The other day my eyes were opened when I read that David Brooks, the influential New York Times columnist who fiercely supported the Iraq war, has been to Israel 12 times because, he says, he was raised with "gooey-eyed" feelings about the Jewish state. Brooks is ordinarily discreet about his religious feelings. But I wondered how this religious investment affected his view of the occupation, which he never mentions, and of the horrifying invasion of Gaza in 08-09.
Today my friend Larry Zuckerman wrote to me:
On January 29, the NPR show "Speaking of Faith" recorded a discussion at Georgetown University between David Brooks and EJ Dionne about the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and his contemporary relevance. The show, which was aired on Feb. 12, is called "Obama's Theologian" because Obama has often cited Niebuhr as inspiration.
I don't know much about Niebuhr but apparently he used the term "morally hazardous action" to describe the things a country like America needs to do to defend freedom (fighting the Nazis) while always keeping in mind that it can get carried away (Vietnam). (Brooks said he used the term without crediting Niebuhr in an early column favoring the invastion of Iraq.)
In the following excerpt, Brooks used the term to justify Israel's incursion into Gaza. Dionne's riposte is also worth noting. The full transcript is here. Excerpt:
Mr. Dionne: I don't agree with that, by the way, with the premise of the question. I mean, Communism was clearly very important to him at a certain stage in the Cold War, but his original Christian realism came out of a fight with the social gospel movement, an argument with the social gospel movement. So while Communism was important in a very important public period in his life, I don't think it was the animating passion. He just was agin it.
Mr. Brooks: I believe in The Irony of American History, he uses a phrase 'akin to Satanic' to describe Communism. Something like that, if I'm not mistaken.
Mr. Dionne: Well, no, he was anti-Communist.
Mr. Brooks: Yeah, he was.
Mr. Dionne: I just don't see it as the dominant …
Mr. Brooks: Well, he's not sort of hedging his bets on that.
Mr. Dionne: No.
Mr. Brooks: And so the question is would he see Islamic extremism as the same thing and, again, I don't know, but I think it's completely consistent. And, in fact, as we were talking about taking morally hazardous action, as E.J. was talking, I was thinking about the Israeli incursion into Gaza, which I think is one of those actions, while horrible in its effect, is one of those morally hazardous but justified actions — justified by the complete evilness of the Hamas leadership. And that's the sort of issue that he takes you into.
Ms. Tippett: How does he take you into that?
Mr. Brooks: Well, you're saying, 'Look, they're bombing schools.' And do you say, 'I will not bomb schools, but I will therefore tolerate Hamas and what Hamas is doing'? Or do you say, 'I need to take action against Hamas. Taking action against Hamas will involve bombing schools'?
Now, I think there is no firm universal rule to apply how you apply that, but this is the vocabulary he supplies you as you're wrestling with that question.
Mr. Dionne: I could imagine his saying that, but couldn't you also imagine his asking questions such as 'Does this intervention have the effect in the long run of strengthening Hamas, of making the two-state solution even more difficult, of weakening Fatah?' I mean, I could imagine his kind of analysis being complicated in that way and raising questions about the intervention. Again, I have no clue as to …
Mr. Brooks: Right. But I mentioned that satanic about the Soviet Union because he does introduce the idea there are some foes, which are uniquely and totally hostile to you in moral value.
Mr. Dionne: But he was against the Vietnam War.
Mr. Brooks: Right. Right.
Mr. Dionne: And so, again, he was anti-Communist, but believed that that war was wrong and counter-productive.
Mr. Brooks: Right.
Mr. Brooks: So that's kind of Niebuhr …
Ms. Tippett: He looks closely at the particular circumstances of each crisis.
Mr. Brooks: Yeah.
Zuckerman's comment:
To me, it is a fascinating question because if you are not a pacifist, which Niebuhr was until World War II
(and I am not), you have to decide when violence is justified and how
much. But even in the face of pure evil, all violence is not justified.
Stalin was evil. Should we have nuked the Soviet Union? I think not. Yet I think the first nuke on Japan
was probably justified. (It saved a lot of lives on both sides,
including probably my Dad's.) I am not sure the Nagasaki bomb was
justified.
Brooks, whom I admire in many ways, is way off here. The means
used by the Israelis in no way justified the ends, which is why there
has been such an outcry. To me it comes down to the fundamental issue
with die-hard supporters of Israel.
They see Israel as under existential threat at this very moment. Yet
the reality is that Israel is probably at the apex of its power and its
present course is a threat to its continued existence.
But Brooks also believes in "American exceptionalism," which I think has caused our country and the world grievous harm.
Weiss again:
The lesson of Iraq coalition government is that terrorism of the
non-al-Qaeda variety (and maybe that one too) is overcome through political solutions. Brooks's belief in the satanic character of Hamas elides many
important facts:
Many of the people of Gaza are there because of '48. Ashkelon had
an Arab name once. It is no wonder there's been a cycle of violence there. Gaza is blockaded on all sides; when Egypt blockaded Israel at one port, Israel launched the '67 war.
Continued justification by American opinion-makers of the bombing of Arabs' schools will only enmesh my
country, the U.S., in further toxic violence.
I believe there's a religious character to Brooks's delusion here. His "gooey-eyed" narrative is the one that most American Jews accept. There appears to be no effort to interrogate that narrative, even after he's justified a tragic war. (Maybe that's why.)
Related posts:
{ 19 comments }
He's just another apologist. When it comes to Israel, their logical and moral faculties shut down.
