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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
Just another tricky attempt by Zionists to falsify history.
All true, Tuyzentfloot. But the Warsaw Ghetto analogy seems especially poignant and pertinent.
From Deutscher's essay, "The Non-Jewish Jew":
"Finally, all these [Jewish] men, from Spinoza to Freud, believed in the ultimate solidarity of men; and this was implicit in their attitudes towards Jewry. We are now looking back on these believers in humanity through the bloody fog of our times. We are looking back at them through the smoke of the gas chambers, the smoke which no wind can really disperse from our eyes. These “non-Jewish Jews” were essentially optimists; and their optimism reached heights which it is not easy to ascend in our times. They did not imagine that it would be possible for “civilized” Europe in the twentieth century to sink to a depth of barbarity at which the mere words 'solidarity of men' would sound as a perverse mockery to Jewish ears.
(...)
"Was then the optimistic belief in humanity voiced by the great Jewish revolutionaries justified? Can we still share their faith in the future of civilization? I admit that if one were to try and answer these questions from an exclusively Jewish standpoint it would be hard, perhaps impossible, to give a positive answer. As to myself, I cannot approach the issue from an exclusively Jewish standpoint; and my answer is: Yes, their faith was justified. It was justified in so far, at any rate, as the belief in the ultimate solidarity of mankind is itself one of the conditions necessary for the preservation of humanity and for the cleansing of our civilization of the dregs of barbarity that are still present in it and poison it."
I can't add anything to that profound statement, written on or before 1968. But I can't help wondering what these remarkable Jewish humanists of yesteryear would think of today's political Zionism.
I love this essay by Deutscher and have myself cited it before on this blog. One place you can find the essay is in "Prophets Outcast: A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing about Zionism and Israel", edited by Adam Shatz, which is itself an excellent book. (Mooser, dissident extraordinaire that you are, you would like it!)
Weiss says:
"I stopped at Isabel Kershner’s explanation of how the two-state-solution depends on segregating Arabs and Jews; 'mingling the two populations will destroy the prospects for a two-state solution.' Huh. "
But Kershner is right, from a Zionist point of view. To see why, all one need do is understand the axiom, "Zionism equals racism." Zionism has always been based on racist ideology, and the NYT has for decades been Zionist through and through.
Nothing I said implies that I blame the Israel Lobby for "everything" - not for Viet Nam, not for the Philippines, not for the Mexican War, etc. Nor did I mean to give you the idea that I admire US foreign policy sans Lobby influence.
Colin, I am still fretting over your reaction to my comments above and think I should say a bit more. Sometimes on this blog I choose to express certain widely-held views provocatively. There is a central purpose behind my deliberate provocativeness, but in all honesty the reasons for it do not include anti-Jewish feelings.
Shmuel and Chaos, when I used the term "aggressiveness" I meant only the disposition to work intensely toward achievement of one's goals, NOT physical aggression. This may be a stereotype, but I do believe that the empirical evidence would support the notion that Jews on the whole score greater than average in this trait. The term was introduced by Colin, and I was only replying to his use of it.
I would add that I don't "think that Jews are somehow intrinsically more violent ... than other people." Concerning aggressiveness, leaving out the "intrinsic" part, I do think that on the whole Jews do tend to be more aggressive than most other people. That seems to be a view shared by a great many Jews, and I wouldn't consider the quality to be an "intrinsically" bad thing.
I won't retract the statements, and I don't regard them as racist because they weren't intended as such (though I certainly grant you the right to your own view). My statement you quoted about Israeli Jews is based on my understanding of the deep tensions that exist among disparate groups within Israeli society. It comes from a great deal of reading from Israeli and other Jewish sources, as well as conversations with ex-Israelis whom I know well. As for my statement about the Israel Lobby and its activities in America, I admit to having an exceedingly low opinion of these - but I don't think my opinions are based on racism.
Pfeffer goes on to say:
"In effect, Israelis voted for Benjamin Netanyahu hoping that he'd go against his party's manifesto. All the signs point to a prime minister on the brink of a decision. He could take the plunge or he could retreat back into his ideological and political comfort zone. International pressure will play a major role in persuading him to make a necessary decision, but the message emanating from the Israel lobby is that should he decide to hold out and play for time, he will continue to receive their unreserved support."
