates his Jewish identity yet retains a portion of it, me thinks, so that he can be the anti-Jew Jew, the hero from within who fights the goliath forces of "the Lobby" and its barbarian horde of fanatics (hasbara trolls?). I can see how this romanticized self-portrayal is flattering and can give meaning and purpose to one's life. As we say in Persian, Phil, salamaat ba'shi — may you find meaning and purpose in your spiritual purification and anti-Jewish endeavors.
The problem with this tone, however, is that it leaves no room for any discussion from anyone that might challenge the Arab-Islamic gospel on historic Palestine. You people don't want to hear anything that might even potentially exculpate Israel, even if it's true. It's like arguing with 9/11 "Truthers," another enlightened bunch of so-called humanists.
So I ask, what do you people want? Do you want Israel to disappear completely and the Jews to be resettled elsewhere? I guess, before I even ask that question, I must ask whether any of you accept the fact that the land known as Judea and Samaria was once the homeland of the Jewish people, before the Babylonians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Crusaders, and others dispossessed them of it?
(I can see it now: somewhere, a siren is going off because the words "Judea and Samaria" were written on the Internet. Quick, there is a "hasbara troll!" Let's flog him! Those words are only uttered by Ziopig fucktards!)
So, again, what do you people want? If you want the Jews to leave and the land given to the Arabs (who, as we know, are lacking territory in that part of the world), can I get you to agree that Iran should also be de-Islamicized and de-Arabized and returned to the true Persian people? I know the two aren't related — I'm just looking for some consistency.
I am happy to see growing opposition to the Zionist consensus within the Jewish American community, but the key thing is that this a HUMAN rights issue — and an American policy issue — not a "Jewish" debate. Jews, on either side of this issue, have no inherent right to be the gatekeepers for disourse or policy.
The best thing well-meaning Jews can do is tell the Goys it's OK for them to speak out on Israel-Palestine and not take seriously the vile and disingenuous charge of "anti-Semitism."
During the US Civil Rights struggle in the South, no sane people were willing to accept that supporting the rights of African-Americans was "anti-White", discrimination against Southern cultural traditions — or even "anti-Southern Baptist" — though segregationists would often make those assertions.
Witty: "Its not unreasonable for there to be an acceptable range of opinion that gets expressed in the mass media."
Who defines that "acceptable range"? Who employs nepotism and cronyism to maintain control over that "acceptable range"? Who utilizes taxpayer dollars to perpetuate the "acceptable range" status quo by laundering them through the Jewish state and recycling them back to formulate US public opinion?
Jewish Zionists and their collaborators, that's who.
people pretend this is happening in 1939, apartheid knows no green line. it's just easier to oppress people when they can't vote.
Phil's article was anything but a "meandering rant." It was square on the target. What it means to be an American, and what it means to be a Zionist are not compatible. Whether the Lobby is called the Right-Wing Lobby or not, its effect on all Americans via American foreign policy and foreign aid doles remains the same. Silence, whether enforced in whatever way, or not–is a huge issue in the nation that invented
the First Amendment to posit the right of every individual American to speak out without fear.
It's unreasonable to claim there has existed since the mid-1960's even a modestly full range of opinion in the MSM regarding Israeli activities and the enforced financial support of same by every USA taxpayer.
While it is true nobody has to write only about I-P, it's also true the I-P issue is the singular issue of
the most powerful lobby in the USA other than the gun lobby, the latter protecting the right of every
USA citizen to bear arms as a final stay against government tyranny, and the former focused entirely
on rabid unconditional support of a foreign country in the heart of the most important commodity in the world, oil.
Witty, you choose not to get it. Phil does. Michelle Goldberg sees it, just less clearly. They are honest, you are willfully not. You waste your time on this blog. Doppler is a real American, you are not. You
prefer to internalize vicarious Shoah experiences as you sit comfortably in your goy-protected home,
arguing you need Israel as your insurance policy in the face of American history. Palestinians die for your arrogance and misuse of American hospitality to you and yours. Not to mention those who died in 9/11, and our soldiers in Iraq. Your heart would lift if Iran was attacked, not caring what this would do
to the USA, let alone the world. You are the termite in the wood pile.
