The Times ran a long flattering obit of the late Irving Kristol by a neolib, Barry Gewen. Kristol lived a long life, 89 years. Good for him. I hear he was charming, too. Here is something Gewen left out that I think is important, about Kristol’s transformation in the 70s. In 1973, as I’ve reported before, Kristol wrote for the Congress Bi-weekly, a publication of the American Jewish Congress:
Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel… Jews don’t like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States… American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don’t want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.
This was a sincere expression of Kristol’s Israel-firstism, that his brother-in-law Milton Himmelfarb and his son Bill Kristol also have espoused. You’d think that or something like it should have been in there, as a core of neocon ideology that would play a large part in events that followed, and that have helped to bring our ship on to the rocks in the last few years.
Something else. Gewen notes wisely that Kristol never produced books. He was just an intellectual leader, in little magazines. I have to get down my copy of the Neoconservative Imagination, the book of Irving’s periodical writings that his son published a few years ago; but my memory of it is that it is a little disappointing. Not all that much there. I had a similar feeling of disappointment from the book of Milton Himmelfarb’s periodical writings that his sister Gertrude, Irving Kristol’s widow, lovingly helped to publish a year or two back: Jews and Gentiles. (Milton was as obsessive as moi.) And as for Bill Kristol’s writings, they’re a complete disappointment. He had a pitiful column at the Times for a while, and his book supporting the Iraq war, written with neolibcon (who can keep this straight) Lawrence Kaplan of the New Republic, The War Over Iraq, was also forgettable.
What I’m driving at here is that Gertrude Himmelfarb, the scholar and historian, is the most productive of the bunch, and the one you’ve heard the least from. She’s written lots of books, and supposedly, good books. She’s made a real contribution to expanding human knowledge, which I don’t know that you could accuse Irving of having done. Yes he was an intellectual leader, but an ideologue, an operator focused on changing policy, a goal he did achieve. His son has been even more of an instrumentalist. That doesn’t make him an intellectual or a scholar.
So my sympathies to the Kristol family, but also let me salute The Neocon Women. Where are they? How come we don’t see more of them? Are they the true brains? Are they mousy and studious and terrifyingly smart? Sort of like rock and roll wives, the real powers? I wonder.
One thing a lot of people don’t know about the Neocons is that they were instrumental in building up the post-Vietnam American military-industrial complex, as operatives constantly pressuring for various military projects and pressing NOT to enter into arms control pacts with the Soviets. They were really helped in this by Democrats Scoop Jackson and Patrick Moynihan, even to the point that in the Nixon administration, Kissinger and Nixon felt that they were being attacked from the Right by the “Left.”
The Neocons fantasized about winning a nuclear exchange, and were disappointed when Reagan opened up and entered into talks with Gorbachev’s Soviet Union, thinking it was a trick.
Compared to the Neocons, both Nixon and Reagan can be viewed as visionary peace-seekers and moderates.
I think the early Neocons absorbed their inhumanity early on from their hard-Left background, and their insanity was compounded by the Holocaust, which was another example of the consequences of ruthless socialist zero-sum thinking. Over the course of their lives, they learned absolutely nothing, and are largely responsible for getting us mired in the Middle East.
Yes, I always get a chuckle when thinking back on Nixon who nowadays would be viewed as a leftist–the greatest expansion of social welfare programs since LBJ, environmental policies such as establishing the EPA and the Clean Water Act, the earned income tax credit, he even made noises about universal healthcare.
which was another example of the consequences of ruthless socialist zero-sum thinking Being influenced by Popper on this matter I don’t see what socialism has to do with it. Popper named historicism and utopian engineering as two factors that spell disaster – despite the absence of the letter D. I like to formulate the manager’s summary as this: how can you tweak the thinking of people to maximize the chance of a train wreck. Well, by going for grand designs and making sure you ignore all feedback mechanisms that could make you change direction. Meaning, whatever the cost is, it can never be so much that the end goal isn’t worth it.
“I think the early Neocons absorbed their inhumanity early on from their hard-Left background, and their insanity was compounded by the Holocaust, which was another example of the consequences of ruthless socialist zero-sum thinking. Over the course of their lives, they learned absolutely nothing, and are largely responsible for getting us mired in the Middle East.”
