A smear on a good man–Khalidi–in the desperate last days of a presidential race is one of those thrilling political events that is supposed to produce spine-tingling rhetoric. Obama didn't deliver, of course, because he's tight with the Is lob. Josh Marshall did. And here's Glenn Greenwald with a great piece on Salon. He takes the issue where it should go– to the Jewish neocons who have saddled up McCain like an old nag. Because let's face it, the Jewish left will not revive until Jews reject the Iraq neocons as a Jewish movement and condemn its Zionist orientation, and then look at what's happening over there in Is-rul. Greenwald is doing that:
Nobody has done more to trivialize actual anti-semitism than the
neocons and other assorted right-wing polemicists who indiscriminately use it as
a club to beat anyone over the head who deviates from their dictates when it
comes to Israel and other Middle Eastern policy issues — from Jimmy Carter when he published his book on the
Israel-Palestinian conflict to Jim Baker when the
Iraq Study Group report was released. And it's perfectly natural that
one of the most transparent abuses of the charge — the McCain camp's attack on
Khalidi — came on CNN yesterday from McCain
campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb, a protegeé of Bill Kristol on loan from
The Weekly Standard.
The serious pushback against the attacks on Rashid Khalidi is a welcomed
sight. In Khalidi's case, the charges of "anti-semitism" are even
more disgusting than the normal neocon exploitation, since it's occurring in the
last week of a presidential campaign and, as Scott
Horton pointed out, is so plainly grounded primarily in the politically
useful fact that Khalidi is a Palestinian-American. The anti-semitism
accusation is not just manipulative; it itself is bigotry of the highest
order.
But this episode illustrates what neocons have been doing for years and, more
significantly, signals that the efficacy of this tactic is finally coming to an
end. Open debates about U.S. policy towards Israel and the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict are vital, and people should be able to engage in
those debates and be able to take legitimate positions, as Professor Khalidi has
plainly done, without hordes of right-wing manipulators swarming on them with
anti-semitism accusations.
Very hopeful, this piece. The world's about to change!
