Andrew Sullivan takes on his fellow blogger Jeffrey Goldberg here for defending the colonies in the West Bank. Beautiful. Why should we tolerate any settlements? he asks– in a rebuttal to Goldberg, who would tolerate no end of earlier landgrabs. Sullivan puts the needle in: "The criterion here is not what America might think, or the Palestinians might think, but just where the Israeli consensus is." And then describing Sarah Palin’s disturbing comments about Israel, he writes:
If you’d ever wondered why [Bill] Kristol has tried to put this know-nothing whack-job in the White House, you know now.
Sullivan has bought the Walt and Mearsheimer thesis, the Israel-centric neoconservatives. And there’s a reason for this, because it’s true. P.S. Here is Kristol owning up to his Israel-centric presidential considerations.
If you’d ever wondered why [Bill] Kristol has tried to put this know-nothing whack-job in the White House, you know now.
Andrew is coming along nicely.
refreshing… thanks!
Well, he’s getting burned by the principles highlighted by Walt and Mearsheimer himself, right? It sort of ceases to be a thesis to one, when one witnesses and experiences the causal progression first hand.
Andrew Sullivan is an American patriot. Jeffrey Goldberg is an Israeli patriot. Sullivan represents American interests; Goldberg represents Israeli interests. Sullivan is an American; Goldberg is an Israeli.
Sullivan supports the efforts of the American president to promote peace in the Middle East; Goldberg supports the efforts of the Israeli PM to thwart peace.
Sullivan is on our side; Goldberg is on their side. If there has to be war, let it be between the US and Israel. In that event, just watch how fast Goldberg runs to join the IDF in a support role.
In his cited previous post, Phil quotes Kristol as follows:
“Kristol suggests in this piece that Israel is the heart and soul of Jewish life. ‘Instead of focusing on the attitude of American Jews toward Israel, why not focus on the attitude of all Americans toward Israel? The important things are for the practice and study of Judaism to become more vital, in America and elsewhere, and for the state of Israel to remain strong and secure.’”
Kristol is another Israeli patriot. He thinks “all Americans” should regard Israel as “the heart and soul of” American life. “The important things are for the practice and study of Judaism to become more vital in America and elsewhere, and for the sake of Israel ….” He looks at Sarah Palin, and dreams that “all Americans” of the gentile caste can become like that.
The “important thing”, actually, is how many more American Jews are Israeli patriots, and how much money do these patriots have to buy the US government?
“is how many more American Jews are Israeli patriots,”
And if every one of them was, it still couldn’t total more than maybe 1.5% of the population.
You just can’t face the fact that Zionism only functions because it fulfills the requirements of non-Jews. Look, if every Jew in America was frum could we get the stores closed on Saturday? I doubt it.
But if you have a plan to make Americans dislike Jews more than Arabs or Muslims, I’m all ears. If you have a plan which will overcome American bigotry towards Arabs or Muslims enough so they won’t consider the Israelis heroes for oppressing and stealing from them, I’m all ears.
But I don’t see it happening.
Mooser, I have no plans to eliminate bigotry, but would gladly draw them up if I had the ability. I basically agree with your points except this one:
“You just can’t face the fact that Zionism only functions because it fulfills the requirements of non-Jews.”
Actually, I would put it this way: You just can’t face the fact that Zionism is a manifestation of late-modern Jewish identity gone bad. The Zionist ethnic-nationalistic ideology completed its capture of organized American Jewry after the 1967 war. Jewish organizations, centered around AIPAC and allies, became extremely powerful in influencing and often controlling US policy in the Middle East. They achieved this by enlisting hundreds of thousands of tribal adherents, in possession of hundreds of billions of dollars, to a single-minded purpose: support the government and people of Israel in pursuit of Eretz Israel with its capital in a unified Jerusalem.
Nothing substantive can be done in US policy toward the Middle East without approval of the Israel Lobby. Nothing objective can be discussed about Israel-Palestine in the MSM because of effective suppression of free speech exercised by Jewish organizations and their allies in the media.
You delude yourself in imagining that American policy-makers provide cover for Israel’s behavior because they believe that serves US national interests. Mearsheimer and Walt, among others (such as Jeffrey Blankfort), have demolished that thesis. You need to take the blinders off, Mooser. Do you really think that non-Jewish Americans enjoy seeing their country humiliated by Israel and its agents?
But thank our pet demons that there are American Jews like you who reject political Zionism. Those are the Jews with whom I associate.