"–"My sense is that American Jews have never grappled with the inherent contradictions…between Zionism and liberal democracy…"
And because of this, considering Jewish power in our plutocracy, neither have most non-Jewish Americans.
Time for an audit, non-Witty style.
@ Jaffr
Yes, that is the point.
@Shirazi Sophis
Your tired hasbara talking points bore us. We've hashed them all out endlessly in posts past. Go back to sleep. Quit interfering with real conscientious Americans with a great sense of humanism.
Slightly O/T:
Here's an interesting little blogpost on George Galloway's ban from Canada with some
interesting video, in which Galloway debates a guy (Meir Weinstein) from the Canadian JDL (Jewish Defense League). According to the post, the Canadian JDL is clearly linked to… well… the JDL, themselves in a spot of bother about… terrorist activity and support for Meir Kach!
I wonder if the US will ban Galloway for his upcoming "Siege buster" US tour???
If Galloway can kick up a stink, it might get some debate going in Canada too…
Michelle Goldberg demonstrates the problem:
"There are inherent contradictions between Zionism and liberal democracy. … I also think that, you know, many of us would argue that the continuing existence of Israel is more important than the reconcilliation of all of our ideals."
@ Citizen on Witty: "You prefer to internalize vicarious Shoah experiences as you sit comfortably in your goy-protected home, arguing you need Israel as your insurance policy in the face of American history."
Great point. Unbeleivable, these Jewish American Zionists: "Oy vey! The goy is out to get us, and always will be!"
Five minutes later:
"Hey, shabbos goy, come over here and massage my stinky Jew feet."
III
So if I'm new to this site and its discussions, I can't ask very basic questions? And what's with all the "hasbara" attacks? I'm open to hearing any point of view, and unlike some others here, prepared to be convinced of the merits of other sides. Sorry if this perspective bores you — perhaps I'm in the wrong forum.
Look, I'm just convinced when I hear all about "Palestinian suffering" at the hands of Israelis. I'm also not convinced that Israelis are always innocent of the charges they are accused of. I see it as a very complicated debate, not the Manichean story many portray it to be here and elsewhere. And since there aren't any forums here where the basics can be discussed, I drop my questions wherever I can. I'm not "trolling," I'm not trying to be obtuse or inflammatory. I'm just trying to understand, from a very basic level, what got you and the others to this very polarized perspective of the conflict.
I just get the impression that nothing can convince any of you that there is some merit and truth to the Israeli narrative. You see it as some white vs. brown, colonial vs. indigenous struggle that is wholly inaccurate but, let's admit, makes for a very compelling story for white Americans still dealing with both American and international legacies of racism.
Care to discuss, or do you want to continue with the snide insults? I would genuinely like to hear your opinion.
"As we say in Persian, Phil, salamaat ba'shi — may you find meaning and purpose in your spiritual purification and anti-Jewish endeavors."
What could be a better diguise for a hasbara spreader than an Iranian one? So I guess the instruction is to throw in a bit of Persian here and there to provide the necessary 'couleur locale'.
I am looking forward to seeing Hafiz quoted – in the original.
So Galloway can be (potentially, probably) refused entry (as can journalist, Fisk), but probably not Lieberman in the upcoming months? Sad world. I know the UK banned Geert Wilders from entry,
link to huffingtonpost.com
/>
but not the US.
*RE: …The "hysteria" against the South Africa comparison is symptomatic of "bad faith" on the part of Israel's defenders. "There are people in the Jewish community who understand that they are defending the indefensible." [This is brilliant. And it is precisely what John Mearsheimer says: that Israel's defenders have been reduced to "smashmouth" tactics.]
*SEE: "The Authoritarians" (261 pages), by Bob Altemeyer, Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba
Chapter 1 Who Are the Authoritarian Followers?
