Max Boot at Commentary is going crazy over Joe Klein's assertion that Jewish neocons played an important role in pushing the Iraq war to make Israel safe. Myself I have trouble reading a blog entry this long. Also the tone is angry-trumpet:
It is dismaying to see Klein repeat the outrageous anti-Semitic fallacy
which holds that any American action which benefits Israel to any
degree and with which one disagrees is the product not of legitimate
policy calculations but of a Zionist conspiracy…
Likewise, we are now entangled in Iraq because the president, Congress,
and a large majority of the American population thought it was the
right thing to do. To blame the current war on “the Jews”-or even to
make the more qualified claim that Jewish supporters of the war were
compromising American security for Israel’s benefit-is not worthy of a
serious publication
Note to young writers: avoid the words, fallacy and outrageous. The problem with Boot’s anger is, what if it’s true that Jews concerned with Israel’s safety hurt American interests in the Middle East? Some times these things happen. Then serious publications have to report them. And what if empowered Jews (I’m avoiding the word powerful to be nice) shut down museum exhibits in Chicago and discussions of Israel at the Council on Foreign Relations or Chicago Global Affairs Council? These are really serious questions. Fulminating won’t make them go away.
Boot says Klein isn’t backing down and Andrew Sullivan is supporting him. Wow, great. Walt and Mearsheimer will soon be vindicated, in the Atlantic. Interesting that people didn’t go nuts when Klein said this 5 years ago. The fat’s in the fire. It takes a fiasco to raise an idea.
(Thanks to Justin Elliott for the tip)
