Everyone who reads this blog knows what a blurb is, right? It's an endorsement on the back jacket of a book. J.J. Goldberg, editorial director of the Forward, and a kind and thoughtful guy, blurbs Avraham Burg's important new book, The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From Its Ashes, right under John Mearsheimer and over Tony Judt. Goldberg:
"Burg takes a blunt, loving, painful, and desperately important look at the state of the Jewish soul today. Anyone who cares about the future of the Middle East and the fate of victimized peoples needs to read this book and think hard." My emphasis.
I'm going to be posting a lot about Burg's book. It's exalted. (Actually sometimes a little too exalted.) It is a kind of Jewish vision quest for a prophetic idea to help Israel, and the Diaspora Jews, out of a tremendous spiritual and political crisis, the treatment of the Palestinians. As I've already noted, Burg is emphatic about the Israel lobby's negative effect. Here's one quote:
When the Jewish lobby in Washington, the Conference of Presidents of [Major] Jewish Organizations, and the other Jewish congresses and committees gather, only one issue is discussed: Israel. In the eyes of many Jews and non-Jews alike, the Jewish American community is a one-issue community….every time a strategic reevaluation concerning Israel is called for, the silencing voices are heard: Shoah, pogroms, self-hating Jews. Again anti-Semitism, swastikas, and Hitler decide the debate on Jewish identity and an opportunity for dialogue dies before it even begins."
Pure genius. Burg obviously believes there is merit in the most verboten charge made by Walt and Mearsheimer: rightwing Jews played an important role in fomenting the Iraq war. Burg:
"Jews hold stunningly powerful positions and clout in the United States.
The combination of the American state's power and the Jewish power in
the areas of legislation, administration, media, law, business,
culture, and entertainment have made the Jews a defining factor of
contemporary America...Too many of my Jewish American brothers and sisters have become the
beating heart of neoconservatism. They are part of the white,
right-wing, nationalist, and powerful establishment…"[my emphasis]
Back to J.J. Goldberg. He was very upset by Walt and Mearsheimer. In 2006, he ran this editorial saying: "In Dark Times, Blame the Jews." I imagine it was deeply disappointing to the authors. They were surely counting on Goldberg to provide them some cover for their ideas in the progressive Jewish community. In fact, they had cited several passages from Goldberg's book, Jewish Power; but Goldberg ran away like his hair was on fire. (And his liberal Zionist colleague Leonard Fein wrote Steve Walt this crazy letter about the book.)
Goldberg also said that Walt and Mearsheimer were "bigoted," here, in a September 2006 panel at Yivo, all about Jews in journalism. I only saw the panel on video last January, but here is an extended excerpt from my report:
A guy in the audience asked, What about the
disproportionate number of Jews in the media, doesn't that grant Jews
influence? [He stated:] "It does seem we
have a large influence over power."
[Other panelists denied this. But] J.J. Goldberg spoke and basically acknowledged that this was
the elephant in the room. He said that the issue of Jewish influence
over Middle East policy was a "problem." Not a few–hundreds of
millions of people in the Middle East believed this. "It is the
standard parlance in the European intelligentsia, and it is becoming
acceptable in the American intelligentsia and academia and the
blogosphere." Later the same week [September 2006], Goldberg pointed out, Walt and
Mearsheimer were going to be at Cooper Union for their debate… "These are not two schmucks," he said.
"They wrote a bigoted, ignorant and inflammatory paper that made one
good point, that America's relationship with Israel is one of the
reasons that we have the conflict we have with the Arab world" and a
lot of bad points, including, "that Jews somehow conspiratorially
dragged us into that relationship with Israel, that the rest of America
wouldn't have if they knew the truth."
We have avoided the discussion, Goldberg acknowledged, and other
Americans were speaking in an "ignorant, bigoted way" about the issue,
"because we don't know how to discuss it… America is in this
worldwide struggle partly because of something we happen to like
[Israel]. It's awkward. Maybe it's good that the Forward has a
circulation of [only] 30,000 so we can have the discussion openly and
intelligently and the goyim won't–"
Goldberg didn't finish the thought. He meant, let's talk about it without the goyim taking part.
I think I've made the point. When two non-Jews wrote about the special Jewish role in the Iraq war, Goldberg dismissed them as bigoted. But when Avraham Burg, a Jew with unassailable Zionist pedigree, echoes much of what they said about the Iraq war planners, Goldberg says, Hey lissen up. Doesn't this reflect religious prejudice? Burg, by the way, would not limit this conversation to Jews.
P.S. More Burg, on Iran:
Israel
adopted [a] legacy of insecurity characteristic of trauma victims.
Since, then we live under constant pressure and in the contradiction of
unceasing armament to compensate and atone for built-in impotence and
existential anxiety… Even Iran's stated position against Israel and
Judaism does not scare me. They are not only our problem: they threaten
and challenge the entire Western world, and most of the Arab and Muslim
world as well. We should not take the lead on Iran; let others also
worry…
