A good thing, as Martha Stewart would say, that the dialogue over the Jewish role in the Iraq war is being debated at last in some precincts of the Jewish community. In his ongoing dialogue with Joe Klein, Jeffrey Goldberg asks:
security and argue for American measures that would strengthen Israel's
security? In a conversation earlier this year, Joe told me the
following: "I just don't want to see policy makers who make decisions
on the basis of whether American policy will benefit Israel or not."
Why
not? American policy makers make decisions that benefit other countries
all the time. American troops are in harm's way in South Korea and
Japan, serving as tripwires against North Korean aggression. American
troops are in Western Europe, in Kosovo, and dozens of other places,
all with the aim of providing security to friends and allies. American
troops died liberating Kuwait and defending Saudi Arabia, and those who
argued for the first Gulf War were seldom accused of putting Kuwait's
interests before America's. So why, exactly, shouldn't American policy
makers consider the security of Israel, an American ally, when they're
making decisions about Middle East policy? Support for Israel is a
question that's worth debating, of course, just as support for Egypt
and Kuwait and South Korea and a dozen other countries around the world
is worth debating. But this country has been committed in a most
bipartisan way to Israel's security for more than sixty years. Now Joe
Klein comes along and suggests that American decisions should be made
without consideration for Israel, and he argues that those who take
Israel's security into account when making decisions – at least those
Jews who do – are somehow disloyal to the United States.
Fascinating to me that Goldberg hasn't really thought this one through. Obviously the U.S. protects allies. It's an issue of degree. If we'd kept Muslims in the subcontinent from forming a state for 60 years, while promoting India, what would that do for our reputation in Asia, let alone our national security? That's what we've done in Israel/Palestine, seen to the neverending nullification of the Palestinians' right to self-determination, on one ground or another, because of a special-interest's influence. How did the Kosovars get a state in no time? No Bosnian lobby. I'd like to see "debate" on this issue. As Goldberg must concede, he and Klein have lately become the liberal pole of this conversation, Goldberg notably in this (historic) piece in the Times. They're both Zionists; Goldberg's Zionism caused him to join the Israeli army. Where are the anti-Zionists? Where are the voices that would sever our "special relationship?" At the Yale Political Union. I.e., they're undergraduates by 2-1. But you can't talk about this stuff and keep employment in politics or msm (that's about to change; I'm about to make $20 off my ads today). The 60 year "commitment" Goldberg regards as consensual is a manacle of identity politics, one the State Department Arabists accurately predicted would alienate the Arab world. Which brings us to Jewish identity. It is forcibly naive for Goldberg to assert that Jews don't have some special and burdensome role here (he sez elsewhere in his piece that all Americans like Israel). The idea that they are the "guardians" of Israel is a theme at AIPAC. Jews hold the breathing tube of the existential struggle of Israel. I'm sure he's felt that responsibility himself. Being appointed guardian of an apartheid state has sent young Jews flying out the door. Lastly there's the most important issue, transparency. In Goldberg's happy republic of identity-constituencies, do the ethnic/religious companies have to wear their interests openly? This is the problem an anguished Klein identified in his initial column here: the unspoken religious agenda of the Jewish neocons struck him, five years after the disaster of Iraq had unfolded with predictable consequences, as dual loyalty. At least Goldberg has been somewhat transparent. When defending Israel's treatment of Palestinians at Yivo a year ago, he related his own experience as a member of the IDF and spoke of Israel as "we." No thanks.
