I’ve been playing up the sober voices in American media re Iran, but I need to point out that warmongering is alive and well in our media and was on full display last Thursday when Netanyahu went to the U.N. I was staggered by it. Andrea Mitchell pressed Dennis Ross on whether Obama has signaled too clearly that the military option is off the table for Iran, and Ross assured her, It’s not off the table. Not a word about possible containment.
Meanwhile, Alex Wagner had a panel on MSNBC in which Josh Tyrangiel of Bloomberg News described Jeffrey Goldberg as the greatest expert on US-Israel relations and passed on Goldberg’s assurance that Obama will go to war over this question. It’s at 5:30 or so at the link. Tyrangiel:
Look at Jeff Goldberg, who’s, you know, the authority on American reporting about this issue, and he said from the very beginning that people are underestimating the resolve of the Obama administration to go to war in Iran around nukes and that they’ve consistently done it.
Pure craziness. Richard Wolffe, presumably the liberal voice– he once addressed J Street–mumbled platitudes about our commitment to Israel. Again, not a word about containment.
The only relief I got that day was from Jim Frederick of Time Magazine, who said on MSNBC that Netanyahu was manipulating our electoral process and that we’d seen the same hysteria around North Korea. But that North Korea was deterred because it knows it would be obliterated if it hit South Korea with a nuke. A containment rationale. Just what Trudy Rubin wrote in the Phila Inquirer yesterday.
One talking-head calls another the genius of USA-Israel and, accordingly, it is so.
“Let it be so”, as the commander says. And “there will be war, make no mistake, believe me, TRUST ME, because I’m a super expert.” Wow!
All this spin has me turning over in my (somewhat) premature grave.
What I’m missing is someone who points out not only the behaviour of Netanyahu like that Time journalist, but someone who points out Bibi’s enablers, and in some cases boosters, like Goldberg.
Of course, that would unleash hell hath no fury from a significant section from what can be loosly defined as “pro-Israel journalism”(both of the ‘conservative’ and its ‘liberal’ variations), specially the well-known neocon alliance that exists across the political divide and ready to smear anyone as an anti-Semite, as they showed last with Dowd.
That journalist could begin by saying that Goldberg has been carefully following a propaganda line that basically consists of criticizing the Israeli PM/government only on tactical mistakes but never on ideological grounds.
In other words, in order to keep having the credibility of his journalistic readersk, Goldberg is no stranger to attacking Bibi, but only on superficial issues like the way he presents a case, if he pressures the president too much etc.
Goldberg wouldn’t be caught dead actually seriously discussing if Bibi wants peace at all. That’d be a much too penetrating question; it would get to the matter of it far too directly.
And so he dances around the edge dealing blows to Bibi for his tactical mishaps, but never allowing any serious discussion of intentions of the Israeli government.
Crucially, anyone who is willing to do so, is immediatedly attacked as “anti-Israel” by Goldberg and if that person keeps it up, he or she is smeared as ‘fringe’ and/or have an “odor”(read: anti-Semite).
That person might also talk about how Goldberg is constantly pushing the “Israel will attack soon” line for a very good reason: because Israel wants to be seen as independent and dangerous, while everyone knows – including Goldberg – that Israel can’t do the job alone.
Israel never asks for permission, and in some cases have been caught spying and stealing state secrets from the U.S., when it can afford to do so(Ma’ariv has a scoop on how Bibi was a spy in the 80s and stole nuclear secrets from America).
That Israel is bloviating so much is a testament that it’s “powerless” in this question(militarily) but realizes it isn’t politically – hence the deployment of the lobby to drag the president into a war.
Obama knows he can’t openly state he doesn’t want a war, because then the lobby would go beserk on him and work against his senators and his congressmen and sabotage his domestic policy. But he’s hinting heavily.
And what can Goldberg do in such a situation?
Well, he knows the power of the lobby decreases significantly since Obama has in some sense defied them publicly – challenged them and their favoured candidate – because he knows he has most U.S. Jews on his side.
Goldberg in this sense, needs to talk for Obama and will maintain that he has “assurances” that Obama will use force if Israel wants to, despite all signs that he doesn’t want to and won’t.
For Goldberg and other journalists working for the lobby, the next challenge isn’t to control Obama(which they’ve already failed to in a serious sense, except on the 2SS, which is serious enough) as much as ensuring that loyalty to the lobby remains intact.
On the GOP side, thanks to the complete control of the neocons, that won’t be hard. But the Democratic side is proving harder. That’s why AIPAC is devoting so much time for the Dems, precisely because the Obama generation of young democrats have seen their president battle it out with AIPAC time and again and they’ve seen the lobby’s media section(of which Goldberg has contributed) rear it’s ugly head time and again to attack the president.
If Obama wins re-election he will be the defining Democratic leader of the last 20 years, perhaps more so than Bill Clinton was(who had a period of good growth under him but never fundamentally challenged any significant aspect of Washington or defied the lobby as Obama has done).
There’s much to criticize Obama for, especially his record of subservience to Wall St, his continuation or indeed deepening of the ‘War on Terror’ apparatus, but he isn’t a war monger and more importantly, he’s willing to stand up for it.
The new generation of Democrats will carry this legacy of Israel in their hearts going forward and that’s why AIPAC is investing so much in student leaders from the leading 50 universities across the nation.
That’s why Goldberg has become a bit of a kommisar, almost each new week means a new liberal journalist to discipline.
But in the media, as well on Campus, Israel is losing the game.
Both Goldberg and AIPAC know that. That’s why their activity is becomming so frenzied.
We’ll see if it makes any significant dent in the overall trend or if the shackles of Israel is becomming irreversibly removed in the American discourse.
America to Israelis…don’t insult our intelligence idiots, you really are stupid to think we believe for a second that you have any regard for the US other than that of a parasite for it’s host. Really, these people are so simple minded it’s indescribable.
Pro-America Rally to Be Held Outside U.S. Embassy in Israel
11:18 AM, Oct 1, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER
A pro-America rally is scheduled to be held tomorrow outside the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel. The expression of support for America is being organized by Im Tirzu Movement in order to “remind the United States that Israel is America’s best friend in the Middle East”
“In light of the attacks on the U.S. embassy in the Middle East, the anger directed at the American people and those facing the silence of Western forces against Western values, we decided to hold demonstration in support of the American people, called: ‘ISRAEL SUPPORTS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE,'” the Israel group writes on its Facebook page.
“Particularly at this time when the radical Muslims burn U.S. embassies throughout the Middle East, it is important to remind the United States that there is only one country in the Middle East has shared values with the U.S.,” the group writes, explaining the rationale for holding the rally. “There is only one country, supporting always and unconditionally in the U.S. – it is Israel.”
Looking at it optimistically, it’s all good.
Obviously, Netanyahu’s excursion into partisan politics is forcing the PEP brigade to choose. Do they want Obama, or do they want the ‘new sheriff in town’ — even if he is a Republican?
And they’re going with Obama. They have to lie to themselves to do it — but they’re going with Obama.
The FTat the weekend
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c65920ce-0968-11e2-a5e3-00144feabdc0.html
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Mr Netanyahu’s threat of an air strike in 2012 was premature. The Israeli military establishment openly opposed the idea, saying Israel could not attack Iran alone. The Obama administration resisted his efforts to force America’s hand. The Iranians refused to take his blustering seriously. Finally, Israel’s prime minister blinked