I think this is a misreading of both Netanyahu and the Israeli public. The visible signs are that both the PM and his people, by and large, want to take complete control of "Judea and Samaria" and don't care a hoot about peace with the Arabs, Iran, or the world beyond. Israel needs external enemies to justify its fortress mentality, which is what protects it from the enemy within: the unpleasant truth that too many (Israeli) Jews of various persuasions living in too small a space are going to get into violent quarrels with one another unless they can take it out on someone else.
As for the Israel Lobby in America, it will continue to be a well-unified bunch of Zealots because it has a very large nation within which to roam about and vanquish its enemies.
Anshel Pfeffer, in his Ha'aretz article cited by Phil, has this to say about the Israel Lobby:
"But the real problem with today’s Israel lobby, in Britain and the United States, is not with its finances and their lack of transparency but with its entire mind-set. The basic fact is that by its actions, the lobby is now causing Israel more harm than good."
That's not the essential problem with the Lobby in the minds of most Americans who are familiar with its workings. Rather, it is the hideous fact that the Israel Lobby subverts the normal workings of American democracy, contorts US foreign policy in a way profoundly injurious to our national interests, and thereby threatens American democracy itself.
"Yes but what if it’s true, what if it’s about money and politics and a special interest that involves Jews? Do you not then report it? And let me repeat: it is impossible to talk about the Israel lobby without talking about contributions."
Exactly. And what if it's about the grotesquely expanding inequality of income and wealth in this country and in Britain? It is also "impossible to talk about the Israel lobby without talking about" this inequality in which an alarmingly high proportion of the billionaires and other super-rich are Jews with close ties to Israel.
"Free-market" capitalism, as practiced in the US and Britain, is the lifeblood of the Israeli hegemon.
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".
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.
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.
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?
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.
We got along famously from the start. Residents of Japan, his Jewish father was a professor at Tokyo University and his Japanese stepmother was a concert pianist and classical singer, steeped in German classical traditions. (I deeply enjoyed long conversations with each of them.) His many Jewish cousins from the Northeast were visibly surprised that someone like me from deep fly-over country could be so liberal-minded and would fondly remember the Brooklyn Dodgers as MY baseball team and would still be mourning their leaving Brooklyn.
"To a crowd of aging Jews–at least it looked that way, the men were all asked to wear yarmulkes, including Cohen, who’d come bareheaded ..."
What does wearing a yarmulke at a public event signify? At the entrance path to my daughter's outdoor Reform wedding, someone set a box of maroon yarmulkes. I asked my soon-to-be son-in-law if he thought I, along with other male wedding party and guests, should wear one if not Jewish. He said it would be a nice gesture to his family and the presiding rabbis. I have the little skullcap tucked away to this day as a keepsake. But I have no idea what wearing it meant to anyone.
"Well, no society is monolithic, Stephens said. Actually many societies have been monolithic, Cohen said. North Korea, Iraq under Saddam, Nazi Germany– all monolithic."
Actually, no. No human society comprised of tens of millions of people is monolithic. Stephens scores a point on that one. Still, it was apparently a route.
Thanks for this observation, Les.
Well, I think we can say that Israelis' belief that the world is out to get them - a belief stoked by Israeli politicians and media - is a form of mass paranoia. This paranoia is also encouraged by the Israel Lobby and its allies in America.
Mooser, you needed a straight woman for your comedy routine. Witty's part of the act was growing stale. You know, even Jerry Lewis ditched Dino - or was it the other way around?
"The ideal ending is for things to just be left lying with us quietly walking away as best we can, and just hope that those damned arabs and moslem would forget what we’ve done to ‘em. "
SN, I agree with your analysis of what has been happening, but not with the recommendation in your closing sentence, quoted above. There's nothing ideal about that ending. We owe the Palestinians big-time.
Great comment, Cheryl.
OK, Mooser, after a decent interval I'm taking it back about all your jokes being crude and unsubtle. Hey, I did say all the better to help my comprehension. I just didn't get the joke about the Christmas tree ... but I'll work on it.
yonira says: "Jews in Israel fulfills the book of Revelation, any Christian who believes in that or wants redemption is a Zionist."
Your statement is incorrect. The Book of Revelations has received many competing interpretations in Christian theology, up to and including exclusion from the Canon. Only someone quite unfamiliar with Christianity would say that any Christian who wants "redemption" must "believe" in the contents of that particular book.
