Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 266 (since 2011-01-07 20:19:21)

Krauss

Showing comments 266 - 201
Page:

  • Division: Romney supporter puts kibosh on Wasserman Schultz appearance at Miami temple
    • Krauss May 25, 2012 at 11:48 pm with 1 replies

      That's a bit too much.

      The reason why pols pander to Jews to the extreme extent they do has more to do with money(donations) but also sheer cultural power. The media is something every politician fears and if they get up on their game, they start to meet editors, powerful journalists, Op-Ed writers etc and they notice that many of them are Jews and at least nominally Zionist so better not get on the wrong track.

      All of this is understood and accepted, I think, but I still do think that Jewish votes matter to some extent, even if it's significance is less so. Most votes from Jews do not matter because they live in states like California or New York, which are going to go to the Democrats regardless.

      But Florida do matter. Jews make up 3.5 % of the voting population and it's mostly richer, older Jews who tend to be at least sympathetic to Republicans because they are usually already pretty rich, they have since long made it and Israel has become their primary reason to live in their old age.

      And we know which state decided the 2000 election. Even Ohio carries 100,000 Jews who are disproportionate in the voting population. The Jewish vote doesn't matter that much, save for a few states, but there it does have an influence and Florida is the top of the line. It didn't matter in 2008 because Obama's lead was so much bigger. But I think 2012 will be much closer, just look at how Obama got backstabbed on Bain - which is their strongest attack.

      Wall St corruption goes deep into both parties and even Krugman acknowledges that Wall St historically have been much closer to Democrats than Republicans and they are only now slowly shifting to Republicans(while holding their noses) for the faintest of reasons(Obama's "tough stance" is mostly a fraud). Many progressives forget this and/or don't want to talk about this fact, how much closer Wall St have usually been to dems. And if this continues, then Obama is ill-equipped to attack Romney at his weakest position, namely the private equity industry. And this then would allow Florida to become important for the first time since 2000, and that's why we see both campaigns freaking out much more than normally over the Joooz there

  • Day after pogroms, Likud MK calls for internment camp for African refugees
    • Krauss May 24, 2012 at 12:50 pm with 7 replies

      I'm simply outraged by the anti-Semitic standards that is spewed by this site.

      Where are your outrage on Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc? That's right folks, only the Jewish state gets your attention.
      I wonder why...

      As regrettable as this incident is, and I condemn it fullstop, we cannot ignore the context here. Israel is under terrible pressure and all nations have to control their borders. Are you telling me Israel is worse than France, where the far rightist Le Pen gets 20 % of the vote?

      I've had it by now. I've tried to play nice. I'm joining J Street tomorrow. Where we can shoot and cry and get away with it - while still appeasing the Kristols of the world.

  • Aaron Sorkin's anachronism
    • Krauss May 25, 2012 at 4:59 am with 1 replies

      Great reply, Danaa.

      I agree with a lot of points you made, but first, I stumbled across this puffpiece on Asana, co-founded by Moskowitz and Rosenstein(both of Facebook fame).

      The article itself was not very informative(and I'm slightly pessimistic on Asana, I think it will grow but I don't think it will dominate), but with a grin on my face I immediatedly went to Asana's homepage and checked their employees to see if my theories held up alright or not.

      And sure enough. After Justin and Dustin(love how those two names mix and match), you had 20 other employees. As far as I can tell, not a single Jew. 19 of those were working at the company product and there was a single Asian(woman) but she was a chef in the kitchen.

      link to asana.com

      As for your points about hardware, I think you are right to some extent.
      However, here's a blogpost from LinkedIn where they took the data from 240,000 engineers to try to see which companies were most sought after for employment:

      link to blog.linkedin.com

      The top two are cloud-computing companies but they also dabble quite deeply into hardware territory, and they got Stanford profs on their team. And they're mostly the kind of predictable WASP/Jewish mix we've come to expect, with a few Asians on the side.

      This in turn goes to another point.
      Take a look at Cal Tech, probably the most technical university in America, if not the world. Stanford has great computer science departments, but computer science has a more mathematical/theoretical side - which fewer people know about - which is to some extent separated from the more flashy hands-on application of the science that is used in start-ups. Linguistics is just one of those aspect, theory of mathematical theorems, even philosophy to some extent. And these areas are considered to be more intellectually challenging.

      And Cal Tech leads in these areas, the theoretical side(even if Stanford do trump them in individual fields). So what's my long, drawn-out point?

      Look at Cal Tech's undergraduate share of Asians, and compare it to whites. Then look at graduate students and see how Whites to Asian ratio moves from 1:1(with slight advantage to Asians) to 4:1 advantage to whites. The latter two are a much better predictor of who gets to do the research.

      I'm more in tune with the start-up/tech scene in general and have only begun recently to dabble in the more theoretical/academic aspects, so I concede that you may be right on the research points. But the pattern between undergraduate/graduate/PhD for most top schools are the same across the nation.

      Finally, about VC's. Yes, that may be right. However, if you look at a company like Spotify they actually went to Li-Ka Shing, China's wealthiest(?) man and got funding from him - twice. So even if Chinese investors are starting to get into the game, how their money will be distributed and who it will go it still remains to be seen.

      Another problem is that for all the propaganda of how "capitalistic" China's economy is, it's still mired in the kind of bloodbased aristocracy that the West has mostly abolished, if not completely.

      The rise of the Princelings have greatly suppressed the creative drive of the Chinese entrepreneurs who truly deserve to be successful but come from poorer/unknown families as compared to the corrupted halfwits who happen to have loaded fathers and drive Ferrari's.

      This kind of system, to put it mildly, isn't ideal. The reason why Weibo(China's Twitter) or Baidu(China's Google) have prospered is simply because the government have made both Twitter/Google so slow/faulted that it simply cannot compete. Larry Page openly admitted last week that YouTube is so slow, and sometimes even shuts down, in China that it simply cannot complete. So this isn't capitalism, nor is it Soviet-style economy. But while China can continue to do well simply by virtue of outperforming other countries in the "middle income trap" at some point it has to face the rest of the world on their terms. Baidu has to compete with Google on a global scale and being as sheltered as they are makes them weak - and gives Google the edge.

      I'm unsure if a few American immigrants with Chinese heritage can flip this around, and even if they could, they have to battle with the sclerotic corruption and rampant cronyism. And think of the Princelings in charge of many IT companies who probably will be outclassed by these people, they will lose face, the worst thing you can do. And another area where the more "vulgar"(I would say vital) culture in the West is an edge.

      Another example of this: Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates all dropped out of college to start their companies. In China many people try to get PhD's and sometimes end up in their 30s before they take the plunge - the conservative culture you mentioned. And often by that time, their "risk minimizing" behaviour has made them soft and afraid that they are too old.

      Neither of these symptoms are inherited nor incurable, but they are cultural rifts that go deep. The reason why New York is going up so strongly now as a tech center is because the hardware side is slowly losing importance. It was much more important in Sillicone Valley 20 years ago.

      Today, it's about taking the more creative sides of life. Fab.com, Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare, Amazon, Apple. All these companies have technical talent but the most shining light, Apple, is up there because of creativity. If you look at only the past year, the two of the most striking companies, Instragram or Pinterest, is the same story.

      And Fab.com is amazing because of their profitability for such a hard sector to digitalize and monetize. And in these creative areas, finance, arts, fashion Jews have always outshone everyone. So in this sense, Jews may actually be positioned to the future. And since New York is now quickly catching up because of it's creative potential, is it a surprise that 2 million Jews live there?

      *phew* that was a long post!

    • Krauss May 24, 2012 at 1:11 pm with 4 replies

      I continue to believe that you're unfair against Aaron Sorkin.

      The Facebook movie he did was actually quite harsh and he more or less took the Winklevoss twins' side in the dispute(then again, so did the court the other year, when it rules in their favour, so there is still a great question over just how much 'his' company it truly is, and not theirs, but the past is past).

      If you look at Aaron Sorkin's resume you see a broadway play he did in 2007. It's called "The Farnsworth Invention".

      It's about a sweet, bright and terribly naive Midwestern WASP kid who invests a lot of stuff regarding television, back when it was new.

      The play centers against the struggle on his idealism and the ruthless TV exec who uses his cynicism and power to wrestle the inventions from him and counter-sue him into poverty, and sure enough, the guy dies in alcoholism and neglect.

      The TV exec is described as a 'Russian immigrant' but you only need to glance over his last name to know what group he comes from, even if he did indeed immigrate from Russia.

      Sorkin has been cataloguing the rise of Jewish ascendancy but I think a fair criticism can be made that he has been too harsh, often playing with black/white cultural stereotypes, e.g. the innocent, morally upstanding protestant Anglo who believes in righteousness and the cynical, ruthless Jew who uses his childlike good-heartedness.

      Sorkin was actually struggling a lot during the 80s as a playwright and it's impossible to know what happened when he was young but judging from his career I don't think he's that ethnocentric in the sense that Larry Summers is. Summers's the kind of Jew which fits the 'Russian Immigrant' code much better than Zuckerberg.

      Zuck's a pretty cynical guy, but he is not a wild-eye nationalist, to put it mildly.

      Also, in terms of sociological botanizing; Zuckerberg mostly surrounded himself with Jews at the early stage, but within even just a few years, he went to a mostly mixed crowd to a firm that is now majority-WASP in it's higher structure. He has oddly refused to surround himself with Asians, despite their stellar reputation in Silicon Valley, at the highest echelons. Even if he marries one. Just look at the board of directors. Sure, Sandberg's the COO but if you look at the VP of engineering and many other important execute positions, Zuckerberg's mostly phased out the Jews.
      Moskowitz seemed like the only one he truly got along with.

      And from all the VC's he could choose, he chose Thiel, a German and a conservative Republican. Despite the knowledge of what we know that he is a die-hard liberal Jew.

      So this underlines what we've previously discussed, the amount to which Jews and WASPs have melded together. True, there is much more Asian/White integration today than even 20 years ago(I'm discounting the lonely Asians who had no other choice), but there is still a long way to go on that front. And so far, at least as I can see, there is actually more WASP/Asian integration in terms of the top in tech. The co-founders of Youtube is a case in point and there are many others like them.

      Another example of this weird Jewish/Asian distance, which actually doesn't make any sense and the intercommunal relations are great from what I can tell, is TechStars NY. It's a almost completely Jewish tech incubator based in NY, which is now the #2 top in technology, and I just went through the companies and it was just a sea of whiteness, mostly WASPs.

      Now, NYC is home to the largest amount of Indian-Americans in the country, which is also the religious group which has the highest SAT score(and not Jews like some think). And as far as I know, Indians have a rep to be pretty tech savvy but it was zilch in that respect.

      Another fact of the Jewish rise to "old money status" is this little NYT article. Notice the minority share of WASPs and how most people in the story are either Jewish or born-to-moguls-Asians.

      link to dealbook.nytimes.com

      I am interested in the tech scene for other reasons, but I'm also interested in the sociological aspects because tech is the most meritocratic sector, most of the successful people there are self-made middle class folks and as far as I know they are almost all very internationalist/progressive but the social patterns are there regardless.

  • Passive-aggressive George Bush namechecks neocons for getting us into that mess
    • Krauss May 22, 2012 at 2:01 pm with 3 replies

      Bush saw his father go down the tubes because of AIPAC, and he was determined not to repeat the trick. In the end he got played, in part because his father was a far greater intellect(like his brother Jeb) but also because a single man, no matter how brilliant, cannot alone shake the foundations of power. Look no further than Obama.

      Oh, and Phil, did you know what the former CIA director George Tenet screamed into the Arab night, drunk in the pool of Saudi prince Bandar? Google it.
      Not pretty - but telling.