RE: “If you’d ever wondered why [Bill] Kristol has tried to put this know-nothing whack-job in the White House, you know now.” – Sullivan
ALSO SEE: “(An excerpt from) The Truth about Leo Strauss”, By Catherine and Michael Zuckert
…These “truths” are so harsh, says Papert, that “the philosopher/superman is that rare man who can face” them. In order “to shape society” in the interest of those “philosophers themselves . . . the superman/philosopher . . . provides the herd with the religious, moral, and other beliefs they require, but which the supermen themselves know to be lies . . . they do not do this out of benevolence, of course.” Their public face is all “exoteric” doctrine; they attempt to rule indirectly through “gentlemen” whom they indoctrinate with their false but salutary myths…
…The Straussian philosophers seek to rule indirectly, via their influence on the gentlemen, that is, ordinary leaders like George W. Bush or Donald Rumsfeld, who can be manipulated to manipulate the masses…
SOURCE – link to press.uchicago.edu
RE: “If you’d ever wondered why [Bill] Kristol has tried to put this know-nothing whack-job in the White House, you know now.” – Sullivan
MY COMMENT: As I have said before, turning this country over to “whack-job” Christian theocrats like Palin and Hagee is the neoconservatives’ fondest wet dream. They and their zombie-like followers believe we must do whatever the Likudnik Israelis want or else God will smite us with a vengeance!
Agreed. But an even fonder wetdream of some neocons, I suppose, would be to turn the country over to whack-job Jewish theocrats like Joe Lieberman. This almost happened, you know. That way, Strauss’s ideas would require no translation.
RE: “If you’d ever wondered why [Bill] Kristol has tried to put this know-nothing whack-job in the White House, you know now.” – Sullivan
SEE ALSO: “Noble lies and perpetual war: Leo Strauss, the neocons, and Iraq”, By Danny Postel, 10/15/03, opendemocracy.net
(excerpt)
The dialectic of fear and tyranny
Danny Postel: In the Straussian scheme of things, there are the wise few and the vulgar many. But there is also a third group – the gentlemen. Would you explain how they figure?
Shadia Drury: There are indeed three types of men: the wise, the gentlemen, and the vulgar. The wise are the lovers of the harsh, unadulterated truth. They are capable of looking into the abyss without fear and trembling. They recognise neither God nor moral imperatives. They are devoted above all else to their own pursuit of the “higher” pleasures, which amount to consorting with their “puppies” or young initiates. The second type, the gentlemen, are lovers of honour and glory. They are the most ingratiating towards the conventions of their society – that is, the illusions of the cave. They are true believers in God, honour, and moral imperatives. They are ready and willing to embark on acts of great courage and self-sacrifice at a moment’s notice. The third type, the vulgar many, are lovers of wealth and pleasure. They are selfish, slothful, and indolent. They can be inspired to rise above their brutish existence only by fear of impending death or catastrophe. Like Plato, Strauss believed that the supreme political ideal is the rule of the wise. But the rule of the wise is unattainable in the real world. Now, according to the conventional wisdom, Plato realised this, and settled for the rule of law. But Strauss did not endorse this solution entirely. Nor did he think that it was Plato’s real solution – Strauss pointed to the “nocturnal council” in Plato’s Laws to illustrate his point. The real Platonic solution as understood by Strauss is the covert rule of the wise (see Strauss’s – The Argument and the Action of Plato’s Laws). This covert rule is facilitated by the overwhelming stupidity of the gentlemen. The more gullible and unperceptive they are, the easier it is for the wise to control and manipulate them. Supposedly, Xenophon makes that clear to us. For Strauss, the rule of the wise is not about classic conservative values like order, stability, justice, or respect for authority. The rule of the wise is intended as an antidote to modernity. Modernity is the age in which the vulgar many have triumphed. It is the age in which they have come closest to having exactly what their hearts desire – wealth, pleasure, and endless entertainment. But in getting just what they desire, they have unwittingly been reduced to beasts. Nowhere is this state of affairs more advanced than in America…
SOURCE – link to opendemocracy.net
Following the excerpt quoted above, Shadia Drury goes on to say:
“The combination of religion and nationalism is the elixir that Strauss advocates as the way to turn natural, relaxed, hedonistic men into devout nationalists willing to fight and die for their God and country.
“I never imagined when I wrote my first book on Strauss that the unscrupulous elite that he elevates would ever come so close to political power, nor that the ominous tyranny of the wise would ever come so close to being realised in the political life of a great nation like the United States. But fear is the greatest ally of tyranny.”
It would appear that Strauss’s unscrupulous wise men may actually have come to power in another country, the Jewish State of Israel, where a combination of religion and nationalism has produced the elixir of Zionism, a preeminent example of Strauss’s “noble lies”.
Fyodor Doiestoievsky explained all this in the Grand Inquisitor chapter of the Brothers Karamazov.