As Todd has said, a majority (probably a large majority) of people who call themselves Christians are not Zionists, certainly not in the sense you use the term. Of those fundamentalist Christians who can be considered "Zionist" owing to their spiritual beliefs, theirs for the most part is a "soft" Zionism that could easily be obliterated by a significant shift in their political views. In today's politico-economic environment, such shifts might occur at any time.
If you derive comfort from the idea that Zionism is going to continue receiving widespread support among American Christians, then I would say it's time you began to feel really uncomfortable.
Mooser, of course I know that Palin is a phony in many ways. She is hypocritical in many ways. But I see no reason to believe that she is phony in her professions of religious belief (beliefs that I do not share), beliefs that are basic to the church she was born into and raised within. What evidence do you have that she has not "always belonged" to that religious environment?
I would imagine, Mooser, that I have had much more experience in my life with people of Sarah Palin's ilk than have you. My opinion is that she is likely to be quite sincere in her religious beliefs - such as they are, and whatever you might think of those beliefs.
Much of the criticism I see of Sarah Palin appears to be inspired not so much by reaction to her own character as by aversion to her avowed fundamentalist Christian beliefs. It really wouldn't matter to many how bright and capable she might be as long as she holds those beliefs. If we were talking about Joe Lieberman (the VP candidate in 2000) that would be called bigotry. In the case of a hypothetically brilliant, capable, fundamentalist Sarah Palin, it would also be bigotry - and it would be present in abundance.
In case you're wondering: No, I don't plan to vote for Sarah Palin.
Well, Mooser, I think I always get your jokes because they are so crude and unsubtle. No problem there. I'm sure the joke about the Christmas tree and its decorations is hilarious if only my sense of humor were up to the task. I just need someone to explain it to me. How else can I learn?
I don't get the joke. It seems to be some sort of parody, with heaps of ridicule. But what is it exactly that you are ridiculing? Maybe I can join in the laughter if I could only understand it.
Citizen, it is a great exaggeration to assert that all fundamentalist Evangelicals are staunch supporters of the State of Israel, in the political sense. Such misconceptions tend to cause gross over-estimates of the number of politically Zionist Christians. Also, if memory serves, Sarah Palin is Pentecostal (Assembly of God), not Evangelical.
homingpigeon: "But it has become even greater anti-Semitism to suggest that Jews should stay here in America and not go to a place where they can hurt themselves and others. "
Huh? Sorry, I'm not very familiar with your thinking, so could you explain how this idea indicates antisemitism?
Also, more generally, I'm an unlikely bird to be defending Sarah Palin, but hold it for a moment on her religion. As I understand it, she has always belonged to a Pentecostal Christian denomination with "fundamentalist" beliefs, which include the teaching that ultimately many Jews will convert to Christianity and "go to Heaven". I've never understood why Jews would assume that Christians who hold this belief, possibly including poor Sarah, would necessarily be antisemitic (unless you equate Jewish persons with the religion of Judaism). Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume, AT MOST, that they have anti-Judaism-as-distinct-from-Christianity prejudices? That would make their attitude about it no worse than the anti-Christian bigotry I detect in the comments in this thread.
Roger Cohen's abandonment of Palestine is indicative of the resignation, if not moral collapse, of the vaunted American Jewish "Left". Where are the PIPs - Progressives Including Palestine? Singing "I Love Israel" ditties at a J Street conference that was supposed to promote the goal of a two-state solution, while their tepid leaders muttered ambivalent equivocations.
This abysmal performance seems to confirm what I have long suspected: "liberal" Jews will never be able to break away from the strictures of tribal dogma, which for more than four decades has been dominated by the ultra-Zionist doctrines of Likud and the sons and daughters of Jabotinsky. When it's time to show the colors, ethnic tribal allegiances will trump universal moral values every time. That is what Zionism has done to un-assimilated Jewish life in America.
Saving America and the Palestinians (I won't say "Palestine" anymore) from the Zionists is going to require massive intervention by the goyim. Get used to it.
Cohen has sold out on Israel-Palestine. I think he and Friedman are sending a signal from the NYT editorial board: Let Israel have its way. Don't expect any help from "the newspaper of record" in putting pressure on Israel to comply with normal standards of human behavior. As for Cohen, the Great Jewish Hope, Palestine is no longer on his beat. The Tribe has claimed him and brought him to heel.