      Tenet, who was played just like Bush to go into war. Unlike Bush, he seems to have gotten things far faster but by that time understood that those of his generation, who Kristol derided as 'Arabist WASPs', had since long lost.

  • Latest video'd settler shooting could defuse third rail in US discourse
    • Krauss May 22, 2012 at 2:13 pm

      Too optimistic - at least so far. Wright has had a pretty progressive position on I/P for a long time. In fact, the Atlantic as a whole has slowly moved into his direction - note the Goldberg/Fallows debate. Fallows, the true liberal, is confounded by Goldberg's aggressive ethnocentrism.

      Maybe that's in part why Goldberg has slowly started to branch out to Bloomberg, perhaps he feels uncomfortable at the Atlantic? After Daniel Levy of J Steet posted his brilliant takedown of the hasbarists, where he casually mentioned Goldberg himself, Goldberg then snapped at the 'lazy Atlantic editors'. When you lose that kind of discipline you know things are not okay. But, still, the Atlantic is Atlantic. It counts but it still isn't as important as, say, NY Mag.

      I did notice that the UK Telegraph picked up this story. I've also noticed a more decisive turn against Israel from these papers, who have often taken a quite profound brainless approach to I/P where sloganeering and jingoism had replaced independent thought, but no longer it seems.

      Israel's policy elite is right to fret about Europe turning against Israel, even the right is going into this direction. But America is still far to go, in part because our politics is much more beholden to special interest groups and monied donors than many European countries, if not all.

      I would be much more interested in watching the campus. California universities are spearheading this. A case in point:

      link to buzzfeed.com

  • Bill Kristol celebrates Republican Party purge of 'oldfashioned Arabists' Scowcroft, Baker and Bush I
    • Krauss May 21, 2012 at 1:29 pm with 1 replies

      "Bill Kristol who is a Republican Party boss but speaks for the mainstream Democratic Party too"

      The single best and most powerful line.
      This is also why I sneer when people keep dredging up "the influence of Christian Evangelicals". Really? CUFI, nominally the largest "pro-Israel" organization in the U.S. by membership can't even get Republicans like Romney to headline their events.

      AIPAC on the other hand is an organization which can easily give any politician of any background at the highest levels(including presidents, like the 'Arabist' Bush Sr) the kiss of death.

      But I get why people are uncomfortable with this debate; they have to deal with the sociological aspects of Jewish ascendance to power. That's why Maddow stumbles why U.S. has gotten more and more bogged down in the Middle East the last 20 years.

      She knows why but it's career suicide. That's also why Walt/Mearsheimer were smeared by everyone, including Ben-Ami and the Forward. So as long as these people hypocritically slam Walt/Mearsheimer because they weren't Jewish and then suddenly turn around and express doubts about the hardliners in the Jewish community, their influence on the progress of the peace process, can someone hand me the sick bucket? Hypocrites doesn't even begin to cover it.

      As long as these people are not willing to openly debate these topics with everyone, and attack everyone who isn't Jewish as anti-Semites, then how can they even bring about change? Fear is what governs them. Deep down, despite all the happy talk about the 'pro-Israel American public' they don't trust the gentiles at all. They probably know that the pro-Israel polling is what it is because these people work day and night to keep them there via political and media pressure.

      So opening up the debate means losing control for these people. And Ben-Ami for all his posturing on the 2SS, is actually enforcing this situation just like Eisner and the Forward when they smear Walt/Mearsheimer. Even Beinart threw them under the bus.

      Also, remember who initiated the 'dual containment' strategy, something completely new post-WWII? Martin Indyk, one of the lobby's top men. Suddenly the U.S. had to have 'permanent' military presence in Saudi Arabia, which angered a lot of people - including Osama bin Laden - together with the 'peace process' sham which did nothing except advance more and more settlements.

      After the dual containment strategy was in play, suddenly it was much easier to launch wars in the Middle East and then the letters pushing Clinton to invade Iraq began to come in, but people forget that Bush Sr was also under pressure from the same forces but resisted(part of the reason they detested him, he actually said no to the lobby). But Bush Sr was actually the last president to seriously challenge the lobby.

      Obama has tried, but meekly and as Kristol notes has slowly but surely moved to the right because he wants to get re-elected. He doesn't push for war outright with Iran but the history on economic sanctions are very clear: they often lead to war, something AIPAC chairs have even confirmed giddily. And the more draconinan sanctions(especially on the people), the more tension, the more likely it is that you get confrontation. The lobby has learned that outright push for war won't sell itself this time, it's better force Iran into a corner where it will be almost impossible not to see a conflict and then the lobby can claim 'self-defence' and at that point a war will be inevitable.

      Obama knows this, or at least he should know via his national security advisers, but he plays along. He can maintain an air of innocence to the American public by selling them down the river for campaign donations and possible re-election. All while the enforcers like Kristol are smiling, privately agreeing that Obama actually very craven to the lobby but publicly slamming him in ads to keep the pressure up.

      In the end, no matter what Obama does it will never be enough. Eli Valley's cartoon was accurate in this sense:

      link to 972mag.com

  • Kristol: 'I don't see it as a huge problem'
    • Krauss May 19, 2012 at 3:00 pm with 1 replies

      Kristol isn't the problem. That guy can never win in the long run. He has monied donors behind him who fund the 'conservative' newsoutlets like Weekly Standard/National Review, once venerable newspapers in the sense that they were close to the grassroots(which didn't in of itself always end well, e.g. opposition to civil rights etc), but in terms of foreign policy it was much more balanced and peaceful than the mad dash to war that is the current position.

      Still, it isn't conservatives who run America. The problem is when liberals run along, like they did for the Iraq war. In the case of Iran, liberal opposition is much more severe, hence the real debate, hence Kristol & co cannot dominate the debate because liberals, esp Jewish liberals, wont give them the same cover.

      The problem is people like Ben-Ami who cling to Beinart's fantasy visions of "It's All Bibi's Fault" when all evidence show that it were the Labor/Kadima parties which historically stood for most of the settlements/war and aggressions.

      But before we get to that discussion; is there any video of the full debate?

  • In '92, AIPAC president raised $1 million for Bill Clinton -- and he supported the settlements
    • Krauss May 18, 2012 at 4:29 am with 1 replies

      Good comment.

      Maybe we'll put Aaron Sorkin on the job, the guy behind the Facebook flick?

      There are Jewish themes in that film too, how Larry Summers went out of his way as the dean of Harvard to protect Zuckerberg after he stole the source code, even after Zuckerberg racially taunted the original creators.

  • Dershowitz attacked from right for supporting two-state solution
    • Krauss May 17, 2012 at 3:11 pm with 12 replies

      Phil, in the latest Shalom TV interview with Dershowitz, he actually says he supports the settlers. A total freudian slip, he's then immediately asked on this and even then he sort of hedges the whole thing. He says he supported the Gaza settlers who were evicted in 2005. But those were far-right lunatics.

      And this man still passes for a liberal?

      You can see the interview here:
      link to blip.tv

      The settlements comments at around 19:00 onwards.

      He also says that Arabs on the West Bank are treated better than "anywhere else in the Middle East"(ca 30:30).

      I have to admit I am amused by The Dersh. He epitomizes the conventional wisdom and it's good to check in from time to time to check if anything's changed or if the people have dropped their mask in a moment of weakness, and such is the case now.

  • Walzer says Jews were on the left because the left supported Jews
    • Krauss May 18, 2012 at 4:41 am

      Sorry ToivoS boy you lose on this one.

      Mooser's shtick is as old as it is simple: whatever I say, say the opposite.

      A good example is here:

      link to mondoweiss.net

      I did a post, Mooser as always goes against it and then gets totally shut down by an actual Asian.

      This is a repeating pattern and for you to enable it and defend it, well, speak for yourself and not the entire site :)

    • Krauss May 18, 2012 at 12:32 am

      Mooser your entire existance is based on saying no, so why should it be different now?
      At some point people stop paying attention to someone who never takes himself seriously.

    • Krauss May 17, 2012 at 4:31 pm with 5 replies

      Mr. Weiss! This is the favourite kind of post of mine that you write, Jewish anthropology, so here is where you're wrong.

      First, Mr. Kirsch isn't on the 'right'. He's a centrist, just like Jeff Goldberg who leans social-democratic on economic and social issues, but through his strong Zionist core is forced to occassionally (and with difficulty) abandon the Democratic party culturally from time to time, and increasingly so, on Israeli issues.

      The view you take once you defend Israel against the left is essentially a conservative position. You decry the 'naive' leftists who cannot comprehend the 'barbarious' Arabs. In your head, you start to rank races according to various categories. It's called racism, but this is the position more and more Zionists are forced to take. Others, like Beinart, dispair.

      See it from this view: people ask why the white working classes vote Republican. And the answer is simple: the Democratic, overwhelmingly white, elites hate them. They serve as a redemption target to show everyone(mainly other whites in a status contest) who is the biggest anti-racist. And since hating yourself, in persona, isn't really that wise from a power perspective, attack your own group but do so by class. And go after them geographically, too. So that's why poor, white working class voters in the South is the most attacked target.

      These voters also cannot circumvent affirmative action or the less affluent (and more violent) of the illegal immigrants, who move to their neighbourhoods while the rich white liberals get the sophisticated Indian IT professionals and fascinating Iranian artists who live close to them.

      So, the left asks, why do these voters vote against their economic interests? And here again the left is blind. You cannot only look at people through the prism of money. Even Marx himself attacked this notion as the fallacy of the 'Economic Man' as if we're all rational moneymakers. Marx understood the huge value that culture, race and identity has.

      So too for Jews. We still lean left, and even when we are on the right we're liberal socially and economically(pro-gay marriage, pro-immigration, pro-libertarian, pro-free trade etc). Very few Jews are comfortable with old school WASPish conservatism, namely social conservatism(although moderate), religious focus, tradition, no immigration and foreign policy isolationism.

      This is why the neocons came into the Republican party, to make space for Jews and turn the party much more towards Israel and Wall St(where we never had problems) and slightly less from the oil and energy industries in Texas(which still have an important role but by now are eclipsed by Wall Streeters).

      So, increasingly, Jews are drifting to the right culturally, but we're still often to the left economically. And since people tend to vote on economic issues first and foremost, Democrats will still win the majority of the vote, but economic issues will slowly be swamped by cultural and sociological issues, it will slowly and surely drain away the vote.

      Remember, as late as 2007, both parties were seen as legitimate. It's only post-Obama that leftism in of itself is out of favour, in large part because of Zionism's clash with the liberal values of the modern secular left. And this conflict which Beinart spoke about(although in a context of young Jews) is happening now, for everyone. And some people, who feel strongly about Israel, are slowly becomming disillusioned.

      I don't think they will become Republican, rather they will lament the fall of Rockefeller Republicanism and the fall of the Clinton Democrats, both of whom have fallen to a Democratic party which is populated by intellectuals increasingly prone to outright Keynesaism(under the guidance of the eminent Dr. Krugman), away from the traditional embrace which the Clinton Democratic intelligentsia have had towards Wall St. And culturally, too, because of minority growth etc, it is very much so progressive. Israel among this crowd has no chance. At all.

      We saw the early seeds of this in the whole debacle concerning Think Progress last fall. The Israel Lobby may temporarily hinder, but it cannot undo. It is merely prolonging the inevitable breach, and some Jews are paying attention.

      Still, feeling abandoned by the left doesn't mean Jews will go into the arms of the Republicans, who have drifted far to the right. Jews will increasingly become politically embittered and cynical, that's my guess, with an increased minority core on both sides of the political aisle who acuse each other of extreme things while the disillusioned middle look on in dispair.