Now that’s a comment you will never see in Commentary. Chris you said a true mouthful–and so succinctly! Kudos to you!
Except that Tuyzentfloot, already pointed out the flaws of the argument.
Let me start with a positive: In school a class mate tried to teach me the essentials necessary for a revolution, since this often happened during math lessons, which he was uninterested in, but I was, I didn’t pay too close attention, but it was in a nutshell: Living conditions have to become really bad first so, that is worse than they were then, so revolution had a chance.
I can see a grain of my class mate’s revolutionary essentials as a side effect of the War on Terrorism. It definitively make life worse in the “Orient”. But does that make it a revolutionary act? Is there intent really that people are starting a revolution. Do they love the Arab street so much?
************************
While I appreciate that Chris’ “dynamics-of-power-over-the-last-200-years -in-a-nutshell” has evolved into hints in subclauses for the initiated in his thought. They people without this deep knowledge should get a little help a bridge into the Chris Moore universe. At least the basic law is needed to understand this:
Axiom: Communism/Socialism/Left thought = propagated by Jews for Jews and philosemites for their own gain and the rest of the worlds loss.
Nazism a variant of the above = ruthless socialist thinking.
So while the neocons were early hard-Lefties, it’s an almost inheritable trait among Jews now, they were also shaped by the Holocaust which was a result of their own ruthless inhuman thinking.
Thus: Jewish thought killed the Jews in the Holocaust.
And since they refused to learn this simple truth, they now did or are still trying to do the same thing they already did in Russia or caused in Germany in the Middle East.
*********************************************************************
This is a relapse only, I’ll shut up again. Promised!
Correction: Is there intent
Is their (neocon) intention (goal)
@ Leander,
Well, I guess from your European socialist perspective, that’s not an unreasonable interpretation.
I do believe that the propagation of Marxism did unleash all kinds of dark forces. (Certain socialist, Zionists, Strausians (and Madonna) might even call them mystical forces, and demand the unleashing of ever more.) Hence, the murderous outcome isn’t really surprising, given that socialism’s unofficial slogan should be: “We’re all just evolved apes. Let’s start acting like it!”
But really, what a lot of my own thinking comes down to is that even if the elite regard the rest of us as apes, they regard themselves as human Gods, hence you can trust neither their morality, nor their proclivity to concentrate power and money on their own behalf.
Hence all economic and government power should be checked, balanced, dispersed and diffused to the greatest extent possible, as widely as possible and as permanently as possible. In short, the antithesis of the dangerous child’s fantasy that is (inherently coercive) socialism (which from Communism to Nazism to Zionism, doesn’t exactly have a winning track record).
Very good points, Chris.
“Sort of like rock and roll wives, the real powers?”
Gosh, it’s hard to decide if you know more about Jewish-Gentile relations in the US or the marital power struggles of the string-strecthers and symbol pounders. (Never forget the lyricists)
“so that we can defend Israel.”
“What you mean-um “we”, paleface?” Tonto famously (well, if you grew up reading Mad magazine) asked the Lone Ranger when the Masked Man suggested fighting an overwhelming Indian force.
And millions of young Jewish-Americans rushed to join the American Armed Forces at every level of rank! The demand for military Rabbis was unprecedented!
Somehow, I don’t think it took a lot of persausion from the Jews in America for the Gentiles to go out and slaughter brown peoples. But if they want to claim credit for it, they are welcome to it. And much good it will do them.
Kristol’s “so that we can defend Israel” & Tonto’s “what you mean ‘we” paleface?”
LOL. True, Mooser, the American Jews certainly have not rushed into the USA military ranks to defend Israel. The counter of course is that’s because they don’t feel the economic need to do so, now collectively having achieved a higher spot economically than classic WASPS. No Draft. Not sure what you are implying beyond that. It’s a Jewish American, Kristol, who is subject here, a chicken hawk in the interests of another country. While I agree Gentiles don’t need any coaching from Jews to “go out and slaughter brown peoples,” I don’t see the connection between your first two paragraphs and your last paragraph. Please Explain. Thanks!
“I don’t see the connection between your first two paragraphs and your last paragraph.”
No, you don’t, do you?
