Three years ago, London Review of Books editor Mary-Kay Wilmers offered a sage insight: "It seems that the American left also is claimed by the Israel lobby." I didn’t fully get it at the time. She was a leftish Jew, but she had glimpsed the extent to which American leftwing Jewish intellectual life shares the Zionist concerns of neoconservatives: as American Jews, we are guardians of the Jewish state, and it is threatened with extinction, and we must see to it that American power is deployed against Israel’s enemies.
This is the best framework in which to look at Brian Lehrer’s interview on WNYC public radio New York two days ago with Frank Gaffney, a leading neocon. Lehrer is progressive and thoughtful and has one of the best radio shows in the country. His politics are New York Jewish libleft: he would never platform a guest opposing abortion rights or opposing gay rights (without fierce opposition). But for 20 minutes or so he gave unchecked access to a neoconservative offering anti-Islamic views.
Gaffney said that by means of jihad and "stealth jihad," Islamists are trying to impose Sharia law around the world, including in the U.S. The Fort Hood massacre is a sign of this. These radical Islamists want to defeat the west, and they operate in a lot of "godforsaken" countries, including Yemen and the Sudan.
And Lehrer thanked Gaffney for these statements.
The strongest counterpoint he offered was when he quoted Jerrold Nadler, the NY congressman who is a good anti-war congressman except when it comes to Israel/Palestine. Lehrer said that Nadler might agree with your "premise" about who the enemy is, Mr. Gaffney, but he would oppose your means. Some demurral.
Lehrer pushed Gaffney to say why the U.S. needed a giant nuclear arsenal, and Gaffney said, for peacemaking, and then specifically cited Hillary’s threat during the 2008 campaign to "obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel. So the neocons’ Israel-centrism came into the conversation, without any commentary or demurral from Lehrer.
The issue here isn’t merely Gaffney/the neocons’ incredible survival in the public space in spite of the Iraq war disaster they pushed (which is about money). It is progressives’ collusion in that survival. During the Iraq buildup, many progressives became neoliberals; and Lehrer’s acceptance of Gaffney’s nutty statements about taking on Islam everywhere demonstrates the continuing passivity of the left when it comes to these feverish ideas.
How is this evidence that the left is claimed by the Israel lobby? Because at the core of Gaffney’s ideas are the claims that Israel is a democracy and that Arab/Muslim anger toward Israel has nothing to do with its policies/occupation but with its very existence. And at the core of Lehrer’s passivity with respect to neocon nostrums is (this is surmise but as a fellow media Jew I’m confident of it): a Jewish identification with the needs of the state and a reluctance to criticize it publicly. Last year Lehrer examined American foreign policy in the Middle East as a runup to the election and had on Zev Chafets and Jerrold Nadler–both Jews, one a former spokesman for Likud, the other a Labor Zionist type. Until these assumptions are examined by mainstream liberals, we will remain at dagger points with a whole region of the world.
P.S. And yes this is a matter of corruption, engaging issues of power and identification. In today’s Haaretz, a U.S. State Department official who sits on the same floor as Hillary Clinton speaks in frankly religious nationalist terms: "It is not 1939… We have the state of Israel." Who is we? And why is our country Israel?
P.P.S. I had this post in draft mode till my wife brought up the Gaffney interview last night. She knows very little about these issues, she’s bored by my talking about them; but she had heard Gaffney on the car radio and thought, What the hell is this guy doing on my public radio station? (We are members of WNYC).