Cohen advocates the status quo. What does the status quo mean? First, it is not static. It is a process of gradual change toward an end state. The end state is The Greater Jewish State of Israel, reaching from the Jordan to the sea. But in the crazed eyes of many, that is not really the end state. The end state must reach far to the east of the Jordan and into the Lebanon because those lands, too, were mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
The end state means the end of the Palestinians. There are no Palestinians; there are only Arabs. Arabs are not eligible to be citizens in The Greater Jewish State. They will be eliminated; they are now being eliminated. It just takes time, but there are ways. The "International Community" will turn away, will avert its eyes. They are not meant to observe how sausage is made. All the while, the Hasbara Chorus will sing Israel's praises in the American media, drowning out the shrieks and groans from far away.
When I was a child of eight, watching the newsreels at the Saturday morning picture show - those films of emaciated living beings in those strange prison rags, and naked cadavers piled high - little did I know that what I was seeing was the emblem of the world to come. It was a lovely spring in 1945, and all I had ever known was sunshine and showers and the flowers they brought from heaven. But what I was seeing then, the conclusion of an unimaginable catastrophe, would set the course of human history throughout my life, and long into the lives of my children and grandchildren.
The Jewish portion of the Holocaust led inevitably to fruition of the Zionists' wildest dreams: the creation of The Jewish State of Israel with no borders, no unmovable obstacles to ever-greater expansion into Eretz Israel and beyond. The Zionists took care of everything and never waivered from the goal. All it took was a ruthless indifference to the suffering of gentiles, which came easily enough after all that ....
Now an essentially disarmed and helpless world stands by and wonders, What does this mean for us? How many world wars before the lust for vengeance is satiated? In America, bewildered people ask, How do we get back control of our government; how do we reclaim our independence from the Zionist Power? How do we protect our national interests, including our security, from domination and subversion by this foreign power?
How, indeed?
Good comment, syvanen. I see your point, which I ignored in my remarks above. We'll see whether the possible benefits you describe actually have any weight. I think a lot depends on the American people's willingness to endure the humiliation of their president and country.
It may be too late already, potsherd. Netanyahu is probably convinced already that he, with the Lobby at his side as always, can steamroll Obama into granting Israel fly-over rights in Iraq. Obama foolishly gambled away the prestige of the Presidency, as well as his own creditability.
In this vein, here is a recent article by Paul Craig Roberts at Counterpunch.org, entitled:
“America’s Dismal Future: How the Lobby Made Mincemeat of the Obama Administration”.
Quoting from the article:
“Allegedly, the US is a superpower and Israel is a client state whose very existence depends entirely on US military and economic aid and diplomatic protection. Yet, in the real world it works the other way. Israel is the superpower and the US is its client state.”
Why is that? Because the Israel Lobby, an agent for the foreign country of Israel, scares the pants off everyone in this country. They hold the levers of power.
Here’s the link:
link to counterpunch.com
Thanks, Nolan. How strangely soothing to return to Yeats' words!
Is it spelled "frierers" or "freirers"? Anyhow, you sure do have the right idea. Obama is a sucker. He got rolled and had his clock cleaned. Wonder if he knows it yet.
In the cited article at the Americans for Peace Now website, Lara Friedman wrote:
"This is a crisis engineered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A crisis intended to create a head-on collision with the Obama Administration over Jerusalem."
Bad Bibi wants to settle the Jerusalem question here and now, for the Americans and the Arabs. He wants to show that Obama is his poodle, as Bush was Ari's poodle. By demonstrating Obama's impotence in the face of the Israel Lobby, Alpha Bibi displays his mastery over every situation in the Middle East. Invincibility is paramount in the Israeli national ethos. Alpha Bibi absorbs all of Jerusalem and taunts the Palestinians for being unwilling to negotiate "peace". The whole world, and above all the Arabs, see that Bibi is king, Obama is a wimp, and peace is impossible. Alpha Bibi becomes the Zionist Messiah - King David reincarnate.
Add Senator Charles Percy, the very popular former senator from Illinois. The Jewish money enabling Paul Simon to defeat him came from all over the country.
Mooser, if America goes to war with Israel, don't you imagine that we will need to intern at least half of the American Jewish population for the duration? (Of course, not you, Weiss, Blankfort, etc., so don't get excited.)