Chapter 2 The Roots of Authoritarian Aggression, and Authoritarianism Itself
Chapter 3 How Authoritarian Followers Think
Chapter 4 Authoritarian Followers and Religious Fundamentalism
Chapter 5 Authoritarian Leaders
Chapter 6 Authoritarianism and Politics
Chapter 7 What's To Be Done?
*FREE PDF DOWNLOAD – link to home.cc.umanitoba.ca
*ALTERNATIVE SITE – link to members.shaw.ca
"So I ask, what do you people want?"
I want the electrical problems on my bike fixed before spring sets in. But I have great hopes in that direction. It's gonna cost me, tho.
"So I ask, what do you people want?"
I want my foreskin back! My wife knitted a little sort of hood thingy out of microfiber, but it's not really the same. And I want a million dollars, too.
Arie, it's just like Star Wars, innit! "The Hasbara is strong in this one"
Sophie, I think this will explain the situation a whole lot better than I possibly could:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExeyrNZwzwQ&NR=1
if that don't get it, try:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd4WZ3LqCKw
Many of us would argue that the continuing existence of Israel is more important than the reconciliation of all of our ideals.
This is the same as admitting that you really have no ideals. Israel is your raison d'etre; everything else is a way to the pass the time.
The Israel lobby is a misnomer. It should be called the rightwing lobby, because it is rightwing Jews supporting right wing governments.
Ridiculous, as has been pointed out. Alan Dershowitz is a "liberal", despised by many "rightwingers". Yet he's just as hawkish on Israel as Bill Kristol and Daniel Pipes. Ditto Tom Friedman. Ditto Richard Cohen. Ditto Chuck Schumer. Ditto Joe Lieberman. Ditto Rahm Emmanuel. Ditto Dianne Feinstein. Ditto Frank Lautenberg. Ditto Steve Israel. Ditto Barney Frank. Ditto…
Goldberg hints at these issues in her statement that "many" Jews, apparently including herself, would argue for the continuing existence of Israel notwithstanding its absence of democracy for people who are religiously/ethnically different. This is presumably because she believes in the significance of anti-semitism (and indeed Goldberg has written alot about the snakehandling Christian right–skeery).
Another fair presumption might be that she believes in Jewish supremacism.
RE: "Look, I'm just convinced when I hear all about "Palestinian suffering" at the hands of Israelis." Do you live in the USA? You won't hear about that from any of our politicians, nor from the MSM. Quit turning USA reality on its head, dope. Americans are up to their ears with how Israel is our special ally, and with goy guilt over the Shoah, even though Americans died by the thousands fighting Hitler. Get real, moron.
off topic post:
Yeah, Israel is serious about peace.
Israel arrests Hamas negotiators
Where would Jews be without anti-semitism? That's like, where would they be without the Talmud? The group also needs the Other, that is its reason for continued existence. The Jews have carried this psychology better than any other collective. It worked until they faced the USA. Now, they realize that the USA principles are a real problem, the biggest problem they ever had in all of Jewish history. Michelle Goldberg senses this. So do the web sites that discuss the "silent holocaust" meaning, how can we deal with the concept and activity associated with dealing with life with Jews as just like everybody else? God forbid. It tears a giant hole in the idea that Jews are especially negative–or especially positive. We have met the enemy and they are us. Pogo.
"Look, I'm just convinced when I hear all about "Palestinian suffering" at the hands of Israelis."
That's good. I'm convinced too, more than "just convinced" but that's all right.
Saleema, you seem to have some very basic misunderstanding of the situation in the ME. Being under military occupation for 40 years or so, with collective punishment and lots of expanding illegal Israeli settlements is "suffering" isn't it? What would you call it?
And even if Israel withdraws to the 67 borders, that still leaves the basic crimes of its founding unaddressed.
Sorry, Saleema, I meant "Shirazi Sophist" All non-Jews look alike to me.
The mental acrobatics necessary to maintain such a delusional state of mind would probably put most of these people in the category of clinical. Posted by: Ed | March 22, 2009 at 02:17 PM
George W. reputedly said about this type of remark, "he who smelt it dealt it."