  • The left lacks an analysis of the neocon rise
    • Krauss May 16, 2012 at 2:13 am

      Yes, the Left(capital L as in a movement) has a tendency to get stuck on socio-economic analysis. We often forget cultural or even racial motives, at least when it comes to minorities.

      True, poor people tend to be more violent. But in the wake of Trayvon Martin, there were a rash of hatecrimes against innocent whites, ranging from 13 year olds to 72 year olds, but the left didn't want to talk about it or when pressed, we reverted to "well it's not hatecrimes, people are poor, frustrated etc". If the colors had been reversed, had we rushed to the socioeconomic analysis? No, because whites are much more affluent and suddenly we can factor in race. That doesn't mean that all gangattacks on blacks by whites are racially motived, sometimes it's just thugs, but a significant section probably are. The same is probably true when the roles are reversed, but then the left is stunted.

      I find the same pattern, but on a larger meta-scale, when it comes to these issues. I've read bizarre texts that see everything through the prism of corporate interests. Apparently it's the corporate sector which is propping up Israel, beside the fact that most of the Corporate America's interests are in oil-rich Arab nations(it is true that companies like Apple or Intel have moved significant resources to Israel because of the technical intensity there, but it's still minor compared to the vast oil interests Western companies have in Arab nations).

      The Left simply cannot deal with racial/cultural motivations, at least when it comes to minorities. It's fine to say, white middle class voters sometimes don't want welfare because they distrust blacks/latinos and want more for themselves, that's an economical motivation for a single family but it becomes a racial pattern when it's systematized. But the left simply cannot understand the wars in the middle east serve a purpose. To quote Walt the other day in his speech: "The Israel Lobby wasn't the only power pushing for war in Iraq but absent it's presence it is doubtful there had been a war, or at the very least there would have been a much more vigorous debate".

      In the run-up to (possible) war with Iran it's only the Israel Lobby which pushes it. American and Israeli security establishment chiefs are both against it. The public in America is skeptical. But the constant propaganda from people with a clear ethnic motivation keeps it up on the table, but the left cannot explain this. They are still stuck in the "corporate america wants all this and is the root of all evil".

      But it's true; it can be dangerous to push the ethnic line too far, but it can be a bit of a pandora's box. Some people can keep a proper seperation, but some people can't and it starts to evolve into a Jew-bashing fest. That's always a danger, but the question is, do we mitigate the dangers or do we sacrifice a truthful analysis and babble on about Corporate America instead and vaguely talk about "that's what we do" as if all these things happen by themselves. They don't.

  • We're still losing
    • Krauss May 12, 2012 at 1:18 pm with 2 replies

      Phil, to be blunt, was she Jewish?

      Look Israel is a very impressive country economically and in terms of innovation. The last Nobel in Chemistry went to Israel. So it's happening now.
      I stumbled across a link in the UK Guardian the other day about a paralyzed woman being able to complete the London Marathon(16 days after it begun with many breaks, mind you) with hi-tech equipment latched onto her body that stimulates her nerv cells.

      Who made that revolutionary equipment, why you ask, an Israeli of course. A Jewish Israeli. So yes, Jewish genius is reaping a lot of economic benefit for Israel and if you're Jewish, it's an obvious point of pride. Even as a Gentile it impresses people.

      Still, she had to go there to be wowed. You said both were nodding in agreement when you had them for dinner. And how many people can go to Israel?

      No, the conversation's changed. But thinking this will go down without a fight is naive. I've often said that Israel will be much harder than South Africa because Zionism has hijacked Judaism, they can claim minority persecution when criticized for their push for war, dragging America in with them. They have a much more organized lobby. South Africa basically only had the word of Reagan, and even he only saw them as useful as long as the Soviets, by then in rapid decline, existed.

      Israel's usefulness to America has since long passed, but they have said lobby and much more cultural power, and this is why you understand why we have to have an internal Jewish discussion on this because there were no circular firing squads within the top echelons of the MSM if you attacked white rule South Africa. And that is the case here.

  • 'Liberal and enlightened'-- and all white
    • Krauss May 8, 2012 at 2:26 pm with 9 replies

      Although I don't live in the States, I have family and very close friends over there and communicate with people living across the pond every day, I read more U.S media(almost only U.S media in fact) than any European media, as well as blogs, journals etc.

      Race is, first of all, a much more debated topic than in Europe. Here we may talk loosely about cultures or religions, almost always implictly talking about Islam, but not so much about race in of itself.

      I also think Europe is, at least racially, more integrated. 50 % of all black men in the UK have a white wife, and almost as many black women have a white husband. (In the younger generations, there are even a little more black women who are newly intermarried).

      In Europe, or at least in the UK, class is the main divider and social marker, unlike in America where it was and remains race.

      As for segregation... I read a lot of economic blogs and journals and I try to read a few economic working papers from NBER a week to keep up to date, and the research that, EPI institute, among others have done show to more segregation today than in the 50s(although it depends a little how you count but still).

      From my relatives, at least those at Ivys, I hear stories of quite profound segregation. They claim Asians tend to self-segregate most, and since they are about 25 % it has a larger impact.

      As for Jews, I do think that WASP/Jewish integration is now so great it is indistinguishable. There are still minor divides, but if you look at the first, say, 20 employees of Facebook, or the co-founders of Pinterest(the most important one is a guy named Silberman), or look at the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists who are most successful you see names like Andreesen Horowitz, you see a great mixture of Jewish and WASP/Germanic names. But they're all white.

      It reminds me of how Buffett came to power when he was young, he idolized a Jew and the Jew rejected him because of past racial wounds, but Buffett's naive and persistent wish to look past history and merge the best and the brightest from both peoples soon made even Graham melt.

      But whatever can be said of the healed Jewish/WASP divide, it hasn't spread between the races, only within intra-ethnicities.

      It also reminds me of a comment that Max Blumenthal made in an interview I listened to a while back, when he was an up-and-coming progressive journalist and went to this conferenece, many of whom bonded during the 2004 Howard Dean campaign. And he said that he kept thinking to himself how extremely white all the surroundings look like. I do think most young progressives today are people of color, but the higher up you go, especially in media, the whiter it gets.

      Some of the most white companies are media companies, and this is a hypocrisy many of the left never want to talk about. If I am cynical, I may be sensing that they are projecting their own racial insecurities and white guilt upon Dunham, because she is so young and succesful, and that he is staking the same path as they did and they never atoned for that, so they'll do it through her.

  • Are Obama and Netanyahu now joined at the hip for election season?
    • Krauss May 7, 2012 at 2:48 pm

      Annie, it gets worse. Take this part:

      Someone must surely have reminded him what the Jewish voters did to George Bush Snr., who on the eve of the 1992 elections dared to make economic aid to Israel conditional on freezing construction on the settlements.

      Jewish voters? C'mon, the political firestorm resulted because of organized power, leveraged by the lobby. Eldar should know better than this.

  • Who's the anti-Semite?
    • Krauss May 6, 2012 at 12:43 pm

      Great catch, Phil, shows just how important it is to have what Max Blumenthal calls "J positive blood" to tell the basic truth surrounding Zionism in America.

  • I always knew Nana was Jewish, but it only came up once
    • Krauss May 5, 2012 at 3:42 pm

      That you don't still have the stone your great-grandfather gave you disappointed me a little bit. But otherwise a good story.

  • 'Let go of two-state solution insanity' -- says Illinois congressman who supports transfer
    • Krauss May 5, 2012 at 10:07 am with 10 replies

      Expect the liberal Zionist 'shoot-and-cry' brigade to come around in a few years, those who were never liberals to begin with(Goldberg, Dershowitz et al) to this proposition.

      It will look something like this:

      ---------------------------------------------------------------------

      Yes, they will sigh with a heavy heart, this is far from ideal. And we should make the transition as peaceful as possible. In fact, we're so good liberals that we will even sponsor their budgets to a large extent the first few years(actually those people won't, nor will Israel, it will be the American taxpayer who will foot the bill under 'security arrangements').

      We've tried it all and we cannot accept the 1 state solution, sorry, not after the Holocaust. Perhaps our peoples can live in peace if they have some distance, perhaps, if one might dream a little, might some of them return one day?

      But we've tried it all, and it's useless to blame anyone now. Create a new state in Jordan, we will do everything we can to help them succeed. We don't like this, believe us, it hurts a lot. And it has made us depressed(I even started taking Xanax...) but it's come to this. There's no other way out. Those who criticize us always wanted to destroy Israel. The extreme left and the extreme right both won.. us moderates in the middle are left holding the bag and we're forced to this now...

      So create a new state in Jordan. This is better than destroying Israel, as it will plunge into civil war. There will be bloodbath. I fear a new Holocaust. This is the only solution now, after the zealots on both sides of the political spectrum won. Us liberals are simply too nice. To be liberal is to be divided etc etc. From now on, however, we must never fold to these two extremist camps, both on the right and on the left. We musn't let the zealots dictate the agenda anymore. It's their fault this happened, while we stayed mum and let them run the show.
      This must change.

      And the first step to that is a new, fresh start in Jordan. Free from the historical baggage and bad blood. Avoiding the end of Israel and the horror of a new Holocaust. It is the only way out now. It breaks my heart, believe me, it does. But we are now forced into this position, betrayed by all centrists who refused to stand up against the extremists. May we never return to that situation ever again, and most importantly of all, may we never forget about peace!

      // Liberal Zionist over 'n' out.

  • It's apartheid in the West Bank, but Obama and liberal Jews are too 'intimidated' to say anything -- Perlstein in Rolling Stone
    • Krauss May 4, 2012 at 11:14 am with 1 replies

      Neither brave nor special. Simply needed to maintain his liberal status.

      And I think this is what we will increasingly see in the coming years. Real liberals simply won't accept the pseudoliberals like Jeff Goldberg or Alan Dershowitz for much longer.

      Rick senses this and positions himself early on to save his face. But at least he is honest enough to admit that he is a limping coward who shun away from this topic and took on the easiest topic any left-wing journalist can take on: right-wing Christian Republicans.

      Max Blumenthal also took them on, but he understood soon that there is a bigger issue out there that nobody wants to talk about. And it cost him nearly his entire career, but he stood up for his liberal principles, instead of craven careerism like Pearlstein who feeds off left-wing bigotry of Christians evangelical Christians(many are not rabid Jesus freaks, quite a few even leftists). Blumenthal will one day be vindicated and people will be ashamed that they didn't stand up for him when it was not opportune and when it was convenient and comfortable to stay silent and attack the easiest targets out there. And I don't want Pearlstein and others who didn't lift a finger and who cynically positioned themselves very late, to receive the same praise, because they deserve none. They went over to the other side once the shift was already well underway and it was no longer possible to pretend not to see, hear or understand.

      I still maintain that the biggest reason why the topic on Israel has opened as much is because of Walt/Mearsheimer. Even the frantic Zionists at Tablet Magazine admits as much(calling them anti-Semites for the millionth time) in a recent piece.

      Finkelstein also did great, before he snapped and become a centrist 'liberal' Zionists who spends his time throwing up all over BDS claiming 'they want to destroy Israel' as if he is a right-wing loon.

      Still, he deserves recoginition for his hard-work and the sacrifices he made, just like Walt/Mearsheimer and Blumenthal. And yes, Mr. Weiss himself too. Pearlstein is a poser who understands the gig is up and better pro-actively position yourself to further enhance your career before it becomes too obvious and too transparant.