"A full-page ad complete with billowing Israeli flag and blue skies appeared this week in the San Francisco Bay Area’s Jewish newspaper, J, urging the SF Jewish Federation to pass this resolution ...."
I would assume the flag was placed in the ad to indicate which country these people give their allegiance. In case there was any doubt.
Clinton and his wife have always been goy neocons. At last, they have removed the masks. They know what it takes to succeed in American politics - licking the boots of Israeli officials and American Jewish potentates.
Does anyone seriously doubt that the Israel Lobby is an extremely well-organized and brutally effective agent of a foreign power; that it has deprived Americans of their independence as a nation?
"Once the fact that this has become a civil rights movement has entered the mainstream – all the goy pussies can get on board and not worried about being called anti$emitic."
Cliff, I wouldn't count on sympathy for the Palestinians being the impetus. More likely, the goy anti-Zionist uprising will not occur till later, when the deceived masses become convinced that Zionism is threatening their welfare, their democracy, and many other things they always took for granted. It will be a shame it had to come to that.
From The Forward's story about its 50 most influential American Jews:
"Joel and Ethan Coen directed a homage to, and darkly comic caricature of, their Jewish-Minnesotan roots. “A Serious Man” begins with a fable acted out in Yiddish by Yelena Shmulenson, Allen Lewis Rickman and legendary Yiddish actor, Fyvush Finkel. It continues by portraying, with tenderness, a farcical version of the suburban Jewish Minneapolis world in which the brothers grew up. The film was such an intense evocation of its milieu that audiences and critics who were neither Jewish nor Minnesotan, including the New Yorker, had little liking for it.... Their next project is purported to be a movie version of Michael Chabon’s “Yiddish Policemen’s Union,” for which they would take the subject of Jews on frozen plains once more to heart.
Non-Jewish audiences and critics "had little liking for" the film. Exactly.
Could someone explain why such a high proportion of films produced by Hollywood are about Jewish themes and depicted through a Jewish perspective? Could it be that movie-goers didn't care much for "A Serious Man" because they are just up to the gills in Jewish ethnicity? (I thought "Fargo" was a powerful movie, even though it seemed to have only one Jewish bit-character.)
BTW, I am responding to Phil's request for contributions.
Off topic, but important:
Roger Cohen has an article in today's NYT. He says he is giving up on any hope of peace between Israel and Palestinians; that the status quo is the best that can be hoped for.
Cohen writes:
"I agree with the Israeli author David Grossman when he writes: 'We have dozens of atomic bombs, tanks and planes. We confront people possessing none of these arms. And yet, in our minds, we remain victims. This inability to perceive ourselves in relation to others is our principal weakness.'"
There you have it: Israeli and American Jews who support Zionism cannot see themselves in relation to others. But it isn't merely a weakness - it's a fatal illness.
Here's the link:
link to nytimes.com
"Oil is fungible only after its out of the ground. The name of today’s game is control of reserves, not markets."
v..., there is ample evidence that Donald Rumsfeld and the US military high command never intended a long-term military occupation of Iraq. The neocons themselves always advocated the installation of a "democratic" government there, thinking that in itself would eliminate a possible threat to Israel. But no sensible person could have believed that any elected government in Iraq would conceivably favor a long-term foreign military occupation of their country. (Dubbya, the decider in chief, would not have been capable of an independent assessment of the matter.)
The idea that the Iraq war could result in long-term US control of Iraq's oil reserves is ludicrous on its face. I'm sure that most oil industry executives were smart enough to know that.
Seeing that "Queue" has appeared here, I would like to take the opportunity to point to an excellent recent article by Paul Craig Roberts at Counterpunch.org, entitled:
"America's Dismal Future: How the Lobby Made Mincemeat of the Obama Administration".
Quoting from the article:
"Allegedly, the US is a superpower and Israel is a client state whose very existence depends entirely on US military and economic aid and diplomatic protection. Yet, in the real world it works the other way. Israel is the superpower and the US is its client state."
Here's the link:
link to counterpunch.com
I read Blankfort's article cited above (in the spring of 2004, as I recall), and it had a great impact on my thinking at the time, and subsequently. Like Philip Weiss, he was one of the few who dared to criticize the Israel Lobby in print, something I deeply appreciate.