Mooser: “Somehow, I don’t think it took a lot of persausion from the Jews in America for the Gentiles to go out and slaughter brown peoples”
–
Well, it took a lot of persuading for the Neocons and their left-liberal allies to convince American gentiles that Israel, filled with ex-Communist Jews, was an ally and deserved our full support during the Cold War. And it took a lot of persuading after the Cold War ended to convince Americans that Israel continued to deserve our blank check support as an ally against what the Zionists portrayed as the brown Islamic menace — blank check support that underwrote Israel’s impunity and which led to 9/11. But no, after 9/11, it didn’t take much Jewish Zionist persuasion to go to war with Afghanistan. The Jewish Zionists didn’t have to go to work again on the war front until it was time to arrange the war with Iraq.
(Of course, none of this discounts the fact that there were plenty of elitist and profiteering gentile interests collaborating with them against the best interests of the American people.)
So far you’ve not accounted for the omnipresent charge of “antisemite!!” “Holocaust” in the rare event an American gentile protests against unconditional support for Israel.
Gentiles and Christians try to be polite, try to be sympathetic, try to stay out of trouble, try to keep our jobs — and we know very well that if we offend the Jewish power structure, we’re pariahs.
Mondoweiss is just about the only forum I’m aware of where a gentile can express a reasoned, accurate, truthful anti-Israeli thought and not be banished or censored. Americans stay quiet because it can be dangerous not to be silent. We parse our words, speak in qualified, respectful, half-truths that raise the gorge in our throats: how can what I think be antisemitic if it is factually and logically rock solid? That’s what Jewish media control, and Jewish minders in almost every institution, has wrought.
Somebody needs to invent a word for semitic antiAmericanism.
Here’s a tip:
Think of some rhetoric that bothers you. For example:
“The Muslim media.”
Or…
“The Muslims will react accordingly.”
Something along those lines. I dunno.
When you say ‘Jewish media’ it invokes antisemitic imagery. Or to even say ‘the Jews’.
Perhaps, this is simply that I’ve been socialized a certain way to be more sensitive to Jewish identity rather than that of other minorities.
I find myself sticking up for Muslims and Arabs on random message boards (sometimes IRL, but you don’t see people mouthing off so much).
In any case, let’s agree that antisemitism – like other forms of hate – is based on a narrow perspective and is rife w/ logical fallacies.
Thus, rhetoric is important. I may know what you mean. So may other people here. However, I bet you MOST people will think you’re offensive when you say ‘Jewish media’.
Let’s try to isolate the common character traits of Zionists. Lets then, ask ourselves why we must denote them as Zionist Jews when we know most Zionists in any meaningful context here, are Jews. Not Christians (they aren’t in the same intellectual vein as a Alan Dershowitz or Abe Foxman or ‘journalists’ like Caroline Glick or whoever).
Not all Zionists are the same and they have different functions within their movement.
The Christian Zionists may be the most numbered. However, their support is within a very narrow context – obviously, they are nutters.
They are zombies.
I think ‘ethnocentric Jew’ or ‘tribal Jew’ is a close synonym for Zionist. I mean, it’s ‘Jewish Nationalism’. Zionism is a construct of Jewish identity.
However, at the same time, Zionists resemble other radical nationalists throughout history.
So, we have to factor in the collusion.
Are we even dealing w/ Jewish identity at this point?
We need to find the unique variables of this identity. I think overwhelmingly, Jewish Nationalism, is like all other forms of radical nationalism.
I think the religious and ethnic components enhance Jewish Nationalism though. They have much more legs than the ‘Aryan’ Nation.
Judaism is a legitimate religion. So there is the religious component.
Jewish ethnicity exists and is legitimate. Ethnic component.
At the same time, religion and ethnicity existed in the periphery w/ German nationalism but also at the forefront (obviously).
I think the defining characteristic of Jewish nationalism as a whole is the Holocaust. It’s a unifying force.
That is what separates Jewish Nationalists from other nationalists. It’s psychological. So then you throw in all the logistical differences. Jews live all over the world. They can have diverse sub-cultures but also have strong solidarity amongst one another. Furthermore, their solidarity is mainstream and mainstream-institutional as well.