  • Israel's sassy gay best friend tells it to 'look at your life and look at your choices' before you start WW3
  • Beinart warns Jews that not talking to Palestinians and anti-Zionists 'makes us stupid'
    • Krauss May 3, 2012 at 4:40 pm with 7 replies

      The talk was interesting as a temperature of the Jewish community. I don't know how representative it was, but I'd gather it was a more mixed crowd than, say, the Jpost conference.

      Beinart basically had 20-25 % of the crowd with him, Gordis had the absolute majority. Gordis came across as below Beinart's level on both knowledge and intellect. He was good at cracking jokes and zinging oneliners, though, and he's a crowdpleaser. He gave them what they wanted.

      At one point Beinart got heckled. For me the most powerful point came when Beinart flatly pointed out after Gordis' long rant that he never even mentions the Palestinians. Beinart mentioned both, and he should be honored for that.

      Still, how hard is it to appear liberal when you're facing a man who claims settlements isn't the problem?

      One thing I kept thinking is that Gordis is really isolated intellectually. He may think settlements are a non-issue, because they are in Israel and have been for a long time, but that isn't the case internationally. Whenever Beinart pressed him he went for rants(often clipped-together oneliners) that tickled the crowd but were all variations of the same themes(it's all their fault. Judenrein! The left is dead, deal with it. Settlements aren't the problem!).

      Beinart didn't debate that well, he stumbled a lot. I felt he got emotionally constrained. His power rests in his superior intellect and vast knowledge. The man is an encyclopedia on Israel. He often got strung by Gordis' wind in his back(via the crowd) and Gordis' ability to make jokes and always attack Beinart for "romanticizing the Palestinians" or "saying things no Zionist can do" without much further substance. This constantly forced Beinart on the defence.

      Beinart was best when he simply stated that Gordis has no plan. Gordis nominally opposes settlements(just like Goldberg or Dershowitz do) but like them he says no at everything which might stop their expansion.

      Gordis even slipped at one point and said he supports the 'natural outgrowth of settlements'.

      Yet the most interesting aspect for me was the crowd. I believe the crowd was more diverse than the JPost conference. It was also hosted in NYC(at Columbia), so the demographic ought to be more liberal(but as we know, Israel negates all such natural effects).

      And yet Gordis won hands down with the crowd. Beinart said something true; that speaking with those who disagree make you smarter. And it's obvious that most people simply don't like that, they want to be fed the oneliners that Gordis and people like him feeds them, because that's safe.

      And this made me think. Hasbara isn't just directed towards non-Jews, it's also an internal thing, and it's actually remarkably consistent. The same bulletpoints that Zionists like Gordis preach to the world, they also tell Jewish audiences.

      And it's also somewhere here that it just hit how totally screwed the internal discussion is. Beinart is simply very isolated, we have to admit that. Sure, there are a few intellectuals here and there, but by and large, he has been unilaterally attacked. And he isn't even that much of a leftist.

      This is part of the reason I was disappointed when the Methodists voted down the disinvestment bill; because this conflict won't be resolved within American Jewry. It's too entrenched and too tribal. I think the reason why Beinart will fail is because of the same mechanism that both he and Gordis were in absolute agreement on; that tribalism is the essence of Jewish life. And that implicitly means that tribalism will be in conflict of principles, including liberal principles. So how can Beinart act surprised when he asks why Jews were at the forefront of the civil rights struggle and not for equal rights inside the Jewish state?

      I don't mind tribalism in of itself, but when you say it's the 'foundation' of Jewish life. Gordis went so far as to say that 'for too many Jews, Judaism has become more about the religion than peoplehood' what he really meant was 'we have to preserve our racial purity'. This is also why Zionists talk about 'maintaing the Jewish characte within Israelr' while they of course mean the pureness of the racial balance within Israel.

      But they can't say those things in an open way, they can only wink and nudge so the audience gets it. Why? Because that is not what a liberal says - and they know it.

      And Beinart's constant appeals to this sentiment - his almost only agreement with Gordis during the night - just furthers my point.
      No, change won't come from inside, because tribalism is put ahead of principles.

      It will be forced from the outside and that will be traumatic. But there's no other way, which was proved that evening.

  • The benedictions of Benzion Netanyahu's racism
    • Krauss May 3, 2012 at 12:45 pm

      The biggest upset in my mind is how gentle Obama treated him - although I bet he knows the man was a straight fascist.

      Do read Mr. Derfner's rundown:

      link to 972mag.com

      It's more than awful to read this and see the man being lionized - why? - because Zionism is the Golden Calf of our times.

      But the even bigger surprise is the praise that Jeff Goldberg - who insists on calling himself a 'liberal' - has showered on the man.

      I remember he did a post a few years ago where he admitted that Benzion had 'a large impact' on me via his books on anti-Semitism.

      And in Goldberg's final words, he kept the praise up. And I think this is a key detail. If your cues about anti-Semitism is taken from a man who believes that 'Arabs are inherently barbaric by nature' and other outright racist statements, then what does that say about you? Yet I bet Goldberg won't have to explain how he can be inspired by the writings of a genocidal racist - let alone still insist on calling himself a liberal.

      Why? Beacause of Zionism. It bends all the rules.

  • Video: United Methodist Church votes against divestment
    • Krauss May 3, 2012 at 12:50 pm with 4 replies

      Good catch. And as I noted yesterday, in light of this utter spinelessness, it isn't surprising that mainline Christianity, often associated with upper-scale WASPs, is totally dying out. What do they have? Nothing, only the empty rhetoric to grease the insiders.

      If that movement has any future it is young people, often minorities, untainted by 'white guilt' towards any and all minorities and since they are minorities themselves, they can see themselves in Palestinians much easier, while the feckless white progressives still somehow feel bad about the Holocaust - as if they caused it, despite the fact that their grandfathers fought Hitler.

      But you take in a Zionist troll like Jeff Goldberg who starts screaming Holocaust and Hitler at the top of his voice, and you bet the Methodist establishment all falls in line. Pathetic and weak.

      However, 40 % is a working number. Do anyone know when the next conferece is? I also heard individual Methodist congregations have already moved to disinvest.
      And I'm still looking for the Brooklyn Parkslope BDS motion to be returned at their next annual meeting. Never give up, keep pushing.

  • United Methodist Church rejects divestment
    • Krauss May 2, 2012 at 7:17 pm with 2 replies

      This vote confirms why the mainline Protestant churches are in decline and have been for decades. They don't have any energy or a spine to take a stand for anything. They all just chummy along, laying out nice words but when it comes to actually have their mettle tested, they fail each time.

      I wouldn't be surprised at all to see major concerted moves behind the scenes by people like Dennis Ross (or his equivalents) at the major Jewish communal organizations. In fact, it would be a crime of them not to engage in silent diplomacy to sabotage the vote.

      And this phenomenon of white progressives ceding to Jewish conservatives on issues they would never do with non-Jewish conservatives simply because it's Israel and Jews are a minority is something Phan Ngyuen have written about, most recently in the Brooklyn Co-Op. It's a sweet gesture, in some sense, it indicates sentivity to Jews in general, but it's also misplaced. A lot of these 'Jewish representatives' don't really represent anyone beyond their own narrow organizations.

  • His excellency Michael Oren to address American Jewish organization on 'facing our challenges together'
    • Krauss May 1, 2012 at 12:50 pm

      This sort of reminds me of the disgraced Anthony Weiner.

      The man went on a brilliant tirade on the need of the public option in relations to health care and then the next second claimed he was part of the "ZOA wing of the Democratic party". ZOA is the oldest Zionist organization in America and routinely compares Palestinians to Nazis.

      And he got away with calling himself a progressive because obviously there's a lot of Anthony Weiners in the Jewish Establishment who hold otherwise progressive views but then tolerate people and opinions of those like the ZOA among their midst.

      Or people like Amb. Oren who ambushes 60 Minutes segments before they even air on the TV, implying they are anti-Semites.

  • When Netanyahu described Iran as Amalek -- read, Hitler-- NYT passed this along as rational thinking
    • Krauss May 1, 2012 at 12:46 pm with 1 replies

      Part of the reason why Goldberg is so effective is that he is a natural born liar. He is so breathlessly dishonest that few people can stomach themselves to the levels of pathology as he can.

      His thrice backstepping proves this point. Not once. Thrice.

      He always changes the story when debated. He doesn't defend, he smudges the story.

      It reminds me on the same day as Beinart posted his NYT Op-Ed about what he called the non-democratic Israel etc. Goldberg immediately went on Twitter and threw up all over Beinart, claiming he is disgusted because "boycotts on Jews - I know where this ends". Of course he was talking about the Holocaust.

      But when Daniel Levy of J Street confronted him about this in a smash piece on the Atlantic, Goldberg smudges the facts again and backtracked, playing offended and claimed he never went for that.

      When he can't backtrack any longer he lashes out, calls people anti-Semites or worse. In the case of Jews, he likes a different method; quoted other people saying nasty things and then adding skeptical(but not dismissive) comments next to them. So when he debated Glenn Greenwald, he prominently quoted a reader calling Glenn a 'self-hating Jew', while Goldberg didn't confirm this, he didn't deny it, and then added he thought Greenwald wasn't a very committed Jew (adding fuel to the self-hating Jew meme fire).

      If anyone ever wants to study how to become a slimy mainstream media enforcer(not insider, enforcer), then go look no further than Goldberg. The man has mastered the 'art' of mudslinging like no other person, as well as the propensity to lie and deny at almost pathological rates in almost every debate. Goldberg gets away with it, because his targets are usually left-wingers and often idealistic ones who don't like to lie and who are not often aggressive people, often people who are sensitive. And this is why he gets away. And if anyone non-Jewish pesters him enough, he'll play the race card to finish them. The man has no scruples whatsoever, a fact he greatly exploits to his advantage.

  • Ulpana, high drama in the wild wild West (Bank)
    • Krauss April 26, 2012 at 10:39 pm with 1 replies

      Don't worry, those clowns will come out when it's all over and sell scores of book based on empty posturing and false narratives, blaming "all sides equally" like Very Serious People.

      Also, Annie, I believe there were actually three more outposts legalized in the same drive. The Bibi regime has done this in the past. They take an occasion like Independence Day, where they know that the Obama administration cannot really attack them for fear of the donors/lobby and then just go full speed ahead.

      link to ynetnews.com

      It apparently just happened days ago, in silence until the EU picked up on it. The article says that the US also 'condemned it' but I would venture it wasn't a high official like Clinton in order to let it fly under the radar.

  • Widely-imitated, Beinart is giving Jews permission to be, unh, liberal Zionists
    • Krauss April 25, 2012 at 3:46 pm with 1 replies

      This sounds about right. Beinart should not be attacked or denigrated for unwarranted reasons - but neither should he be treated in a way his deed does not warrant.

      Walt/Mearsheimers were the real trailblazers - and as you said, coming from the non-Jewish perspective too, which is double impressive. That takes genuine courage.

      Beinart's role is to rehash the argument, make them less vague than W/M were forced to do(that's why they kept talking about 'Christian Zionists' to desperately avoid the attacking force of the lobby/Jewish establishment, but failed), and, via his impeccable Jewish credentials, basically tell Jews "it's okay".

      But in the end, he's the back-up guy. The amplifier. But he didn't take the leap when it was dangerous - nor did he back them up when they came under fire. Nor has he given them any credit. He has only casually referred to them once in a reply to Bret Stephens as 'figures widely loathed by the Jewish establishment' and that was it.

