Why is Martin Indyk saving Americans, and Netanyahu, too, from Netanyahu’s brother-in-law’s statement that Obama is "anti-semitic"? On NPR tonight, Indyk was interviewed by Robert Siegel, and described Netanyahu’s "chevra – the people he lives with–" as hardline Zionist rightwing ideologues. For instance, Bibi’s brother-in-law, Indyk said, who "got some headlines today criticizing the United States."
Well look at that first link. His brother-in-law didn’t criticize the United States. He said the president is an anti-semite. I don’t see one criticism of the U.S. in there. Why Indyk’s indirection?
(Also wouldn’t it be nice if people on NPR used Arabic phrases casually, and then translated them for Americans?)
Indyk passed on the usual line these days: Netanyahu needs to get past this so that we can all focus on Iran, an "existential threat."
Well, Israel’s own defense minister doesn’t think that Iran is an existential threat. But if you work for the Israel lobby you have to be more Catholic than the Pope.
Robert Siegel made an interesting statement. He said of Netanyahu, "Well he’s now at something of a crossroads. I suppose he could decide that he could tough it out with President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton and enjoy enough support either from the American Jewish community or other American supporters of Israel, that he wouldn’t have to give in much– do you think he’s up for that fight?" No, Indyk said.
Let’s look at Siegel’s statement. He is saying that "the American Jewish community" are such "supporters of Israel" that they could give Netanyahu the political capital he would need not to "give in" to an American president (on a simple matter of international law, on which the world is unanimous).
And I think Siegel’s right. The American Jewish community does support Israel, and it supports rightwingers like Netanyahu to defy presidents. The cracks in the community are pretty small, my efforts notwithstanding. And Siegel knows what he’s talking about. He’s Jewish and from New York, he knows more of these folks than I do.
Siegel’s statement raises a central issue for me: the responsibility of the American Jewish community for Palestinian statelessness, because Jews here have supported Israel right or wrong, through decades during which everyone and his brother and Turkmenistan have gotten states.
Tonight on Chris Matthews, he badgered a member of the Texas School Board who’s a Christian, about her religious agenda for the curriculum. Good for him.
Can we ever ever have a political conversation in the American media about How Jews feel about Israel? It seems pretty important. I admit I’m an outlier: I never got the Zionist vaccination as a boy and I don’t think the Jewish state is necessary for Jews. But most Jews don’t share my view; they support the Jewish state out of some ethnocentric allegiance or wisdom about our status in the west (that I think is anachronistic). But Siegel’s right. They support it.
Can’t we talk about this? Robert, where do you stand on the Jewish state, personally? You must have some feelings. And how many neocons are in your family? OK fine, I’ll go first. But let’s talk about it.
Nice post. Even I, a non-Jewish anti-Zionist, might have given the American Jewish community too much credit for being split on opinion of Israel.
A book review:
Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism
link to tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com
thanks–was worth reading
Why can’t the discussion be had? I think it mostly comes down to fear that Jews will be blamed for all the world’s ills. Nazi Germany redux. Israel, for all its faults, is the safe haven. A friend well connected with the Jewish-Iranian diaspora indicated there was widespread fear that the US would turn against them back at the start of the Great Recession.
It makes no sense to me – the US is not 1930′s Germany – but then my older relatives didn’t die in the Holocaust. The past haunts, not just instructs.
Morgan Elzey’s post is why.
It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Blacks had it way worse in America than Jews ever did, but blacks don’t obsess and scare their children into believing that slavery or even Jim Crow could come back any minute.
The majority of the Jewish community wants to use its extraordinary clout to push the US into carrying out or okaying an Israeli attack on Iran, which everybody knows will send the staggering world economy into a tailspin, nevermind the punishment of the Iranian civilians.
All this because of a theoretical future threat.
If they get their way, there will likely be the massive overly broad backlash against Jews that is overly-feared now.
As I wrote a couple days ago, I think persecution and superiority complexes are built into traditional Jewish culture, and they both have a certain lasting appeal.
The “Jewish community” has a way of re-enforcing these complexes, and the community needs to be threatened at all times to continue intact. When no fatally dangerous foes exist, they must be created, even if subconsciously.
And when the status quo is exceptionalism, justice can start to resemble persecution. Especially when the media has a certain slant to it.
Nazi Germany redux…?
And which country is “taking land to the East” to make room for their “chosen?” Which country routinely bombs ethnic ghettos? Starves an occupied population while the elites enjoy excess (five times as much water for each Israeli versus each Palestinian)?
Israel is a safe haven? Only if you’re Jewish.
Or should I say, “Jewish.” Since apparently Ethiopian Jews don’t count anymore.
Since you mention it, NPR = National Puerile Radio as far as I am concerned. The great protector of the status quo as well as everything Israeli. I never listened to the worthless NPR in New York until I spent 2008-09 in Berlin, Germany and found only two radio stations broadcasting in English. Listening to NPR and the cowardly BBC during the murderous Israeli assault on Gaza, I disgusted me how they protected Israel – both pretending that this horrific assault was a war between equals. NR is good Zionist fare.
And Neal Shapiro, who canceled Ashley Banfield and Phil Donahue, and who kept the already signed Jesse Ventura off MSNBC and every other network, because of their Iraq war doubts, is now in charge of PBS.
NPR has gotten weak-kneed since the Bush adminstration nearly defunded them completely, and then stacked their management with pro-Republican hacks (which of course, Obama has kept).
Of course they were always a shill for Israel.
My local state’s public radio network is much much better, albeit mostly because they stay away from the topic as much as possibly (with the exception of one rather outstanding inter-cultural program). Which in my mind, is better than having two Israelis “debate” each other about Israel’s policies, or having a host gush sympathetically with racial purity vigilantes.
More CHANGE we can’t believe in.
The world may be unanimous (NPR, AIPAC, and other American supporters of Israel possibly excepted) on the point of law that the settlements are illegal, but sadly the other point of agreement (at the level of governments, anyhow) is on what might be termed “the legal consequences of the illegality of the settlements”. The USA has, for example. stopped saying that the settlements are illegal, a rather striking “consequence of the illegality”, and the EU (and I dare say Russia and most of the world, perhaps even including the redoubtable Lula
seem satisfied to describe the settlements as unhelpful, or obstacles to peace. No leader seems to be saying that they are illegal and should all be rolled back. when the ICJ rules that the wall was illegal and should be removed and that it was the duty of every country to see to it that the wall was removed the universal response (so far as I’ve seen a report) was a massive ho-hum.
Perhaps, then, NPR can be forgiven this one?