Such people are those Hitler knew well for he was one of them himself. In so many ways, Israel
shows Hitler's ideas have won after all. Or were they really Hitler's ideas? Hitler would say he was merely retaliating in kind, given the lay of the land in terms of power, which of course (USA course), currently favors Israel.
Brooks is a psychopath. He belongs in a nut house.
Satanism is often used to rationalize violence. Many American meth users and fundamentalists, after killing their children, claim those children were possessed by the devil.
Brooks’ argument has two linchpins. In addition to Islam being as fundamentally evil and threatening to the West as were Communism and Nazism, the second linchpin is that Israel is on America and the West's side in this battle of ideologies, and shares Western values, one of which is separation of religion and state.
I don't buy either of Brooks' contentions, and the second linchpin listed above is demonstrably false.
I see that Citz has come full circle. It is morally justified to bomb a school when class is out and the entire Hamas leadership is in a classroom, along with the missles they are hiding there.
PS: It doesn't surprise me one bit that EJ Dionne is soft on Communism. I don't even want to know where he's had that big fat tongue of his. I wonder if he and Brooks got together after the interview.
RE: "It is morally justified to bomb a school when class is out and the entire Hamas leadership is in a classroom, along with the missles they are hiding there."
MY COMMENT: Is this a hypothetical? If not, please provide some citations for the facts alleged.
"But even in the face of pure evil, all violence is not justified."
To understand why people like Brooks don't see things this way, it's necessary to explore another one of the pillars of Jewish identity. We've spent most of our time here on just one: choseness (and its corollaries apartness and "antisemitism"). But another core concept of modern secular Jewish identity is survivalism — the notion that ultimately we survive (enjoy an "afterlife") through the group's continuity, and that ultimately more important than how we live is this group survival.
I'm not saying Brooks is wrong to think this way (although I personally find it repellent), but as a matter of understanding why he thinks the way he does we're going to have to start exploring the ideology of survivalism.
(By the way, the third pillar of contemporary Jewish ideology, that we also haven't spoken much about but will have to one day, is legalism.)
Dickerson, Berel's assertions were debunked even before the war ended. This was discovered to be Israeli military propaganda, and they had to apologize for it. (Citation Haaretz).
Another one terming this conflict as "good vs evil". What movie is he trying to make this like?
How ironic that Jews are trying to ensure their survival by murdering and brutalizing everyone around them, but are nevertheless being driven to extinction—not by war or anti-Semitism, but by the unstoppable desire to emerge from the Judaic cave. Jews in expanding numbers prefer the human race to the lunatic isolation of Judaism, communion with others to a fortress mentality, LIFE as opposed to eternal false victimhood, a delight in ham and pork, a love of black and brown and yellow people and all that THEY have contributed to humankind, a desire to face the light of day, free at last of tribal stupidities. Kafka on Tuesday and Vedic texts on Wednesday. Yes, we are going extinct. We'll keep our identities as Rosenblatts and Goldbergs and Feldmans, but such names will only retain a quaint, scarcely remembered meaning, a barely perceived fragrance evaporating in the sunshine.
Dream on Rykart. Meanwhile, we'll be laughing in your face.
Chris Berel, you antisemitic anti-Israel piece of ultrazionist crap, don't you for a second speak for Jews, you've neither the right nor the character. You defame all Jews with every evil word of hate you spew forth, and are far more antisemitic than anyone you've ever questioned here.
Can it, Frum. Look in the mirror if you want to see what a heaping helping of self-loathing Judeophobia looks like.
It's a two-way mirror, and I see you through it, astroturfmaster MZ.
Thanks for helping to illuminate something difficult to understand, Phil. D, I don't want to rush things, but appreciate your analysis and would like to hear more about legalism, also.
Very nice, rykart! Hollow laughter, innit, Chris? With a few guffaws provided by David Frum's skillful lancing of the boil of mad zionism.
Nothing new. Chris Berel is just a racist jew.
Thanks margaret and to expand on this, I was taken by Einstein's statements:
Albert Einstein, writing in 1954, dismissed Judaism and other religions as "an incarnation of the most childish superstitions."
Einstein also said he saw nothing "chosen" about the Jews, and that they were no better than other peoples "although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/983001.html
Wonderful! I might look at the matter a little differently, however. Powerlessness WAS Jewish power. It was the world of the powerless Jews that gave us the Swiss patent clerk who changed our view of space and time, the harried laborer at a Prague law firm who changed what literature could be and gave the modern, urban world a name for itself: Kafkaesque.
It was the powerless like Walter Benjamin, Paul Celan, Osip Mandelstam, and the great Bruno Schultz—victims all, and not phony victims like the Israelis–who astounded us with their genius and made contributions we continue to marvel at.
Now the world of powerful Jews has arrived to offer its contribution to Jewish culture. Bernie Madoff. Abe Foxman. Tzipi Livni. Israel Singer. Alan Dershowitz. An entire WORM colony that can only sicken Jews who remember what we once were.
Let us aspire to the heights the great Jews (and non-Jews) reached, even if we never get there. Let us first and foremost aspire to their fierce independence, individuality and rejection of herd mentality. (Spinoza refused to identify himself with Jewish tribalism and was banished from the Jewish community for it….THEIR loss, not his!)
We need to destroy the "Jewish community" in order to save it. Phil is not ready for that, I fear. But he's a good guy and a smart man. He'll get there.
Good luck to all.
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