Not the same for Muslims.
So you have the eternal-victim component. You have the typical militarism and chauvinism of nationalism and they form a abusive persona. ‘We were/are victims, so we can do whatever to ensure we’re ‘safe’!’
I mean, you see it in the commentary on YouTube, YNet, JPost, Haaretz, etc. You see it in subtleties of Western culture (mostly America, mostly movies).
So how is the concept of ‘Jewish _______’ unique? Unique *enough* that it deserves the denotation of ‘Jewish’ such and such? I think so. It comes back to past Jewish suffering. That is what makes Jewish Nationalism stand out and why I think it is alright to denote the concept.
However, when you say ‘Jewish media’ it really makes no sense.
Read Manufacturing Consent. Our media is institutionally ‘bad’. Just plain bad. There is lots of collusion between what the organized Jewish Zionist community wants and what the business-as-usual folks, want.
Now, again, compare the situation w/ criticism of ‘Jewish identity’ with that of other political issues.
Of course, there are social pressures that we all feel. But then, that is as much our fault as the ones exploiting that pressure. “You are free the moment you choose to be.”
I think ‘Jewish’ identity is as complex as other identities. I think we’re being bombarded with one such construct. It is a victory for the ethnocentric, Zionist Jews when people say ‘Jewish media’ or ‘Jewish control’. They want that conflation. It justifies THEIR existence as ‘Zionist’ dot dot dot.
I’m thinking Americans cannot really literally afford Israel First. Forget giving two (also literally) cents about the Palestinians. Here’s a tiny example of what I suggest; note how
many hot potato domestic political issues are contained in this article, both respecting the painful limits and implied heavy
financial costs (guess what segment of American is bearing the brunt of the cost) of the endless Nanny state: link to msnbc.msn.com
It was evident to many in 1973 that the I lobby was part of the team to take McGovern out of play. Folks talked about this issue behind the scenes some like Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Said talked about it out loud.
the myth that Dems are “liberals” is just that a myth. especially on the I/P conflict many Jews and others intimidated by the Israeli firsters always took a hard turn right (wrong) even if they did not know a thing about the history of the region
Come now! If the Israel lobby had not opposed McGovern, what would he have received? 41% of the vote instead of 39%? Two states instead of just Massachusets and D.C.? McGovern was a disaster of disorganization and untested proposals! All you have done with your comment is further discredit yourself and Edward Said and Vanessa Redgrave!
“McGovern was a disaster of disorganization and untested proposals!”
Obviously not an impediment, look at Obama! And McGovern was a bona-fide War Hero, if you didn’t know.
Where are they?
Hell Judy “I was fucking right” Miller was front and center on lying our nation into needless and immoral war
Herein lies one problem: the rest of the world has just got its priorities a little out of order re: the Holocaust.
“Paul Salmons of HEDP said: “Teaching of the Holocaust varies a great deal across schools and classrooms – some teachers are spending 20 [lessons on it], others just a single lesson.
“It was perhaps the most important event in the history of the 20th century. It has shaped the world and is still influential. It’s a vital part of any child’s educational literacy to learn about it. .”
link to guardian.co.uk
fooey, cursing and pounding out a string of epithets is bad form on Mondoweiss.
“a vital part of every child’s education to learn about” Holocaust?
Question 1: Whose version?
Question 2: If it’s such a vital part of educational literacy, then Holocaust should be fully open to research, just as Ahmadinejad has argued on several occasions over the last several years.
“If it’s such a vital part of educational literacy, then Holocaust should be fully open to research, just as Ahmadinejad has argued on several occasions over the last several years. ”
Someone who says this only serves to expose him/herself as a jackass.
Here’s one historian’s perspective on your bs:
“Surely no event in history has been better documented by historians from primary sources.”
link to juancole.com
Juan Cole does plenty of good work, but he is no specialist on the Shoah.
“We know perhaps 20 per cent about the Holocaust.” — Raul Hilberg (From an address given shortly before his death.)
Ahmadinejad’s use of the Holocaust is as politically self-serving as that of the Zionists he attacks, and I’m not really interested in employing him as a defender of open research.
Generally, any serious study of the Holocaust is troublesome because the actual history is messy and ugly, and does not lend itself to neat good/evil dichotomies and poltically profitable “lessons.”