Dickerson, you're spamming your book. Posting repeated recommendations of a product without relevance or comment is spamming.
"During the US Civil Rights struggle in the South, no sane people were willing to accept that supporting the rights of African-Americans was "anti-White", discrimination against Southern cultural traditions — or even "anti-Southern Baptist" — though segregationists would often make those assertions."
Jaffr
That was then. Don't worry, the idea that equal rights for non-whites = discrimination against whites is holding up plenty good.
"Many of us would argue that the continuing existence of Israel is more important than the reconciliation of all of our ideals … the domination of one group by another 'perverts the deepest ideals of Judaism.'"
Oh my … so the possession of that fraught little chunk of eastern Mediterranean land is so transcendently important that it justifies occupation, murder and enslavement of other tribes who happen to be in the way? Very reminiscent of the 19th century Afrikaner settlers rolling east across the veld in their ox-wagons, a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other.
Goldberg has written a lot about the snakehandling Christian right, says Phil. Does she not see the parallel between the snakehandlers and the zionists, both of whom believe that two thousand year-old scriptures are literally true today, giving 'Judea and Samaria' to the Israelites? The revelations last week about rabbis blessing the Gaza attacks as a holy war goes to show that's it's not just radical Jewish settlers who are fundamentalist nutballs.
What I'd like to see Michelle Goldberg address is that while snakehandlers are only a small minority of Christians, zionism has almost completely hijacked Judaism. Has Judaism become predominantly a religion of fanatical fundamentalists, as Islam is often accused of being?
When Michelle Goldberg talks of compromising Judaism's timeless 'deepest ideals' to enable a quasi-secular land grab of rather recent vintage, one really has to wonder whether Judaism hasn't veered off the road into the ditch, just as the Dutch Reformed Church did in manufacturing Biblical justifications for apartheid in South Africa. The Jewish scriptures are just as conveniently malleable, in malevolent hands. But why are the voices defending the 'deepest ideals' so few?
Judaism is in moral crisis, maybe existential crisis, and zionism is the instigator. Y'all tried to handle the red-eyed serpent of zionism, expecting divine protection. But the venomous fangs lashed out, and now you're snakebit. In a snakehandling church, this is taken to show that God intended the victim to die.
Mooser,
So you take issue with Israel's founding, then? I'm not going to disabuse you of that position — that is your right to believe it. Would your solution be that all of Palestine be turned over to the Arabs? Would you, then, suggest that the Jews be relocated? If so, where? If not, do you believe that Arab Muslims would coexist peacefully with Jews? (I'm not being facetious here — these are genuine questions.)
I didn't get answer to my earlier question, so I'll ask it again: do the Jews have any — any — historical claim to that area whatsoever? Set aside the issue of whether the state of Israel should exist or not, or the circumstance of its founding in 1948. I'm just wondering if anyone here thinks that Jews, as a people/nation, have any historical claim.
"Clearly, the blog admin, "Phil," all but hates his Jewish identity yet retains a portion of it, me thinks, so that he can be the anti-Jew Jew, the hero from within who fights the goliath forces of "the Lobby" and its barbarian horde of fanatics (hasbara trolls?)."
It's astonishing me to me sometimes how much energy here goes into the question of who is a Jew and who is not. who is authorized to speak for Jews, who is self-hating or not. Why is it so damn critically important who's a Jew and who isn't?. It's like being born Jewish is being born with the gene for eternal life or something so it's a matter of life and death to know who has it and who doesn't.
I'm part English, Italian and Irish. I assure you I never sent two minutes wondering if I was really English, really Italian, really Irish. I'm a mixture and it's fine with me. As far as I'm concerned they are all good gene pools. I couldn't ask for anything more. But then I log on to Mondoweiss and here are all these Israel firsters lambasting Phil for having the gall to speak out on dual loyalty, Zionism, or Israeli expansionism without his being, in their opinion, a real Jew. Sometimes I feel like I'm watching Pinocchio with everyone wanting to know if the wooden puppet is a real boy. I think it really irks them when someone born a Jew criticizes their loyalty to American, for instance. So if only they can establish that he's not "a real Jew" then they drop the big one, dismiss him as an anti-Semite. Otherwise they're left standing around calling him "a self-hating Jew," a charge so patently ridiculous that even Israel-firsters feel ashamed to use it.