      Beinart poses like a trailblazer, but as I previously stated, he has gotten all this free media, there's a huge commotion. Everyone is acting like he is incredibly brave, but all one has to do in his position is to have a thick neck. He is having more access to the MSM than ever before, while W/M were shut off, smeared and were denied any chance to respond to outright calls of anti-Semitism. Their careers languished and they were booted out, kicked off from events. Beinart goes to liberal think tanks and is treated like a hero. But he never says whom he can thank for that.

      Maybe it isn't a coincidence that he climbed up the greasy pole so fast? Maybe I'm being unfair to him. But I am still awaiting Max Blumenthal's book. It will be much more honest and less riddled with false narratives á la 'It's All Bibi's Fault And The Alternative Is So Much Better', while every reader of this site knows deep down that such a line of reasoning can be described as a joke at best.

      But I bet you that Blumenthal won't get an entire section of his own at Newsweek or free Op-Ed's, pick his favourite liberal think tank for long discussions, or having a media blitz to everyone from Charlie Rose to Wolf Blitzer. Because Blumenthal's message may be naked but it is true. But don't expect Beinart to give anything than a backhanded and lukewarm compliment at best, if not outright ignoring him - like Beinart ignored W/M when it was tough. Because Beinart is a self-described Centrist and that means he is always behind the real trailblazers and then rehashing their work and taking credit for it. Don't be surprised to see a sequel on Crisis to Zionism based on Blumenthal's book in a few years from now, and don't be surprised if the MSM hails him yet again as a daring truthteller, while ignoring Blumenthal just like they are ignoring W/M now.

  • Krugman jumps into debate over Beinart with both pinkies
    • Krauss April 25, 2012 at 2:45 am with 2 replies

      I have a slightly different take on Krugman.

      Sure, his main business is economics. But I am an avid reader of his blog and he is clearly very, very interested in politics. He has written about the democratic deficit in Hungary, for instance, and even scolded his readers for being insufficiently interested in democracy when they complained about a 'marginal country'. He said that it matters, because the world is about much more than numbers.

      He also did a seperate post, last year I think, scolding an economist who did an analysis of something I don't quite remember, but there was this throw-away line in this economist's blogpost about dislike for politics. Krugman immediately jumped on it and said 'economists must care about data and models, but politics matter too'.

      Just a few posts before his post on Israel, Krugman did another post on Hungary, linking to another NYT columnist.

      The guy isn't solely focused on economics. He does care about democracy.

      And although I can't comment on his Jewish identity, I believe his wife is Gentile(someone may correct me on this) and he generally doesn't come off as very Jewish in his identity. In his public appearances, like the one at 92nd Y street(a very Jewish institution), he hardly made any reference at all to anything Jewish. He is very much so assimilated. But apparently assimilated in a way which doesn't interfere with his Jewishness, because he brings this up.

      And I concur with Phil's mild critique(is it fair if I charaterize it that way?), because I think that although support from Krugman is important, it's flawed and in many ways cowardly.

      First, he blames this current government. But either he doesn't know or he doesn't let on that the current policy is no major deviation from policy by Labor-led governments on the issue of settlements. The ruling that forbade Palistinians in the WB to marry Palistinians within '67 Israel(unlike Jews who can do it) came under a Kadima government, remember, the 'alternative'? And under which regime did Operation Cast Lead happen?

      The statement of support is in of itself significant as a bellweather, but if his support is for a flawed concept then how does that advance anything, it's the Let's All Blame Bibi-line which lib zionists love because it gets them off the hook and let's them pretend the alternative is vastly different - which it isn't. Likud has in many ways been less bloodthirsty and settlement construction came to a peak under Ehud Barak. It's important to always emphasize this.

      Beinart peddles the same myths. I see Mearsheimer/Walt as far more courageous, because they were non-Jewish and they were the ones who changed the paradigm. They were ahead of everyone else and they paid a much steeper price. Beinart may face critique but his career has actually lifted because of his book, because people understand he is right. Whereas Mearsheimer and Walt stopped getting invitations, they were smeared as anti-Semites and not merely 'misguided' or 'Israel bashers' and they didn't get an opportunity for NYT Op-Eds or their own Newsweek column, their own Newsweek blog/forum, or a media blitz like Beinart has done all over the MSM.

      So no, Krugman is wrong. And his support came much too late, because reading his blog makes you understand the man does care about democracy and politics. He knew what was going on but stayed silent almost forever and now he came out when it's safe and he endorses a false narrative.

      As I said in the beginning, this move is yet another sign of the changing tone of the debate, but Krugman shouldn't be praised for doing something which by now carries little price, especially from an establishment Jew like him writing in the NYT.

  • Algeria and Six-Day War led Lanzmann to make Shoah (and to deny the Nakba)
    • Krauss April 23, 2012 at 11:12 am with 3 replies

      Good catch. And it also underscores that problems in American Jewry is perhaps more global. American Jewry may even be more liberal than it's European, Canadian or Australian counterparts - this despite the thick opposition to human rights for non-Jews in Palestine.

      And Israel, which once (hilarious to view it with modern eyes, I know) was described as a 'light unto the nations' is now instead a blemish on the Western hemisphere and may indeed even act as a trigger to increase clannishness and reactionary thinking.

      This is perhaps the sad, bitter truth underlying the otherwise glorious revolution of Jewish emancipation in the last few centuries. Not only did Gentiles free us (which means we were powerless to do it ourselves) but the Reform and Conservative movements drew their power from the liberal fountain of Western (and overwhelmingly non-Semitic, European) Enlightenment.

      Reform and Conservative Judaism were seen as a path to the future, to escape our brutish ways of the past. We like to think of ourselves as liberals, and in many respects we are, but it is troubling that the closer to our 'roots' we go, the more the rhetoric becomes thuggish and simplistic. Watch it over the reactions against Beinart. Against not just critics of Israel but even critics of Judaism. Debate isn't interesting. Just stamp out all non-believers.

      No wonder Spinoza fled to liberal England, where he could flourish intellectually uninhibited outside the narrow confines of the Jewish community!

      Israel is perhaps our return to the shtetl. Maybe we never left.

  • Auden wrote 'by far' the best book in 1945, but was denied the Pulitzer for alleged Communism and aloofness from WW II
    • Krauss April 19, 2012 at 10:26 am with 1 replies

      I really liked this short snippet out of the hinterlands of the Middle East.
      I hope you can follow this up. I also miss your personal reflections from your own personal life. Sometimes with a Jewish theme, sometimes not.

      The incident with your neighbour, and the builder, is still a short story that I return to.

  • Jodi Rudoren heads for Jerusalem
    • Krauss April 17, 2012 at 1:26 pm

      I think she herself has good, balanced intentions. The problem is that she is a marked target. She clearly showed from the beginning that she comes with a clear and stated goal of seeing the truggle from both sides. This means openly talking about apartheid-like policies as well as covering condemnations of calls to terrorist violence.

      The last guy, who had a son in the IDF; still works for the Times on these issues but from back home. I think in some ways will nullify a lot of concerns the lobby has. Because if she ever veers off track, the folks at home can make sure it doesn't get to print.

      I still think chances are high she won't serve the full 5 year term. But the Times don't want to appear weak before pressure and needs her to stay a year or two. She will probably be let go because of 'inexperience' or whatnot. She already has too many enemies.

  • Peggy Noonan blasts Republicans for Iran warmongering
    • Krauss April 16, 2012 at 1:25 am

      Editor of the WSJ page is the ultra Zionist Bret Stephens(former Ehrlich).
      So the question is: how long will she last if she keeps this up?

      My guess is that we won't find out. She will return to the fold like she should.
      Any long-term deviation means you're fired.

  • Denial
    • Krauss April 13, 2012 at 4:11 pm with 3 replies

      Mooser, as always you totally misunderstand everything.

      I don't know what mental demons you are fightning but don't project them on me. You clearly understand very little of what I am trying to say.

      I usually don't try to feed the trolls, but I will note that I've never ever seen you post anything thoughtful or intelligent.

      You so want me to be this demonic Zionist. If you even spent a few moments you'd see I don't even believe in a 2SS anymore.

      But of course, that requires mental effort. It requires seriousness.
      It requires that one steps outside of petty trolling.

      Too much to ask.

    • Krauss April 13, 2012 at 10:41 am with 20 replies

      This reminds me of your post about Doris Lessing, as she grew up in white rule Rhodesia, how she was hated by the whites. Most of them weren't bad people. They were just used to British imperialism. It had been so for their fathers and grandfathers. It was the world that they were used to. And they knew that if they took her words seriously, their world would fall down.

      Of course, in the Jewish context it's much more painful. By the time she came about, Britain had ruled the seas for centuries. The British people did not know true suffering(in relative terms, compared to the vast majority of nations in the world). And those who did suffer, at least, did not wind up on large mansions in central Africa hunting and relaxing.

      In the Jewish context, the powerlessness and chronic weakness is the backdrop. Jews don't know power. We've never really tasted it. Sure, you have a Rothschild here and there. But what did that help? Most of them cared more about helping the British empire than their fellow Jew. Some even renounced their Jewishness in order to blend in.

      A lot of Jews do not know this today, but at the onset of the French Revolution, the Sephardi Jews who were at that time the highest-ranking Jews and some of whom had made names for themselves viciously attacked the vast Ashkenazi Jewish masses for being 'not like them'. In fact, when they sought Jewish emancipation, they insisted that Ashkenaz and Sepharad were two distinct races alltogether and any Jewishness is more illusion than fact.

      The french came to their senses and decides to give all (formal) emancipation, regardless of skincolor or ethnicity. But this should be remembered, how Jew turned on Jew. This is the end result of centuries of humiliation. This is what the early Zionists detested when they spoke of the 'Diaspora Jew'. He who crowered in the shadows and sold out his fellow Jews, poor and huddled, for approval to his Gentile masters at whose steps he danced like a clown.

      What happened as a reaction to this was an overreaction, as we can all see. But unlike European peoples, Jews have never tasted power. We cannot comprehend ourselves as oppressors of another people. It's a new role for us.

      So I think it's a generational issue. The price to pay for Jewish normalization is that you have an older generation which is incapable of thinking of themselves as regular humans. Many Jews still think, deep inside, that they are frankly incapable of being racists - as crazy as it may sound. This is all a legacy of Jewish collective history.

      But among those my age, under the age of 30, things change. True, in every population you will have racists and chauvinists. And unlike a white European Gentile, there's no punishment for a white Jew to be a bit of a racist, because, frankly, there is still deep anti-Semitism in the world(although the West). Just look at the TV in a lot of Arab countries(of course, Islamophobia is growing in the West, and totally exploding in Israel).

      But as I've become convinced of now.. the Jewish transformation will take generations to complete. And there isn't that kind of time. That's why I think it will be Gentiles who will do what will be needed. Beinart's book was easy to publish. The pioneers in the American discourse were Walt/Mearsheimer. They weren't the first, but they were the most comprehensive. They had all the right credentials and the high-powered intellect. But most important of all; they had to courage to write of what they wrote without beings Jews. They broke the barrier, despite the enormous backlash.

      The people who ended Jim Crow were a large mix, but most whites, even in the North, did not mobilize. Jews had a special role in that. Not that we were inherently more moral, like some people still think. But because we as outsiders of the power structure understood the hypocrises and the corruption in the system, and we exposed it. The most bizarre thing in Jewish modern life is that in a record short timespan, we've switched places and become part of the corrupted establishment.

      Now it is we that hold another people under oppression, and silence all who wish to write about it truthfully(because they have to deal with our political and media power, the latter of whom which not even Walt/Mearsheimer dared to step into).
      And this transformation is a revolt against all our history. So that we are even having this conversation is itself a small miracle. And we shouldn't perhaps be too harsh against the likes of your friend, while not forgetting to remind her of her cowardice.