I haven’t yet checked Ahmadinejad’s recent statements. Normally I’d expect him to remain a bit ambiguous on the matter. I tend to distinguish ‘anti-holocaust’ attitudes depending on where the speaker is coming from, and my condemnation varies accordingly.
– nazi apologist: denial following from the position that nazism is ok but just a bit misunderstood.
This is the prototype case that drives most people’s reaction.
– interested bystander: I recall that Chomsky once wrote a foreword for book by a denier called Faurisson(or he just defended the book in an other way I’m not sure). The general idea was there was that Faurisson was sincere, had a reasonable academic status and was not an apologist, and the book should be allowed. That the ideas in the book were bad was irrelevant. So Faurisson’s work can be a nuisance and an insult but it should be tolerated.
– anyone in the middle east. Here we have a central argument, that the Holocaust has been used as justification for the creation of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, and as a justification of everything else Israel have done since. I only partly agree but it’s a reasonable argument. This cartoon represents that idea fairly well:
link to irancartoon.ir
(I don’t recommend browsing the other cartoons, it’s not fun). The use of words “myth”, “lie” “pretext” does little to distinguish between the subjects of the truth of what happened before 45, and the abuse of it afterwards. Now I’m sure people’s opinions will fan out to actual belief that the Holocaust did not happen. I’d be surprised otherwise. Call it common muddy thinking. It can get worse too, people thinking that ‘Hitler must have been onto something’.
When I see Ahmadinejad’s fuzziness on the issue I suspect he’s talking to all the muddyheaded , but he’s also refusing to be clear because that would be a onesided concession. Imagine proposing the following tradeoff: the west acknowledges that the Holocaust has been abused in ways spelled out explicitly, and Iran acknowledges the reality of the Holocaust. I think Ahmadinejad would agree, and the west would not.
In my newspaper Ahmedinejad’s comments on the Holocaust are always reported as flatout Holocaust denial, period. I’ve seen clear statements of him referring to the central ‘abuse’ argument though but this is not reported. The whole frame of reference is this first category I named, the nazi apologist.
re: my own..
I could split up “antisemitism” in similar ways. Shlomo Ben Ami already said that he didn’t want to use the name for anti Israeli and anti-jewish attitudes in the middle east.
@ Carnas: Jackass? bs? Is that the best you can do? I don’t back down to bullies.
Why, because zionists have gone into overdrive to demonize Ahmadinejad?
My statement is 100% factually correct: Ahmadinejad has asked several times, in fora ranging from Tehran to Columbia, why it is that research into holocaust is a criminal offense, and why it cannot be pursued just as every other topic under the sun.
Don’t expect me to roll over and play dead; Ahmadinejad is doing the Lord’s work, work that Americans are too bullied and to cowardly and too bought to do: confronting the perpetual waving of the bloody shirt of holocaust as worn out and beyond hypocritical.
Jews have been shaping the facts to suit their purposes ever since Abraham fled the land of Ur. In his book on Jewish identity, Natan Sharansky centers the Jewish mythos on the flight from Egypt. As Jewish historian Eric Cline explains, the numbers of persons who escaped from Egypt are grossly exaggerated; it would have taken several months for 600,000 Hebrews to cross the Reid Sea. perhaps as few as 60 or maybe 600 took to the desert. The numbers have mythological value — they illustrate a powerful story that unites a people around a common narrative.
When Ahmadinejad called holocaust a myth, it can be argued that he was using the word in its appropriate meaning: a powerful story that unites a people around a common narrative.
When the mythology of one people (the Jews) is used to destroy the lives of another people (Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians, Lebanese, Iranians, not to mention American representative government), it is perfectly legitimate, and an act of great courage, to call out the “bs” nature of the myth.
There is Meyrav Wurmser, as evil as they come, egging on Olmert to extend his war into Syria. I think she identifies as an Israeli, not an American, but she surely counts as a neocon regardless.
Do you have a more precise citation for the AJC publication? (which 1973 issue?)
I’d like to look up the full quote before using it. Thanks.
