Young Daniel Luban is a fine writer. Here he is on Iran, on Jim Lobe's blog:
I do not personally know whether [Roger] Cohen considers Israel and the U.S.
to be an “existential threat” to Iran, but I would certainly hope he does, as it
appears to be a rather obvious and incontestable statement. In fact, if Iran’s
rulers do not perceive their regime to be existentially threatened by Israel and
the U.S. — two nuclear-armed and militarily dominant states that have in the
recent past demonstrated a preference for regime change in Iran and a
willingness to wage wars of aggression — then they are far more irrational than
even Bibi Netanyahu would give them credit for. To say this is not to take a
position on how the U.S and Israel should actually deal with Iran. Many
countries arguably face existential threats of one sort or another and to
recognize these threats is not to legitimate any particular demand they might
make, nor is it to deny that Israel (and the U.S.) face threats of their own to
which they have valid reasons to respond. Rather, it is simply to insist on a
basic respect for factual accuracy instead of slipping into vague insinuation
and content-free sanctimony.
There is also this knowing, devastating shot at the most important Jewish journalist in America, Jeffrey Goldberg:
Goldberg advances highly tendentious conclusions by invoking his experience
reporting from the Middle East, and attempts to delegitimize his opponents by
accusing them of simple ignorance of the mysterious ways of the Arabs (and now
Persians). Recall his now-famous line from
the runup to the Iraq war: “[War skeptics’] lack of experience causes them to
reach the naive conclusion that an invasion of Iraq will cause America to be
loathed in the Middle East, rather than respected.”
OT: I couldn't help noticing that in Jeff Stein's latest summary of the Harman case developments, he's no longer afraid to talk about ethnic identity. He talks of a "major Jewish fundraiser," and tells his readers that Harman was "the committee's lone Jewish member." There was no mention of the J-word in any of the earlier reports.
I think it's safe to say Phil's needling probably played a role here. (And Stein deserves much credit for being so brave.)
Why those who are hoping for a confrontation between Netanyahu and Obama will be disappointed — from Aluf Benn in Ha'aretz:
Not only Iran but the entire Moslem world faces an existential threat from Israel and its American lobby.
To be blunt — the Zionist fanatics that rule Israel are committed to keeping the Moslem world chaotic and backward since only then can its military and technological supremacy be guaranteed.
Comparing the Iranian president to Hitler not enough for Dershowitz.
This demented fanatic now is accusing the hapless Palestinians of being modern day Nazis.
That’s what a Palestinian friend from the West Bank said after what was at times a hateful, nasty 2-hour long harangue by Anne Bayefsky, Jon Voight, Elie Wiesel, Alan Dershowitz, Natan Sharansky and Shelby Steele. “I just listened to 2 hours of demonization of Palestinians and Muslims fueled by racism and hate,” said my clearly shaken friend.
I already posted some choice quotes by Jon-the-new-Holocaust-Voight. The tour de force of the session, ostensibly on anti-semitism but really promoting anti-Arab/Palestinian/Muslim hate, was Alan Dershowitz. (Although conservative African American scholar Shelby Steele, who gets plenty of applause from a room filled with white people, reaches a whole new depth in his theory about the end of white supremacy and the deep shame of people of color regarding their own inadequacies.)
Dershowitz is the schoolyard bully all grown-up, very smart and even angrier. Watching him, you feel like he might explode. Like all good demagogues, he knows how to whip up an audience at the most nasty applause lines. I admit it. I’m scared of him.
In the age of Obama and Iraq war exhaustion, the War on Terror clearly no longer provides the right wing Israel lobby with the umph it needs to delegitimize Palestinian claims for justice or, frankly, simple human decency. Here, Dershowitz launches a new frame. Netanyahu et al have been pushing the Hitler/Ahmedinejad comparison for some time now. But this is the first time I’ve heard such a sweeping condemnation of Palestinians (with a few exceptions of course, because Dersh “doesn’t like to generalize”) as Nazis. Excerpts from video above:
“Painful truths about the Holocaust today are being suppressed by college campuses, they’re being suppressed wherever the Palestinian conflict is being discussed. My painful job today is to talk about one of those very difficult historical truths that many would prefer to see ignored..
The terrible, terrible, terrible tragedy is that there is a direct unbroken line between Hitler and [the anti-semitic Palestinian Mufti} Husseini on the one hand, and today Hamas and radical Islamic Jihadists on the other hand. They are the heirs of Hitler. Ahmedinejad their spoonsor is the heir of Hitler. Those who are complicit in that evil are complicit in the evil of Nazism. Nazism has not disappeared from the world today. It has the same genocidal goals….
Woe unto any of you out there who support Hamas. You are supporting Hitler’s heirs. Whether you consider yourself a leftist or a centrist, you are complicit in the worst evil of the twentieth century. And there is no way of breaking that bond. As long as Hamas maintains its genocidal attitudes towards the Jewish people…
This conference is a hate fest. Like Nuremberg was a hate fest…
From MUZZLE WATCH
It ignores that there is internal conterversy within Hamas, that Hamas has two+ branches, one of which is concerned with Palestians' welfare (and tends to be willing to compromise), and one that is militant.
So, failing to recognize that there is that conflict with Hamas would make Dershowitz miss some potential reconciliation if the social service group achieved predominance.
But, that is not the case currently, as indicated by the decision to resume unilitateral shelling on Israeli civilians as its "moderate" mode of resistance, compared to intentionally gruesome strategy of nail-studded bombing of Israeli civilian sites – that included high numbers of Arab and Muslims. (Hotels, cafes, restaurants, bus stations, buses, discotheques).
So, do the service minded represent Hamas in action, in policy, or do the political/military strategists?
Currently, the political/military do, in contrast to the idea of popular democracy, which would be representative of Gazan population for example, which was reported to not have favored resumption of shelling of civilians.
Young Daniel Luban is a fine writer
I agree, initially I mixed him up with Jim.
Both the US and Israel have nuclear weapons ready to launch against Iran. The US has a large invasion force sailing in the Persian Gulf. The US invaded Iraq's neighbors Iraq and Afghanistan. The US overthrew a democratically elected Iranian government. President W. Bush revealed the US had military undercover operatives in Iran. It all adds up to the fact Iran needs nuclear weapons to defend itself from existential threats.
Crimson Ghost, do you have any links that substantiate what you say? I'd like to post about it…
@ Witty
"So, do the service minded represent Hamas in action, in policy, or do the political/military strategists?
Currently, the political/military do, in contrast to the idea of popular democracy, which would be representative of Gazan population for example, which was reported to not have favored resumption of shelling of civilians."
Do the settlers represent Israel in action, in policy, or do the Israeli peaceniks? Or at least those Israelis who want to end the occupation for starters?
Since the settlements keep expanding, and have done so for decades with or without peace negotiations, it's obvious the settlers represent Israel's popular democracy.
bullies like to keep hold of power like that…
This is something that too many Americans don't understand. They've got it into their heads that the Iranians are some kind of suicidal religious maniacs when in reality, all their doing is playing the game of Realpolitik.
They didn't expect Bush to go into Iraq (as didn't many other realists) and when the US did, it was a wake up call that they could be next. So they funded the insurgency in the hope that the Americans would get bogged down and it worked like a charm.
Now they're getting the capability of building nuclear weapons (not actually building them) to act as a deterrent to Israel, a country that doesn't understand realism.
Shafiq