A week ago I talked to Chas Freeman and he said that if he went down, he wouldn’t go down without a yelp. I said, “Ambassador, it sort of makes me want to pull against you!” Well he did go down, and he did yelp, and now we’re getting some of the discussion we deserve. MJ Rosenberg’s letter to the Times today is a work of simple, educational genius about the central issue in the Chas Freeman case. Hurray to the Times for publishing it:
To the Editor:
Re “Israel Stance Was Undoing of Nominee” (front page, March 12), about why Charles W. Freeman Jr. withdrew his name from consideration for a top intelligence post:
How strange. This is a country where an appointee to a high government position can be on record harshly criticizing any or all policies of our own government, but not Israeli policies.
When it comes to American policies, criticism — even harsh criticism — is both standard and unremarkable. That is also how it is in Israel, which is even more open than we are about the rough-and-tumble aspects of democracy.
But criticism of Israeli policies by Americans can sink an aspirant for an appointed position or high office.
Not only that, the people who organize these campaigns do it in the dark without opening the debate to the American people. This is bad for America, bad for Israel and bad for the Jewish community.
M. J. Rosenberg
Director of Policy
Israel Policy Forum
Washington, March 12, 2009
The fact that many war mongering Israel lobby honchos are also key players in the financial crisis that has helped cripple the global economy represent a great threat to the entire Jewish community. And this will go double if the lobby succeeds in getting America into a war with Iran that is manifestly NOT in the interest of the overwhelming majority of our people.
A few year ago General Wesley Clark was denounced by the usual suspects for stating that "New York money men" were pushing for war with Iran. Truer words were never spoken.
I give credit to Madoff for one thing. He managed to out-fraud the ultimate fraud–Elie Weisel, who lost most of his ill-gotten gains in the Madoff affair.
"This is a country where an appointee to a high government position can be on record harshly criticizing any or all policies of our own government, but not Israeli policies."
Yes, this needs to be fixed, and as usual the need is to go beyond MJ's suggestion: high government appointees should include those who advocate the one-state solution and decolonisation like South Africa and French Algeria.
Kinda hard to out-fraud Elie Weisel: link to real-debt-elimination.com
Ahhh, wonderful, I like it:
Remember the passage in brackets here, Richard:
Again, what evidence do you ultimately base your above take on? How comes the campaign and his reaction (did Phil help to trigger this, remember he might have been working on an article, when it happened) leave you with only one decision: Chas Freeman must be biased?
Kommentiert von: message to Richard | March 13, 2009 at 02:25 PM
But the yelp is what substantiated that he likely had an axe to grind, rather than a service to offer.
And based on the comments regarding a certain Nobel lauriate, there are several antisemites here with axes to grind.
Chris
A Jewish Nobel LAUREATE (please learn to spell) labeled your beloved Israelis "Nazis" and Fascists"
http://www.globalwebpost.com/farooqm/study_res/einstein/nyt_letter.html
I guess if you disagree with him, you're just "an anti-Semite with an ax to grind."
..oh…and just for the record, THIS Nobel laureate was rewarded by the Nobel committee for his outstanding contributions to physics, as opposed to YOUR Nobel laureate who was rewarded by the Nobel committee for his outstanding contributions to CLOWNING!
But the yelp is what substantiated that he likely had an axe to grind, rather than a service to offer.
I make it short. Hope you enjoyed all the distortion, and go on living in the illusion, that the bad ones are always on the other side. May something similar never happen to your "world saving ideologues", although it's really hard to suppress the proverbial wish about pride and fall.
On the Madoff losses of Weisel and others: don't worry, our government is considering restoring their losses. The plan was proposed by Rep. Gary Ackerman.
"This is bad for America, bad for Israel and bad for the Jewish community. " MJ got that right.
"But the yelp is what substantiated that he likely had an axe to grind, rather than a service to offer."
One man's yelp is another's cry for help. Freeman said it does neither the USA nor the Israelis long term good to rubber-stamp Likud POV here and in Israel. Not to mention the rest of the world.
CB just calls names, so here again is the url reference he was responding too: (Kinda hard to out-fraud Elie Weisel: link to real-debt-elimination.com
Notice CB did not attack the information contained in the url referenced. In terms of content to support his comments, CB is like a K-Mart subsidiary.