RE: “American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don’t want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.” – Irving Kristol
MY COMMENT: By the same token, they would turn this country over to the demagogic Christian theocrats in a ‘New York minute’. Their fondest ‘wet dream’ is having this country run by Pat Robertson, “Pastor” John Hage, Sarah Palin and their zombie-like followers who are convinced that if we do not do exactly what Israel wants us to do then God Almighty will smite us with a vengeance and they might just not get their precious ride on the ‘Rapture Express’!
exactly. Jewish zionists are using Christian zionists; any bets on who will throw whom under the bus first?
I’m not able to fully support the assertion that America’s christian zionists were a creation of Jewish zionists, tho I can cite the work of Rabbi Yechial Eckstein:
and of Benny Elon link to jpost.com
who organizes Christian-Jewish alliances that see Christian zionists sitting in on Knesset parleys.
I don’t know of a single instance when Israel has turned away a Benny Zinn or a Pat Robertson or John Hagee, but Cynthia McKinney, who sought to enter Gaza on a mercy mission, was detained and deported.
So it’s fair to conclude that Jewish zionists seized on an Israelist strain of thought in American Christian evangelicalism, cultivated it for the purposes of furthering the Jewish zionist agenda, and at present are working the relationship for all its worth.
As the Christian Century article mentioned above point out, zionists have had lesser success with Roman Catholics. This may be because RCs do not have a strong biblical tradition; Christian Zionists have been called “Old Testament Christians;” Catholics don’t do bible, OT or NT. It’s worth noting that the prominent Roman Catholic zionists, such as those who appear frequently on EWTN, are Protestant converts to Catholicism.
In the main, however, Jewish antipathy for, indeed animosity toward, Roman Catholicism predominates Jewish zionist thinking. In Gideon’s Spies, Gordon Thomas’s narration of Israeli attempts to penetrate, or at least participate in, the Vatican’s extensive intelligence network, the reader is left with the impression that Israelis were holding their noses even as they kissed the pope’s ring.
It wasn’t just Israel. Neocons like Kristol turned against the Soviet Union on account of its alleged anti-Semitism, which was actually very reasonable measures to ensure a representative elite, ie that the USSR would not be dominated by Jews the way the US became. And now they’re rabidly hostile to Russia due to Putin’s crackdown on the criminal Jewish oligarchs, and also the traditional Jewish hostility to Russia dating to the days of the Czars.
“alleged” anti-Semitism???
Maybe he ment the alleged soviet union?
“Psychopathic god”, if you don’t like “jackass” and “bs”, I’m willing to settle for deceitful ignoramus.
I’m willing to bet you’ve never done historical research in your life, certainly not on the holocaust, and you have no clue what you’re talking about. History is not an exact science, and we don’t need your irrelevant Biblical story to know that, nor does this have anything to do with Jews in particular.
“nor does this have anything to do with Jews in particular.”
That’s what nobody can seem to understand.
And the more you try to make it concern the Jews in particular, the more justification you give them. Israel is not some herioc, lonely attempt by the Jews to regain their “homeland”, it is part and parcel of the West’s involvement with the ME. The Zionists are actually (or fervently hoped to be) subsidiary players in this, but the West went and left them all alone. Ran out on them, the bastards.
re:
During and immediately after WWII US had friendly relations with Iran and the Arab states, so strong that US oil companies were able to run major pipelines through the region and sustain a 50-year long period of unprecedented prosperity, fueled by oil from ME. Far from enhancing that relationship, Israel acted time and again to disrupt and destroy it.
Rothschild signed on to Herzl’s project after the baron realized that there was black gold in them thar hills — he financed a pipeline deal whereby Israel collaborated with Iran to ship Iranian oil to Eilat, whence it was marketed to Europe, for the benefit of Israel. When Khomeini pulled the plug on that deal, Israel worked feverishly to replace the revenue cash cow, culminating in Douglas Feith & Mark Zell striking a bargain with Ahmad Chalabi in which Saddam would be deposed, Chalabi would take his seat, Chalabi would restore the pipeline to Israel.
This was AFTER the Israel lobby had pushed through first, an executive order signed by Clinton, then legislation, that made it impossible for US companies to pursue oil contracts with Iran. in other words, Israelists constrained the ability of US companies to cooperate with Middle East states for the benefit of US, but used US blood and treasure in a bid to further the economic interests of Israel vis a vis the Middle East.
