Josh Block
The Washington Post is reporting that two “top” thinktanks in Washington (whatever top means!) may cut ties with former AIPAC spokesperson Josh Block following Justin Elliott’s story showing that Block had tried to bring down critics of Israel at the Center for American Progress by calling them anti-Semites in an email circulated privately to rightwing journalists.
The Shakespeare phrase, “hoist on his own petard,” has never had such a perfect application….
This is a big story with big ramifications about what can and can’t be talked about in Washington. Two interpretations from smart friends in the news biz:
If, in fact, the Truman National Security Project (with a heavyweight foreign policy board/advisory council) and Progressive Policy Institute get rid of Josh Block, or even require him to provide a true public apology for anti-semitic smear tactics, it could (will?) signal a significant change in the debate over Israel: And it is this: Unsubstantiated charges and innuendos of anti-semitism in discussions about Israel for the purpose of shutting down debate, smearing opposing views, etc. are no longer tolerated, and a price will be exacted. This could be the flare in the night sky that gets everyone’s attention.
Hopefully this will be begin to reverse a trend of many decades when unproven accusations and innuendos of anti-semitism against journalists, politicians and academics resulted in loss of jobs, damaged reputations and shunning by friends.Andrew Sullivan also wrote about Josh Block on his blog today. Blacklisting Netanyahu’s critics. Sullivan has come a long, long way from his days as a Marty Peretz admirer.
A second smart friend:
This whole incident, along with the WSJ op-ed attempting to parlay the Center for American Progress’s hospitality to criticism of Israel into donations from the few wealthy Jews who care enough about Israel, lay bare that (now) four tropes about the lobby, which we’ve been told never to discuss, are actually true:
– The lobby smears critics as anti-Semites to silence them. (via Josh Block in Ben Smith’s pages [story that led to the Justin Elliott revelation])– The lobby is a loosely affiliated network that can coordinate and organize (via Josh Block’s email disclosed in Elliott’s piece)– The lobby wants war with Iran (via Josh Block in re: the criticism that Center for American Progress is too easy on Iran; when even the Washington Post ombudsman says the solid evidence does not prove Iran has a nuke weapons program — Anti-Semites?)– The lobby uses its political weight, not from the masses of American Jews, who are liberal, and care about many issues, including, yes, Israel, but through a small class of the wealthiest donors (via WSJ’s play)
Top of the bottom ?
Phil,
AIPAC clones are not the roadblock to starting a big loud movement to boycott Israel.
Here’s the roadblock: Dread, unreasoning fear of Zionists (not just of AIPAC). Don’t feed that fear.
Not one group on any campus is ready to demand boycott against Israel.
Not even 3 people on any campus are ready to demand any action against Israel.
Just make a sustained push for a Boycott-Israel resolution, at your campus government, or at your city council. That will earn publicity and would start the ball rolling.
Try to remember: there are so few hard-core Zionists, they can’t do more than whimper, against a room full of human rights activists. Just don’t hand the Zionists a veto over your own mouth. Ignore them and forge ahead.
That’s how the Wayne State University students approved a resolution for total divestment against Israel:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_EbIZBUj7TAg/S9GHXfkzyeI/AAAAAAAAAIg/38lsFh4ofi0/s1600/WSU.bmp
So get out of bed, stop crying about AIPAC and go demand a boycott resolution against Israel, at any forum you like.
What *is* a petard?
A small bomb used to blow up gates or walls.
petard from middle french peter, to break wind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petard
So Block’s plans to smear critics of Israel blows up in his face, and leaves a lingering pong that settles not only over him but over those who play the same dirty tricks.
Edit – must have been one of those skunkwater grenade thingies.
1. All lobbies smear their critics. It is no different with civil rights organizations, who sometimes smear critics as racist, or Muslim organizations who smear critics as Islamophobic. That said, the point is inaccurate; not all critics of Israel or the “lobby” are smeared as antisemites, only though who engage in age-old antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jews running the country, or controlling US foreign policy, or controlling the financial markets, or those who accuse the organized Jewish community of things they ignore in similar communities, and Israel of things that are much more serious problems in other nations without saying a word about those other nations.
2. “The lobby is a loosely affiliated network that can coordinate and organize” And? I would assume any decent group with an agenda can coordinate and organize.
3. “The lobby wants war with Iran” BS.
4. “The lobby uses its political weight, not from the masses of American Jews, who are liberal, and care about many issues, including, yes, Israel, but through a small class of the wealthiest donors” A half-truth. Most Jews support the right of Jews to self-determination.
I don’t think this think-tank cutting of ties with Block is due to any revulsion with him simply smearing of people as anti-semites whatsoever. No doubt he has been doing this openly before, and as Phil noted in an earlier thread on this subject after this story came out the two *other* think-tanks who he was essentially attacking didn’t even respond by complaining about being so smeared. Instead, as Phil noted in an earlier thread, they behaved like the dutiful sheep today do when being so accused, essentially “throwing under the bus” their people who Block was specifically after, and then making sure to further go “genuflecting” to Israeli/jewish sensibilities otherwise.
What Block’s real crime was in the eyes of the think-tanks that *he* was associated with was the public revelation of his inciting the members of that neo-con/journalist list-serve to go and put pressure on people like Steny Hoyer and Pelosi and Schumer.
Think of the reaction in those think-tanks that Block had been associated with: “My God, what the hell is going to be the reaction of Hoyer and Pelosi and Schumer towards us if we don’t fire Block! They genuflect like crazy towards Israel and us all the time, and yet here if we don’t fire Block it looks like we are bragging about getting them to do so under our pressure tactics! You *never* brag about having someone under your thumb. You *never* humiliate those who whore for you…”
So this firing of Block has absolutely nothing to do with that smearing per se. And that smearing is of such vast importance no matter how much it’s attacked it isn’t going to stop. It’s like the second of two absolutely crucial components: First is the Double-Standard, and the second is The Smear for those who don’t accept it.
Thus, dream on friend-of-Phil’s who thinks this is going to signal *any* change in the debate over Israel or any discussion about jewish matters in the U.S. Like the Double-Standard, The Smear is holy. It is untouchable. It is inviolable. It is beyond any and all questioning. It is eternal. It is the indispensable end-all compliment to the Double-Standard’s be-all. It is the Omega to the Double-Standard’s Alpha.