Scott McConnell explains why he believes Jeffrey Goldberg has a trigger-finger for accusing others of antisemitism:
It was probably this ,
Goldberg’s long review of Steve Walt and John Mearsheimer’s “The Israel
Lobby”. Instead of engaging the arguments made by two very serious and
highly regarded scholars about Israel and its status as America’s most
treasured ally, Goldberg took his readers on a three thousand word tour
through Osama Bin Laden (and his distaste for “usury”) Father Coughlin,
David Duke, Mel Gibson while very drunk, Louis Farrakhan, before asking
why Walt and Mearsheimer would want to join this “odious tradition.”
(He actually called the tradition “negative Judeocentrism” but that was
simply being clever.)
Anyway, his resort to smearing those whose foreign policy views
about Israel he dislikes by claiming they have joined the “tradition”
of Coughlin, Duke, etc. made Jeffrey a pretty big mover in the labeling
of (gentile) critics of Israel as anti-Semites game. Maybe, given his
umbrage over how I thought he might treat [Sen. Patrick] Leahy [for sympathy to Palestinians], he has regrets about
that review. If so, I’d like to hear them, and I’d revise my opinion of
him.