  • Anti-Zionism will reemerge in American Jewish life -- Beinart
    • Krauss April 12, 2012 at 6:13 pm with 5 replies

      lysias, that's another thing I regret - the death of Yiddish.

      I understand why it had to be buried - too connected to Ashkenaz civilization, the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, who spoke Hebrew (and often even better Arabic) felt alienated by it.

      So when Israel was founded, there had to be a compromise. And Yiddish didn't have the roots in Judea and Samaria that (old Hebrew had), so it lost out on romanticism, and the other communities, jealous and embittered by Ashkenazi domination of the state, didn't want language to be another reminder of their subdued status. So yes, I understand why Yiddish had to be sacrificed at the altar of Jewish unity. But still. That altar was Israel and it may not even last another decade or two. And Yiddish was a thriving language for almost 1000 years. Today few people speaks it and it is slowly dying out, most speakers are quite old.

      Yiddish also had a very strong cultural history in Eastern Europe, further undermining the role of the langauge to be a global Jewish language. But it's a better language, it's a richer language. And yes, as an Ashkenazi Jew, I prefer it.

      Modern Hebrew is a bastard child of last minute nationalism.

    • Krauss April 12, 2012 at 9:25 am with 9 replies

      What's the annual rate of Jews who make aliyah to Israel? 4800? If even that?
      At the same time you have an emigration rate of Israeli Jews to America at about the same rate.

      So for years the net migration of Jews to Israel from America was pitiful and it hasn't changed and probably won't be changed dramatically for the next decade. If anything, the net emigration could probably accelerate in the coming years if things turn ugly and Israel becomes a state in which there are not only wars frequently but where war is permanent(and Israel is fast going to such a place).

      Herzl's dream of Israel, as the central cultural life of World Jewry, has collapsed. Israeli Jews differ from their American equivalents increasingly every year. Judaism is cheap in a country where it's all around you and you don't have to make an effort.

      Israel has instead become our 'insurance policy' and our intellectual pet project. It gives us a cause to unite behind, to stem the 'disease of assimilation' as rabbi Stephen Wise recently castigated it in a sermon intended to attack Beinart.

      It's also a way for secular, atheist Jews like, say, Alan Dershowitz or Sheldon Adelson who have been in Las Vegas or Hollywood all their careers and not exactly had a deep spiritual life. By being an extreme Zionist, they feel they can redeem their Jewish deficit.

      But this blinkered support for Israel, which has long ago moved beyond mere self-defence and now moved into the territory of wars of aggression, makes anti-Semitism in the West slowly re-awakening. People start to take notice that being pro-Israel all of a sudden means you have to support aggressive wars, or else being accused of being in favor of a second Holocaust. And those wars aren't even local skirmishes anymore, they can totally wreck these people's pension plans, their family income and their jobs. Not to mention the source of recruitment for fundamentalist ideologies.

      That is what you get when a state starts getting everything it wants, everything it points at. Without exception like a spoiled child with temper tantrums. Of course, Israel has since long ago moved beyond such harmless metaphores.

      But it also means that to have a true Jewish revival, two things have to happen. The first is to slowly let go of the Holocaust as a central part of Jewish identity as it corrupts your world outlook and makes you filled with venomous paranoia about the goys. The Holocaust should never be forgotten but it shouldn't be the one thing that ties all Jews together. And the second is Israel. Judaism should return to it's humanistic roots. But it's much harder to build something genuine up. To answer the complex questions of young Jews about the ethnocentric streak of Judaism in a time of amazing liberal tolerance and progress.

      To these Jews, the older American Jewry, in a sign of their own deficient Jewish understanding, have given only fear, shame and religious nationalism - layered with Holocaust alarmism.

      It works to some extent of keeping Jews in check. But at what cost? The quality of someone's Judaism is equally - if not more - important than merely being engaged - and for what reasons. And the militaristic uses of Israel as a blunt tool to rally Jews around a common cause has cheaped Judaism beyond belief. To be a 'real' Jew these days means equating your Jewishness to militaristic bloodlust, and if you don't support that you're a 'self-hating Jew'.

      This is, to put it bluntly, a disaster waiting to happen, if it is not already happening.

  • Amira Hass explains why Israel's U.S. model of ethnic cleansing failed, and why 'Jewish regime' will 'crumble'
    • Krauss April 11, 2012 at 11:51 am with 16 replies

      There is an additional point to be made.

      The comparison with America vis-a-vi Native Americans is something even 'liberal' Zionists like Bradley Burston do. He ridicolously compared America at 63 years of age with Israel - despite about 150 years difference. The world was a very different place ca 1840 compared to today. Not a single country allowed women to vote. Slavery was legal. And so on. But apparently this didn't stop Burston from trying to defend Israel by defaming America.

      The same is true of Native Americans. There simply isn't a comparison in the modern, Western world to Israel. That's why it's supporters have to invent facts or go back 150+ years to find a country of equal footing(and what should that tell you?).

      This doesn't mean that Western countries discriminate against ethnic minorities, but it does mean that America or any other modern Western state like Canada, Britain, Australia etc don't control millions who can't even vote or even access clean water. Or have specific laws which prevent people from certain ethnic backgrounds to marry each other (like the law in Israel which allows settlers in the West Bank to marry a Jew in Israel 'proper' but an Arab in Israel 'proper' can't marry a Palestinian under Occupation).

      But again, what's surprised me is the extent of moral corruption even 'liberals' like Bradley Burston, an editor of Haaretz.com no less, are filled with. Same is true of Goldberg. We can't have a clean, liberal message until the charalatans and posers of liberalism are exposed and excommunicated from the liberal community unless they actually adopt a true liberal position. The longer people hear outright racist comments and comparisons from 'liberals' - without getting punished for it - then the more it dilutes the message of genuine liberals, like Max Blumenthal.

  • Hasbara in 1988: 'despite difficulties, South Africa is a vital, progressive state with much to admire '
    • Krauss April 9, 2012 at 11:09 pm

      One thing I noticed right off the bat was the insistence of white rule South Africa to stress the 'complexity' of the situation. If we look at the hasbarist #1 in the States, Jeffrey Goldberg, that is also his favourite weapon of choice. Critics must understand the complexity, damn it!

      Of course, Goldberg has a second, potent, weapon which white rule South Africa didn't. The appeal of minority status in the West. I am talking about the offensive uses of anti-Semitism, as a weapon of choice, to silence critics.

      Third, white rule South Africa didn't have a strong U.S. domestic lobby to work on it's behalf.

      Despite all these shortcomings, you are right about the similarities in propaganda effort. And the attempt to stall and smear by the likes of Goldberg should be seen for what they are. Yet, as you have previously pointed out, too many white progressives defer to Jews in these matters. And even among Jews, too many liberal Jews defer to the more right-wing ones(even those with a liberal gloss like Ben Adler at the Nation or the increasingly naked Jeffrey Goldberg).

      The complexity attack is part and parcel of this. But the second attack, that of anti-Semitism, is the one that keeps it in check and prevents too many spineless white progressives from actually doing the hard work like you do and look at the similarities of the propaganda.

      One final thing: I am continually puzzled why the best stories are not put at the top of the frontpage. This should be put as the main story you see as you come and visit. Yet it's hidden way down among the other stories. It's a shame. For this long, quality post deserves much more publicity than it gets right now.

  • 'Struggle is now for equal rights for everyone in Greater Israel' --Gideon Levy
    • Krauss April 5, 2012 at 12:42 pm

      The time for charade has ended. The 2SS has been dead for a long time. When the top elite of the Israeli political spectrum brag how they increase aid and subsidies to the settlements(in order to expand them) spinning bullshit tales about 'an extremist minority holding the Israeli mainstream captive' simply won't cut it.

      Go look at Mapai. Look at Ehud Barak's record. Look at where Labor today recruits it's voters(tip: it's beyond the green line, often far away).

      'Democratic Israel' is a fiction of a 'liberal' Zionist mind, intended to soothe rather than clarify.

      Levy understands. Even Bradley Burston starts to understand(the guy who attacked Mondoweiss and even compared Israel at it's 64th birthday to American at it's equivalent, despite centuries of difference in the time that they exist in).

      Beinart will some day join Levy. Jeffrey Goldberg will fight until the bitter end, side by side with Dershowitz and Foxman.

      Remnick(editor of New Yorker) isn't far behind. He understands.
      Roger Cohen at the NYT, also.

      And the first step to that is pressing on those who maintain their illusions, like children and their favourite blankets. Delusion only prolongs the inevitable, and by cutting short the path which we are now on anyway, trauma can be spared.

  • Leading sociologist says 'the enemy' includes 'disloyal' individualistic young Jews who push human rights
    • Krauss April 4, 2012 at 3:13 pm with 3 replies

      Cohen's words are not only wrong - they are immoral and frankly even a little bit frightening.

      Because you don't want to side with Jews at all costs - even when human rights are trampled - you are now suddenly 'part of the enemy'? How can this guy even call himself a liberal, much as Alan Dershowitz can and doesn't get called out on it?

      This isn't a Jewish issue. Time has moved on, folks. Why should, say, French people ignore human rights just because the abusers are from the same ethnic fold as they are? That's the essence of what Cohen is demanding of Jews. That's tribalism over liberalism, which isn't a genuine liberalism to begin with.

      I sincerely hope that this is merely a generational issue, but even so, I don't hear Gentiles talk like this his age where I live. Something's wrong.

  • The 'Jewbags' photo
    • Krauss April 4, 2012 at 11:42 am

      It reminds us why so many non-Jews want to marry Jews (because of our wealth)

      Sounds like a mini-smear to me. From my experiences, there is now such intermingling at colleges that gentile boyfriends/girlfriends tend to become wives/husbands. I doubt it's about money for a lot of people, except perhaps for a few (mostly female) golddiggers who buy all the stereotypes(with some good reason!) for all the wrong reasons.

  • Beinart gets a Jewish conversation going in the media (just don't call us a cabal)
    • Krauss April 4, 2012 at 11:55 am with 2 replies

      Good catch. Phil's on an ethnocentric streak today. First his smearing of the goys as golddiggers and now these sly comments. I love these emotional highs and lows from him.

      Ultimately, criticising Zionism should be like any other ideology. You shouldn't be a communist to be able to criticise communism. Your personal biography shouldn't matter, which was and is the case with Beinart.

      The only thing that should matter is the logic of your arguments, whatever the outcome. And I don't think most Americans can afford to wait for permission and with the Walt/Mearsheimer breach, they are not doing that either at increasing rates. I still hold both them and their book as far more important than what Beinart did, and much more courageous too.

      Now, if the conversation beyond Jews is starting to open up regardless of our wishes; will it lead to anti-Semitism as Phil fears, if there's too much pushback? Now he does sound like he is voicing (inverted) communal fears, heh.

      But I'm not sure. If there's a more open debate on Israel then that would mean that there's a more relaxed attitude about Jewish power and privilege, especially in-between American Jewry. But would that really alliviate anti-Semitism? If people would start paying attention to owners of Hollywood, major media etc then frankly I'm not sure if "opening the conversation" would reduce any anti-Semitism. Holding back might not be what most of us want, in terms of the Israeli debate, but what's the alternative?

      Because in my mind you cannot explain the total devotion to Israel in our culture, media etc without talking about significant Jewish presence in said institutions.
      But I wouldn't personally want that conversation; call me selfish. I'd prefer the hideous situation vis-a-vi Israel to be solved without this conversation, but I suspect that it's impossible.

