On Huffpo the other day, David Bromwich gave Walt and Mearsheimer a laudatory read and expressed shock at the quote they offer from Bush’s Mideast policy guru Elliot Abrams:
How mad is Elliott Abrams? If one passage cited by Mearsheimer-Walt is quoted
accurately, it would seem to be the duty of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee to subject Abrams to as exacting a challenge as the Senate Judiciary
Committee brought to Alberto Gonzales. The man at the Middle East desk of the
National Security Council wrote in 1997 in his book Faith or Fear: "there can
be no doubt that Jews, faithful to the covenant between God and Abraham, are to
stand apart from the nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being
Jewish to be apart–except in Israel–from the rest of the population." When he
wrote those words, Abrams probably did not expect to serve in another American
administration. He certainly did not expect to occupy a position that would
require him to weigh the national interest of Israel, the country with which he
confessed himself uniquely at one, alongside the national interest of a country
in which he felt himself to stand "apart…from the rest of the population."
Now that he is calling the shots against Hamas and Hezbollah, Damascus and
Tehran, his words of 1997 ought to alarm us into reflection.
David, it’s an accurate quote. I’ve played a role in this one. In 2000 or 2001, I was talking to Hussein Ibish, then of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, when he told me what Abrams had written in his ’97 book. I got the book at the Strand and wrote a big piece about Abrams’s Jewish-separatist views that ran at the top of the front page of the New York Observer (hail to my editor, Peter Kaplan!). I sent a copy of the piece to Abrams (ahead of time, as I recall); he declined to respond. I wrote that it was fine with me if Abrams was running Transportation policy, keep him away from the Middle East. No one called for a Senate investigation, alas.
At the pow-wow I had with progressive Zionists a couple months back, Dan Fleshler implored me not to use terms like "dual loyalty." An anti-semitic canard, presumably. Well, concerns about dual loyalty were at the heart of leading Jews’ concerns about the character of the Jewish state up through the 1950s (long before we went to war in Iraq). Here is the head of the American Jewish Committee warning Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion not to urge American Jews to move to Israel, in 1950:
“You are a realist and want facts and I would be less than frank if
I did not point out to you that American Jews vigorously repudiate any
suggestion or implication that they are in exile. American Jews—young and old
alike, Zionists and non-Zionists alike–[my emphasis] are profoundly attached to America,” oil mogul Jacob
Blaustein said. “To American Jews, America is home… They believe in
the future of a democratic society in the United States under which all
citizens, irrespective of creed or race, can live on terms of equality.”
Today mainstream Jewish attitudes have moved so far away from Blaustein out of concern for Israel (post-’67 and ’73) that the political philosopher Michael Walzer can declare at the Center for Jewish History that Israel has ended our exile, and that we Americans are members of a nation that includes Israel; and the audience can cheer.
It is a beautiful thing that progressive Jews are now challenging these ideas. The amazing Orthodox academic, pseudonymous "Jeremiah Haber" has questioned the legitimacy and necessity of the Law of Return (by comparing it to other nations’ policies) and said that Israel must become the country of its citizens. On the TNR website, John Judis has bravely accused American Jewish organizations (including Blaustein’s AJC) of demanding "dual loyalty" of Jewish writers. (What about your boss Marty Peretz, John?) And now Bromwich (who I am guessing is Jewish) is fairly calling for a Senate inquest into a neocon’s statement of devotion to Israel.
Jews are great thinkers! And who let us think–Walt and Mearsheimer!
At least two negative reviews of W&M have harped on the dual loyalty claim. Scary-smart (but mostly scary) Gabriel Schoenfeld said in Commentary last year that this is what W&M had accused Jews of. The Times book review of W&M by eminence-grise Gelb was titled, "Dual Loyalties." A fair question. Let’s have it out.
