A good rock has been turned over in the Chas Freeman controversy. On Foreign Policy's website, one of Freeman's defenders, Stephen Walt, cracked about one of Freeman's pursuers, Jeffrey Goldberg, that his idea of public service was moving to Israel and serving in the Israel Defense Forces. Jacob Heilbrunn, biographer of the neocons, leapt to Goldberg's defense at the National Interest site, saying that this was "idealistic" of Goldberg.
A lot of us went overseas pursuing our ideals. I did, ended up in the Third World. Goldberg was pursuing Zionist ideals. I don't have his book in front of me, Prisoners, but in it Goldberg said that after graduating from Penn in 1981 or so, he came to feel that the Diaspora was the "disease" of Jewish life, and that Israel was the "cure." So he moved to Israel and joined the army. Norman Finkelstein and the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs have said that Goldberg served in a notorious prison where Palestinians were tortured.
The Zionist ideal is based on the claim that the west is unsafe for Jews and that Israel is the homeland of the Jews. But these aren't American ideals. We believe that minorities are not discriminated against, and should not be. Between my parents' generation and mine, America began living up to its promise. In fact, Goldberg's understanding of antisemitism is close to my parents': it's all around us.
Rahm Emanuel and Jeffrey Goldberg, who are extolled in the Jewish
community, both felt that they should serve Israel. The Supreme Court
has said that American citizens can go serve in other armies (Emanuel
was a civilian volunteer wearing an Israeli uniform during the Gulf
War), but does that mean that those Atlantic-Ocean-jumpers should be
taken seriously on American foreign policy? When Israel's supporters
say that Israel's war is our war, a misconception that helped drive the
Iraq war, I bet Emanuel and Goldberg both come down on the wrong side
of the statement.
I understand why Zionist ideals became ideals–I'm at my parents' house, hearing their stories, andnot going to
discount my parents' real experience– but those ideas should be junked
now in light of real and large conditions: the incredible Jewish
experience in America and the incredible human rights abuses in Israel.
Also Walt has touched on the issue of military service. How many of the Iraq war supporters–and Goldberg was one, serving up fantasies about Saddam's chemical threat–have served in the American army? And per Tom Ricks, how many of the elite's children are in the service, pulling 3 and 4 year tours in the greatest mistake of American foreign policy, a mistake fed by a deluded identification with Israel…