  • 'The Crisis of Zionism' and the contradictions of Israel as a liberal democratic fantasy
    • Krauss April 3, 2012 at 3:19 pm with 2 replies

      Great point, Annie.

      Even in the event of a creation Palestinian state, the Israeli political climate wouldn't be much changed. This has brewed for decades. Ethnic cleansing would be demanded as a "just compromise" and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see numerous "liberal" Zionists backing it as a fair deal.

    • Krauss April 3, 2012 at 2:41 pm with 10 replies

      Great, great post, Austin!

      I've noticed the selective amnesia among many so-called 'liberal' Zionists. Beinart goes to much further lengts than many to be intellectually honest and he deserves credit for that but the fact remains:

      It was Labor, not Likud, which expanded the settlements the most during the 90s. This is why Oslo will always be seen from afar as a bastard child of Israeli expansionism and settlement construction by independent observers. Whether that was the intention or not is really a moot issue. What matters is, as they say, 'the facts on the ground'.

      Beinart himself lashes out against the Jewish establishment but he was editor of TNR, the über-establishment magazine, in the 90s and saw it all happening. What did he do? Nothing. He had a career to tend. Same with Iraq. But there he even pushed for it. And even as late as 2006 he released one of the most bizarre neocon warmongering books I've seen, but with a liberal gloss.

      There is usually a charge by his right-wing critics of vanity and political opportunism, now that criticism of Israel may still be dangerous but isn't instant career-death as it used to(which is probably part of the reason why he waited as long as he did), the charge of opportunism does carry some weight. And where was Beinart when settlements increased the most?

      In many respects he is years, or even decades, too late. But he had a career to tend. And now the settlement projects is so ingrained into Israel so it won't untangle itself. And now, after all these years, he comes out when the ground has already been plowed before him.

      But he still refuses to talk about Labor's role in the 90s, because that ruins his whole 'Bibi did it' narrative. And that's precisely the problem with his polemic. It massages the egos of liberal Zionists but it's totally divorced from the truth. And the truth hurts. Because it's been their dear 'progressive' parties in Israel which expanded the settlements the most.

      Also, Likud has historically been less warmongering than it's more leftist political opponents, as strange as it may seem. Netanyahu has kept that tradition. But that's also something Beinart won't dabble in because it shows Israel in it's full view, and then it's much harder to blame a single party or a movement instead of seeing the broad de-facto concensus that exists in Israel today.

  • Iowa. New Hampshire. Yad Vashem
    • Krauss April 3, 2012 at 11:47 am with 7 replies

      Christie isn't that popular with the Adelson's of the world. He's actually quite against Islamophobia and racism of any kind. When he appointed a muslim to a high post(it was judicial of some sort) he was slammed by the racists in the "pro-Israel" community and called them "a bunch of crazies".

      Still, he's also very much into the whole Christian Zionism business, so it's complex. I think his first trip to Israel has more to do with him posturing for 2016 than as a VP. He's Romney's closest political ally so if he wants VP he will get it regardless. This is a longterm play and I actually don't think it's donor base this time.

      Sure, the Adelsons/Semblers of the donor base matter but there is a genuine and deep Zionism inside the Republican party which coincided with the rise of the Christian Right. It doesn't need money to sustain itself like the much more shallow Zionism of the Democratic party, evidence of Obama no less.

      We shouldn't underestimate the role of rich Jews in the political process but we should neither forget that there are deep cultural trends at play here too. Jewish money may massage those trends but that doesn't mean it's behind them all-together.

  • Activists post mock eviction notices in campus dorms to highlight Israeli home demolition policy
    • Krauss April 3, 2012 at 12:13 pm

      Yes, good initiative. This kind of action needs to be made nonstop. Nonstop.

      It isn't possible to do these bursts of actions a few times a year and then hope for the best. Substantive and long-term committment beats flashy confrontations. When a regular student fumbles around in college without a clear direction, if they see this huge clash they just won't tell the difference from afar and think both sides are just crazy and then disengage.

      This kind of unilateral action is far more effective. You'll never win over the hardliners and the racists. Much better to focus on the disengaged middle. It's better to get a general feeling across of what Israel (as it is today) really stands for rather than try to get everyone to become superengaged - it doesn't work that way. Most people in the anti-Apartheid boycotts in the 80s weren't that engaged but there was a critical mass of activists which kept making the topic discussed and debated and informal links were deepened so even if you didn't actively sought out information, you knew enough about the racism and oppression by just being on campus that when the vote came, your vote was sold in advance to further and advance boycotts.
      VP of Comcast, owner of MSNBC.

      The Afrikaaners were never close to that kind of soft cultural power, hence it was much easier to just get the truth out. Activists dind't encounter the kind of mudslinging that pro-peace activists encounter when facing the barrage of hasbara and smear campaigns. But even so, the basic methods are the same. Intensity and regularity is key.

  • A twitter debate on Israel/Palestine and racism
    • Krauss April 2, 2012 at 2:57 pm with 2 replies

      Weiss covered the way you can outright racist and nativist stuff like "demographic abolition" under the cover of Zionism. And Beinart even tweeted his approval of Adler's piece on his twitter feed.

      That should give some here pause.

  • Former State Dep't official says Obama calls for human rights and democracy are 'undercut' by position on Palestinians
    • Krauss April 2, 2012 at 11:02 am with 4 replies

      But it doesn't work like that. Dennis Ross operated in silence, and so must the opposition. I think people generally overestimate the amount of power you have in office, even as president.

      Beinart will be able to move the discourse much more than Obama can - because Beinart isn't looking for re-election. Of course, Walt/Mearsheimer were the true trailblazers, especially since they wrote what they wrote without them being Jewish - their biggest crime.

      Beinart to this day uses them as a punching bag, last time in his response in Tablet to Bret Stephens' vitriolic attack. I hope someday he will apologize for his brazen opportunism. We owe more to the new discourse to Walt/Mearsheimer than we do to Beinart or anything else.

      But what can you do in office? There's a pecking order. And even a President has to obey his donor base. So who hold the real power?

      People always underestimate the power of the media. In a real and free democracy, media power usually beats political power. That's why the left won on the cultural issues, because it dominated the universities and it filled up the media over time. The neoliberals won the economic argument because those policies help the rich and powerful(and thus those who can donate cash). Rich guys don't tend to care about cultural arguments, all they care about is money.

      I think Ms. Slaughter will be able to exert more influence on policy debate over the long term out of office if she is skilful enough. Certainly more than inside the Washington bubble.

  • My spirit is American (a religious manifesto)
  • SFO Jewish Library (you read that right-- library) cancels panel on Jewish activism because participant supports boycott
    • Krauss April 2, 2012 at 10:56 am

      Ah silly me, here I thought that blanket Jew-baiting statements concerning millions of liberal Jews is perhaps the definition of racism - that whole groups are judged on the basis of their identity instead on an individual basis or at least sub-group basis(i.e. Jewish neocons) - is somehow the antithesis of liberal discourse.

      Silly me.

    • Krauss April 2, 2012 at 2:32 am with 2 replies

      "American Jews have hijacked liberalism just as neocons hijacked Conservatism."

      Let's slow down there, buddy. If you mean 'American-Jewish liberal Zionists of the Dershowitz/Goldberg kind", I'm with you. But American Jews as a masse?
      I hope you don't mean that kind of ugly rhetoric over a whole group of people.

  • Covering Adelson, Matthews leaves out the 'Obama Oy Vey' factor
    • Krauss April 2, 2012 at 2:17 am

      No, you're right, he's as Establishment as they come.
      He even made sure to team up with the UPenn dean, Amy Gutman, right before the BDS confernce and condemned it.

      My sense from the whole affair was that Gutman is a professional and stayed that way for most of the time but apparently Cohen became irate the closer the conference came and made sure to drag Gutman along him to publish the rant that he had written up, just a day before the conference was to start. It was an astounding political interference and a show of deep unprofessionalism.

      But Cohen has connections to the donor networks that Gutman needs and these days deans are more fundraisers than intellectual leaders so I guess she had no choice when the donor base roared. Sort of the same situation in Congress and for politicians like Obama who needs that $$$ for re-election.

      Personally, I don't care what positions he holds in his heart. He has every right to express them. But when he lobbies the Dean of the school to take a political stance like that, then it crosses the line. Then it becomes political pressure from a guy who is not supposed to get involved on campus politics and it was intended as attempt to chill freedom of speech. It was clearly intended to draw a political line on behalf of Israel alone, and that has nothing to do with a university in America. But Cohen's a devoted guy and if he has to breach professional ethics for his no.1 Issue(like Adelson) then he has shown himself willing to do that. And remember that he's VP of Comcast, the owners of MSNBC and other TV stations.

      And notice that he fundraised millions for Obama too - at his personal home. So of course Matthews is avoiding the topic. He operates within the Establishment. He gets the money but not the freedom. In the end, which is better? Which do you prefer?

  • Jewish food fight (at Park Slope Co-op)
    • Krauss April 1, 2012 at 10:34 am

      Yes, yes, yes and yes. Brilliant post.

      And I cringe when I see terms like "demographic abolition" coming from 'progressive Jews'. It's a racist argument because it's based on blood and race, not liberal principle.
      The same is true of the term 'preserving Israel's Jewish character' which is really 'preserve the race, or it will be diluted!'. Again, often coming from 'liberal' Zionists.
      I had hoped those arguments had died with the Nazis.

      And I remember that some 'progressive' rabbi, when attacking Beinart' used the term 'the disease of assimilation'. We haven't kept our doorstep tidy. We did wonderful work under the civil rights movement but failed to introspect. And now it's all falling out at the same time and it ain't a pretty picture. But we have to start somewhere and we'll be better off from it.

  • Those who criticize Israel join campaign to 'slaughter the Jews en masse'
    • Krauss April 1, 2012 at 10:24 am with 2 replies

      Once upon the time the position this nutcase has was the de facto position of the entire Jewish mainstream establishment. A significant portion still has it, but they are less and less speaking in this manner.

      The fact that this kind of shrill rhetoric is increasingly moving to the fringes is in itself a sign of the times and how the debate is shifting.

      But I would add to what one commenter wrote on Annie's post on Sullivan; namely that this isn't a Jewish issue anymore in exclusive terms. When America(and by implication the West) is gearing for war against Iran basically only to appease Israel(despite the strong opposition of the Pentagon/Army) then it becomes an issue for everyone, including those outside the Jewish cocoon. And I guess that's a good thing. And fact, I'm sure of the fact that it's a good thing. I, too, enjoy how Goldberg is getting hammered by Sullivan and Gentiles like him. Because few people are as risibile as Goldberg, who is a make-pretend liberal and dirty the term.

  • Obama and Republicans have to support Iran war 'because of funding from certain ethnic groups'
    • Krauss March 29, 2012 at 3:55 pm

      A sign of the times. I feel uncomfortable when I hear him dabble in anti-Semitism.
      But we can thank AIPAC's bluster and open contempt for American democracy for that.

  • Ethnocentrism and journalism (Beinart's double standard for Israel and Iraq)
    • Krauss March 28, 2012 at 12:47 pm with 9 replies

      I didn't think I would be writing "in defence of Beinart" but here we go.

      My main contention is that, as you noted, one part of the reason why the Trayvon Martin case was pushed so hard was because a lot of black (and probably hispanic, too, at least before Zimmerman's photo became public) journalists felt that this had hit home.

      On the other hand, 90 % or so of all deaths that happen to young black men by other perpetrators are by other black men. There was some kind of former NAACP director who spoke about this. But why was this case so hardly fought? Because it had the stirrings of the oldest of racial conflicts in America: White/black. Since then the case had been complicated by a lot.