I can't speak for Mooser obviously, but I get the impression that most of us here would like to see this conflict resolved with a two-state solution on the basis of international law. That is what the vast majority of the world votes for every year at the UN, going back decades, with only US veto power over the UN preventing it and a flood of propaganda convincing the populations in the US and Israel to continue letting our governments work against it.
Here is a documentry which I hope you might take the time to watch:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1259454859593416473
I don't think "the Jews as a people" have any particular claim to anything.
@ Mooser and Shirazi Sophist
Mooser,
"Sorry, Saleema, I meant "Shirazi Sophist" All non-Jews look alike to me."
thanks for the great laugh. I really, really needed it.
Shirazi Sophist, You are no Iranian Jew. I bet you probably want Israel to bomb the shit out of Iran for the sake of the Israeli narrative. In the end, that's all that matters, right?
Having said that, let's just assume you are an Irani Jew, do you put Israeli's "right to exist" first before the country that gave you part of your identity? Or have you always strongly identified with Israel no matter what?
Iranians are a proud pepole. Iranian Jews are a proud people too. They love Iran. (Note, loving Iran does not mean loving the regime.) Yet you are claiming to be Iranian and talking about Israel more positively than Iran? I don't buy it. Iranian Jews in America stick to each other and stay within the community and they are wary of identifying totally with American Jews and Israel. That's because they come from a very cultured country and a proud one at that.
If you want basic questions answered pick up a few books, read them, and then come back. Or you can go back and retake your Middle Eastern Studies classes again.
No one who is a member of Phil's phools believes the Jews have any claim to anything, including the right to breathe the air.
Damn Chris Berel, that is some real self-hating Jew psychosis you've got going on there.
Phil Weiss wrote:
"Three years ago Goldberg wrote a largely-negative piece for Salon about Walt and Mearsheimer's LRB paper, saying they had stupidly picked up antisemitic ideas in blaming Jews for the Iraq war–a 'horribly sensitive' issue."
I understand that Goldberg is more open about some of this stuff than many others, and good for her. But you still have to shake you head over the blindness that some folks like her still carry around.
E.g., shaking her head at Walt and Mearsheimer because they were so foolish as to raise the "horribly sensitive" issue of whether some devotion to Israel had anything to do with the Iraq War.
Geez, you feel like saying, to an American journalist for the past forty years or so it seems the iron rule has been that the more "sensitive" an issue is that jars the sensibilities of traditional Americans the more it should just simply be swarmed! Remember that one artist's piece of work showing the crucifix submerged in a jar of urine and the barrels of ink gleefully expended talking about that?
Swarm the hell out of it! Celebrate it! Talk about the backwardness and boorishness of the Christian boobs who are offended by same until you are blue in the face! Publicize the *hell* out it! Ride that story until your editors just simply refuse to print anything more about it out of exhaustion!
But then, even despite the U.S. being involved a freaking war with its young people getting maimed and killed every day in same and our treasure being poured out into the sand, no no, the issue of whether and to what extent we got so involved for the sake of Israel is just so "horribly sensitive" that it's just beyond the pale to write about, apparently.
Does Goldberg really not see the double standard there?
Sheesh. I visit this blog everyday to read Adam and Phil (although I have disagreements with Phil sometimes), but I am totally skeezed out between the disingenuous and blatant anti-Arab haters and anti-semitic, anti-black, "liberalism is a Jewish conspiracy" kooks who comment here. Because of shit like this my ex had to eventually ban comments from his blog. I hope it doesn't get to that point here.
I hope he didn't have to ban your comments, your "ex", that is.
"If you hold my views, you will get no support from the Jewish community."
there is no other community. not in any public sense. we have been completely taken over.