In their book, A Safe Haven, Allis and Ronald Radosh are quite explicit that Jewish agents in the US immediately post-WWII worked extremely hard to dislodge the “Arabists” from the State Department and to replace them with persons sympathetic to Israel. link to c-spanarchives.org
Far from the “bastards” “running out on them,” State is firmly under the suasion of Israel advocates; HRC can’t seem to snip the strings that tie her to Mr. Saban; at Treasury, as the oh so American Daniel Pipes pipes, Stuart Levey is busily ‘representing US interests’ in economically strangling Iran for the benefit of Israel. link to meforum.org
What does that say about the six million?
ya, six million may or may not be an historically accurate number; not a big deal, far as I’m concerned.
What troubles me, besides the attitude conveyed in Mooser’s comment, below, that creates an aristocracy of suffering that, imo, is neither historically accurate nor humanistically legitimate, is that the fullness of causation of the holocaust is not permitted to be fully explored. Instead, “the Hitler trap” is invoked — Hitler was eeevul, Hitler killed the jews out of antisemitic animus, NO OTHER lessons to be learned.
That seems to be a serious mistake: if one truly wishes that such a terrible even never again occur, then the entire range of causal factors must be explored so that they can be rooted out of acceptable human behavior patterns.
“Accurate scholarship will unearth the whole offense
From [Joshua] until now;
Find what happened at [Jericho];
What huge imago made a psychopathic god.
…
You and I and the people know
What all school children learn:
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
I believe the German people perceived that they had been ill-used by Jews in their midst. Then the laws of physics followed through: for ever action there is an equal and opposite reaction– Germans fought back against those they perceived as their oppressors, but their reaction was intensified, an effect frequently induced by bloodletting. A kind of blood madness set in and part of the world lost control and wreaked havoc on another part of the world.
The pattern is repeating itself in both the US and in Middle East, only this time, Israel is afflicted with a kind of blood madness. The danger is that Israel’s anger is amorphous; there is no psychically localized oppressor, so enemies are created by means of hasbara and propaganda — Iran is the latest target of Israeli displaced quest for vengeance and rage.
“What does that say about the six million?”
Exactly! Those six-million innocent Jews and others must never be forgotten, nor should history’s most horrible crime! It’s only right that Jews should have a country where they can be safe from anyone who wants to do it again!
America First, I’m glad you can see why ZIonism and Israel are essential to the Jews, and to the world!
If “the Jews” wanted to be safe, they wouldn’t have founded a state by displacing an existing population, in the midst of potential enemies. Far from being essential to “the Jews” Israel endangers them by presenting a concentrated target to all the enemies they make.
It is the Diaspora that saved the Jews, and Israel is working as hard as it can to destroy the Diaspora and with it the safety net that guarantees Jewish survival.
“It is the Diaspora that saved the Jews” is a dubious assertion. Yes, the Jews survived World War II, but not really in grand shape. There is a certain logic to dispersion, but what of the example of Madeline Albright, whose parents converted and never told Madeline of her true roots? This is a form of survival, but also a form of deracination and ignorance. Not that all forms of the Diaspora resemble Ms. Albright’s. But certainly a statement “It is the Diaspora that saved the Jews” is incomplete at best.
Considering that the real power and cultural force of the Jews has been in the diaspora for the last several centuries, and that the US remains the cultural, intellectual, and financial center of Jewish life, I don’t think that there is anything too dubious about potsherd’s assertion.
In Tractate Pesach of the Talmud, the rabbis discuss why God dispersed the Jews. One of the reasons they propose up is that the diaspora made the destruction of the Jews impossible.
Generalizations tend to be incomplete. But imagine what might have happened if the Zionist project had been completed in the decade after WWI, if world Jewry had been gathered into this one small plot of vulnerable land, surrounded by hostile Arabs, when Erwin Rommel came driving across N Africa. What kind of safety could a Zionist state have provided, then?
Even now, the current hysteria over nonexistence Iranian nukes is acknowledgement of the extreme vulnerability of a small Jewish state – how quickly and easily it could all be destroyed. The notion that Israel means safety is really absurd.