      But the fact is, in that moment, when facts were scarce, large sections of the (mostly progressive) media rushed to judgement and attacked Fox for holding back coverage before more facts were known(so now I'm even defending Fox, wow, this keeps getting better).

      In an idealistic scenario, this case would have been followed but the tone which suggested that this was somehow an already set case was a disaster, and it was mostly the case on progressive media(where most black journalists are, except NPR which has almost no black journalists since Juan Williams was fired). So did the black journalists act more out of ethnocentrism rather than professionalism?

      I would be tempted to say yes. Even if Zimmerman is found to be guilty, the due process should be observed.

      What is the larger point made here? That ethnocentrism isn't necessarily a good thing, regardless of who is doing it, but that it seems weird why you would attack Jewish ethnocentrism but praise black ethnocentrism. One of the points I'm making here is that this is something that is normal. White(as in non-Jewish/non-Hispanic) ethnocentrism in the media isn't as pronounced, at least among liberals, but it's probably a subtle factor too. You take an outsized interest in stories which are relevant to your upper middle-class life with mostly white friends and family.

      So the devil's advocate might counter: all points made are sound but there's a difference here; scale of impact. Jewish ethnocentrism, because of Israel, and because of our(in my opinion, wonderful) rise to prominence has much more pronounced consequences in terms of bloodshed and war(now let me be precise, I am not saying that 'Jews are behind the Iraq war!' I think we were part of the more minor players but the thing to remember is that no matter how large or small part we were of the pro-war movement, either by silence or by tacit support, we have an obligation to clear our consciences regardless, as moral human beings and Jews. This is especially true because we have an outsized impact on the media and the political process. We cannot play victims forever and we have to take ownership of our privilege, which I think Beinart is in some sense saying too.)

      But whatever the role of AIPAC in the run-up to Iraq, still a debated topic, nobody can argue on the case of Iran, which has basically no chance of producing any plausible deniability for the Israel Lobby(or, more precise, the AIPAC part of it) to hide behind; because everyone knows who is beating the drums of war. And AIPAC is still vastly more powerful than J Street is in terms of funding/congressional power etc.

      And these counter-points are well-taken. And I think Beinart's blind support for Iraq probably inspired him - in part, of course - to write about the 'ethics of Jewish power'. He recently said on a Shalom TV interview that AIPAC celebrates Jewish power but neglects it's responsibility.

      That sounds about right. I don't mind Jews in power; it thrills me. But I agree with Beinart that too often there is an outdated view of the Jew as this powerless, hapless and downtrodden victim. That hasn't been the case for decades. And the fact that he has started this conversation from the inside means that it will be hard to acuse him of anti-Semitism or other dark motives(although the self-hating Jew is still available).

      And that is a contribution, because as Israel is growing ever more militant, we need critical debate in the Jewish community. And whatever criticisms one might have with Beinart, the fact is that he has changed his positions and we are all better off by it.

  • Jewish establishment-backed mayoral candidates rush to denounce Park Slope BDS effort
    • Krauss March 28, 2012 at 8:06 am

      This is why this was always going to be much harder than with South Africa. There was no Afrikaaner lobby in the U.S.

      They didn't have major political figures like billionaire Bloomberg on their side, or Seth Klarman, or entire political streams dedicated to them(like the Neocons is mostly about Israel and then added with a few mashed-up neoliberal domestic policies).

      This will take time. BDS has to be judged in context, not against the near-oppositionless forces that the anti-Apartheid movement faced in the 70s and the 80s.

      Even Congress voted for boycotts in the mid-80s, something Reagan vetoed.
      Can you imagine even getting 5 votes in the House on this issue?

      People need perspective and patience. The Park Slope effort is the kind of effort we need. We need a progressive critical mass first. Do this again in just a few months. Do it in lots of other places. Once the progressive grassroots are taken, then continue to new places. The politicial establishment is always reacting to last year's powerstructures.

  • Bloomberg warns BDS will lead to 'massacres' as Park Slope Co-op holds initial vote on boycott tonight
  • 'J Street' review-- mixed, but positive
    • Krauss March 27, 2012 at 9:44 am

      I had a few hours to kill and spent them on one single panel at their website where they livestreamed the whole thing.

      It was a panel entitled "Christian Zionists, hawks, neocons and Casino Magnates".

      It was apparently aimed at exploring the various alliances in the Likudnik circles.
      I learned quite a bit about the right-wing Evangelicals(which isn't the same thing as 'Christian Zionists, but the topic was only about the farthest-right). In fact... the panel was just about only about the Christian Zionists.

      Not a single word on the last section, like Sheldon Adelson. He was only mentioned once where in passing it was mentioned that he funded Newt's chances at becomming president. That was it.

      I can't talk about other panels, but it appears that Beinart's appeal to speak about the 'ethics of Jewish power' went unheard. Instead, they all bashed the easiest target to attack in progressive circles - namely Southern, conservative hard-right Christians.

      These people make up a significant portion of the alliance but they are they groundtroopers. It's the donorbase which is important. I can understand if J Street(or rather, it's panel, Michelle Goldberg, Sarah Posner, some guy from Media Matters(Jewish lastname) feel uneasy about this topic. Fine. But if the panel wants to explore alliances, what's the point by talking 99 % about Christian Zionists?

      There is still a widespread fear on these topics, which I can understand, but you should and could at least broach them gently. Afterall, we're talking about a specific subset of the donorbase of a small number of right-wing Jews. Adelson is very colorful and people focus on him but you have guys like Seth Klarman(behind the new right-wing 'Times of Israel') and others like him who are not as visible but still keep an important presence. And what about Haim Saban?

      But I guess it's simply much easier to overinflate the important of John Hagee and totally ignore the real power-brokers, for reasons we all know. Expected, but I had hoped at least a more thorough discussion on all these groups. After all, the title of the panel gave the impression of even balance, something which didn't occur.

      Another thing: I didn't like Ben-Ami's throwing of Beinart under the buss when it happened just before the convention. Even if he said he welcomes different viewpoints it was done in an acid manner and the phrases used "I never said I agreed with him on anything" and such gave an impression of a more strong distancing.

      Some people dismiss J Street as AIPAC lite. I'm not sure. I think there are genuine liberal elements and they had quite a bit of influence in the early days. But Ben-Ami has been steering the organization further to the right as time has gone on.

  • Israeli diplomat chased out of Morocco after mass protest
  • Hundreds of soccer fans crowd Jerusalem mall: 'Death to Arabs!'
  • 'I didn't say I liked Beinart's book' -- J Street head sells his star guest out to his antagonist, Goldberg
    • Krauss March 23, 2012 at 4:33 pm with 2 replies

      Phil, please don't pretend that Beinart is hated by the right. He's been attacked from all sides. The Forward did a recent editorial blasting him and his ideas. They only gave minor tepid support at the end along the lines of "we need to keep the discussion open". They called him misguided.

      Gary Rosenblatt of the NY Jewish Week blasted him. The Jewish Book Review(!) even found space to blast him. Goldberg is, like it or not, the 'liberal' fig leaf of the Israel lobby.

      The attempted elimination of Peter Beinart - led by Goldberg(who else?) - has come from all sides. This isn't a left/right issue. Basically nobody has come to his defence. And his suggestion is very tepid.

      This incident has exposed Liberal Zionism for the fraud that it is. And it also underscores a deeper truth that no matter what may divide them on domestic policy, on foreign policy there is only the AIPAC line and that's it.

      The "liberal" Zionists like Goldberg or Gershon Gorenberg do three things:
      1. Complain about the Occupation to pretend to have a moral pathos.
      2. Attack the right-wing crazies to gain legitimacy among your own. You see Gorenberg only attacking Bibi and his Republican allies - as if the Occupation was a creation of Likud and not the leftist Labor.
      3. Whenever truly pressed, often from the left, lash out and say it's all "too complicated" and it can't be done. Goldberg's attack on the BDS as 'helping the settlers entrench their ideas'. Duh. Like the status quo is helping them disengage. The worst scenario is that nothing changes. That's the worst part. Anything better than that will mean progress, no matter what economical impact.

      Action must always be delayed because of 'nuance'. This is the essence of liberal Zionism. After gaining (or trying to gain) progressive credentials, the main goal is to cast doubt and delay and delay and delay. There's always a reason for why we can't and shouldn't.

      And if all else fails go and play the anti-Semitism card. Goldberg recently called Sullivan a 'scapegoater of Jews' - and we know what that means. Beinart defended Sullivan on Twitter(which probably didn't make Goldberg's intense dislike and jealousy of Beinart any weaker).

      So in light of this, why should we be surprised that Beinart was thrown under the bus by Ben-Ami?

      Since J Street is filled with liberal Zionists, their organizational role is no different than the indivudal 'liberal' Zionist's; namely, to gain progressive credentials but sabotage any real action by saying it's too complicated, it can't be done, it will encourage the wrong kind of people and so on and so on and so on.

      The role is the same. Liberal Zionism exists as a way to suffocate progressive critical debate. You use all kinds of delay tactics and 'yes, but' and 'hmm, but unfortunately' or 'I wish that was the case, but the situation is much more complex than that, so we can't...'

      And if all else fails, pull the race card. I don't see why AIPAC is so against J Street. By pretending to be liberal, J Street buys Israel critical time.

  • Settlers aren't freelancers-- Israeli government is behind them all the way
    • Krauss March 22, 2012 at 10:50 am with 3 replies

      Beinart's critique is really mild and ultrahedged.

      Yet it has been a remarkable sight basically seeing the entire Jewish establishment turn against him. Not just the neocons(who, it must now be official, basically run the entire discourse on Israel while everyone else has a simple choice of either complying or resisting) but the Jewish Federations of North America. The staff editor of the Foreign Affairs, the apex journal of the Foreign Policy establishment(link to jewishreviewofbooks.com
      and now even the editor of one of the largest and most important communal newspapers that we have in America; Gary Rosenblatt at the New York Jewish Week(link to thejewishweek.com

      The attack on Beinart reaches far into both political spectrums.
      This, if anything, tells you about how 'liberal Zionism', if even always at unease with itself, has now quickly reached it's crossroads.

      You can tell by Bradley Burston's(senior editor at Haaretz.com) bizarre postings. One day he is attacking the left, then he is apologizing for it here at Mondoweiss. Then the other day he was attacked BDS for 'being exposed as anti-Israel'. Then he was attacking the ZOA(the favourite target of the liberal Zionists who can pretend to be sanguine in the process of defending Apartheid).

      I think Beinart's hand will be forced sooner or later to accept the 1SS, but I think he will resist it until the very end. But the force of the Jewish (especially the liberal part) Establishment on him to retract and apologize has made it more than clear that 'reform' won't come from the inside.

      Now it basically hangs on Gentiles. Perhaps a younger generation of Jews can change this dynamic but we don't have 10-20 years. And I think if you look at only the last 5 years you see a massive sea change. In 5 years more it will probably be official even to establishment pols that the 2SS is dead and it's now either supporting Apartheid or work for change.

      And in this extreme environment, expect to hear tons and tons of references to the Holocaust and the whole 'the world is against us & they are all anti-Semities out to get us because we're Jews' meme. This is the scary part. Will Israel use it's nukes once pushed into a corner?

      I'm much less worried about Iran the next decade than a radicalized and vulnerable Israel which won't give up the Apartheid it has created but can't out and pretend to be liberal anymore.

      This doesn't end well. And the 'liberal' Zionists had chance to make a difference. Instead they all attacked Beinart, even if his initiative probably had low chances to succeed anyway, it speaks volumes of their corrupt priorities.

Showing comments 266 - 201
Page:

Comments are closed.