There's an old Jewish joke: Get two Jews together, you have three opinions. Well Dershowitz says that if you get 6 million Jews in America, they must have one opinion. On Israel, that is. In the JPost, Dershowitz offers a lesson in special-interest politics. He says he voted for Obama not because he agreed with him, but because– it's essential that pro-Israel Jews must not end up in one party. That way the lobby will split. And as soon as the Jewish leadership splits, there goes the influence. Dersh:
[Melanie] Phillips, for all her good work in Great Britain on behalf of Israel, has absolutely no understanding of American politics. She would turn Israel into a wedge issue, in which Republicans were seen as the supporters of Israel and Democrats as its enemy. This is precisely what has happened, with disastrous results, throughout much of Europe. In most European countries, the left-wing political parties are anti-Israel, often virulently so. The right-wing political parties are generally more supportive of Israel, though not nearly as supportive as they should be in many instances. Because young people tend to be more liberal than their elders, support for Israel throughout Europe, has also become a generational wedge issue, with younger people opposing Israel far more than older people.
This is precisely the situation American supporters of Israel want to avoid. We do not want to replicate the horrible situation that currently exists in Phillips' Great Britain. We want Israel to remain a bipartisan issue and an issue that does not divide generations.
Sure, because if Israel divides people on political, generational, or any other lines, then there is a real debate about Israel and we aren't all just marching in lockstep with AIPAC. I can understand why Dersh wouldn't want that. I'd like everybody to agree with me, too, but unlike Dersh, I lack the arrogance to think that I have a right to expect it.
And putting this the other way: for change in America on this issue, we need at least ONE political party to allow its leaders to be openly and frankly critical of jewish colonialism.
Support for Israel shouldm't be anyone's concern outside of Israel. When people like Dersh talk about support for Israel, they mean support for Israel's illegal policies and behavior. It is also an aknowledgement that Israel is a failed state, because this is also an admission that Israel's existence is incumbent upon it receiving massive amounts internatioanal aid. Support for other countries is never discussed, because other countries are established and sefl sufficient.
If ethnic politics in America makes Israel possible, then Israel isn't the issue.
I was interested to see the reference to Melanie Phillips' 'good work'. She is probably an intelligent woman but (in her Spectator blogs) lacks even the smallest degree of fair mindedness. She believes Obama is a Moslem who wants to use the US presidency to go on some Islamic fundamentalist rampage (needless to say Israel won't fare well under him)
and on the 8th day god created Ron Paul.
Melanie Phillips is a deranged, neurotic, paranoid wingnut, which is why Dershbag respects her.
'We want Israel to remain a bipartisan issue and an issue that does not divide generations.' And so we must continue to flood the campaign coffers of both parties, controlling them so that Americans have no political outlet for anti-Israel animus , dominate appointments to key bureaucratic posts, play spoiler to anyone like Chas Freeman who slips thru our net, ensure little real news from the Middle East (or from Lobby-occupied territory in Washington for that matter) reaches American eyes and ears, spin what does get thru via a thousand op-editors strategically perched to direct the flow of American opinion, suppress evidence of Israeli intelligence activities within the USA, and intimidate and smear anyone game enough to call Israel what it actually is. All conspicuously, ostentatiously gift-wrapped in the American flag.
When people like Dersh talk about support for Israel, they mean support for Israel's illegal policies and behavior. brilliant call …
Given the institutionalized entrenchment of the two-party system and the fact that both corrupt parties have so many reasons for NOT breaking with Israel in any meaningful way, the only real hope for anti-Zionism in the US is a top down third party candidacy from a Ross Perot-type outsider who is a charismatic anti-Zionist. This isn’t totally outside the realm of the possible, given that both parties have together driven this country into the ditch, and in no small part due to both pandering to Zionism and political Judaism.
Of course it is outside the realm of the possible. You had Buchannon and he was a miserable failure. Just like you.
Agree. Besides why should anyone in the US or Britian who isn't a Jew care about Israel any more than any other foreign country. That's all Israel is to 95% of the world, a foreign country…that calls itself a jewish state.
Also agree…..it's the ethnic politics that are the problem.
Yes she is…a more bigoted racist I have never read. Wait I take that back…. make it 'one of many bigoted racist I have read."
Woah — you almost got through one post without saying 'political Judaism'. Come on man, you can do it!
Few Jews balk at the notion that Christians express themselves politically in ways that are largely exclusive to Christians, yet few Jews are willing to talk about Jewish politics. I can find examples in the MSM pretty much every day where Christian politics is debated, and often debated by Jews. Are we then supposed to believe that Jews engage so heavily in group politics for the good of everyone? And how can a Zionist deny that there is a such thing as political Judaism? I've often heard Jews in the media talk of Christian Zionism as if it is a form of political Christianity that is holding the nation hostage, and they usually grossly overstate the numbers and influence of Christian Zionists. If I'd have to guess, I'd say that Jews of different political opinions are much more apt stick together than are opposing Christians. And once Christians lose their faith, they are much less likely to call themselves Christians. Of course Jews can express themselves politically along very narrow group lines. Does there have to be a manifesto or a chronicle saying so?