Ron Kampeas
The other day Ron Kampeas of the JTA and I did posts on the Economist article saying that the Jewishness of the neocons was an essential factor to be considered in any analysis of why the U.S. invaded Iraq. I sent Kampeas this note on Facebook (edited here to be less telegraphic). I haven’t heard from him.
Ron, thanks for link today re Economist post. Now a question: It seems inarguable that the world is coming to my position here, the Walt & Mearsheimer position. Their view that the Iraq war was fostered by neoconservatives concerned with Israel’s security has become acceptable in mainstream discourse and may well become conventional wisdom before long. Why do you think this is happening?
Five years ago, the Forward editorialized that it was just the ancient canard: In Dark Times, Blame the Jews.
The Mearsheimer-Walt paper shows how far the notion that Israel is to blame for the Iraq War has moved from the crackpot fringe to the center. Three years ago it was heard mainly from campus radicals. Two years ago it started getting picked up by a handful of Washington insiders, memorably including Senator Ernest Hollings and General Anthony Zinni. Now it’s reached the heart of the academic establishment.
This shift has only continued. So is it anti-Semitism? (I think the cause of the shift is because a, the analysis is true and the events happened long enough ago that the truth will be less painful, b, the Jewish community has obviously split (in ways that it hadn’t when Forward was providing cover to neocons) and so there is legitimacy in blaming not The Jews, but The Neocons.) But I’m asking you. Phil
Kampeas is an old-school kind of Jew. He has the guts to admit he has an apartment in East Jerusalem. He covers stories that are controversial and even in those like the Economist piece saying it’s fair game to point out the Jewishness of the neocons as an answer why they pushed the war in part of their love for Israel(quite a few probably thought it made sense from an American point too), even in those where he disagrees he tried to be fair but still firm on his side.
If you look at the ‘Capital J'(the main political blog of the JTA site) section it’s filled with Ron Paul blogposts. Again, notice the focus on the Old Right, old school Jewish stuff.
Kampeas is too sophisticated to fall into a ‘Israel-right-or-wrong’ trap, but he has these sensibilites that you air the differences ‘inside the family’ and if you must go public, do so in a measured, limited way as to not inflame the situation.
In one some strange way, I have sympathy for him, in part because his way of being reminds me of a more peaceful time in the Jewish diaspora, when things were not easy but at least they weren’t existential in the way they are now, where we have huge rifts inside the Jewish family, Jews calling other Jews self-haters, anti-Semites and the rest. Jewish families not even daring to talk about Israel during the family dinner because it will rip apart the fabric.
In the end, however, I think his approach is doomed. Israel is moving beyond him, way beyond him, and so are the Gentiles. The attitude of Kampeas is the reason why the neocons were able to dominate. People like him were silent or insecure, and revert back to the Jewish ‘ghetto’ so to speak where he awaits for the community consensus.
Those days are over, in part because the concensus has been ripped apart.
This is where Mearsheimer, yet again, was right in his 2010 speech where he outlined three main groups. The New Afrikaaners(Malmcolm Hoenlein, the Commentary Crowd, Jennifer Rubin, Alan Dershowitz and perhaps even Abe Foxman), the Righteous Jews(Weiss, Naomi Klein, MJ Rosenberg, Glenn Greenwald, Joe Klein, increasingly even Tom Friedman and so on). The third group, the biggest group, was the ‘great ambivalent middle’. That’s where Kampeas, like most Jews, currently fit in.
In time, the dynamics will shift towards the Righteous Jews, but the New Afrikaaners still have the power in the top positions in the community. See how harshly they attacked J Street, which is actually AIPAC lite in many ways, then imagine how the rift will grow in the coming decade.
At this point I’m less worried about Israel than I am about World Jewry. In the end, Israel or no Israel, we got on fine without it for thousands of years. In an ideal world where Israel truly would live up to it’s ideals, and not denigrate them each day, I might be a Zionist. But in the end, what matters to me is the fate of the Jewish people, not the Jewish state.
And because of that, Kampeas sitting-on-the-fence approach just doens’t cut it anymore.
There has to be initiative now, you can’t just wait for a concensus that will not come, in part because the rift is becomming so vast between the sides. Kampeas has a duty to air both sides, instead he is obsessed about Ron Paul.
He’s a somewhat decent human being but in some ways encapsulate everything’s what wrong with the average Jewish journalist in America today. So anxious.
If “anti-Semitism” lies in what is said — rather than in whether it is true — then it might appear to be AS to say that the Iraq war was planned, started, and carried out at the behest of the neocons who were understood to speak for (right-wing) Israeli positions. As was once said in law, “the greater the truth the greater the libel”, making truth no defense against a charge of defamation. Are the neocons defamed — it may be asked — by saying they promoted Israeli views? By saying they brought on the Iraq war? By saying they did both? Or is it the Israelis who are defamed by the suggestion that they fostered a war (Oh No!). Or talked to the neocons?
If there is no defamation, where is the anti-Semitism? Or is it just that certain sentences which include or imply the word “Jew” are automatically AS, and the discerning know one when they see one?
BTW, even if the so-called “1%” were 100% Jewish, which I doubt, statements about the “1%” would not be statements about “the Jews” because most Jews are not in the “1%” (I think 2.5% of Americans are Jews). Similarly, statements about neocons are not statements about “the Jews”.
If the U.S. attacks Iran, as it is clearly laying the groundwork to do, this debate will take on a higher level of intensity and deepen the crisis of Zionism.
After the initial flag waving that greets every war, when the consequences we will have to live with as a result of this war begin to become our way of life, these questions about U.S. foreign policy and the enabling role that Zionism has played in the U.S. empire’s colonial enterprise will become more widespread.
They were able to get away with Iraq and Afghanistan because it only affected the small portion of the population in the military and their families. An attack on Iran will impact every American because of the disruption it will cause to oil production and the radicalization it will cause in the Muslim world. I fear it will be a catastrophe for the world, but maybe people will finally start to pay attention to what is being done in their name and why.
wow phil, he linked to 5 MW post, four by you.
he’s wrong. he didn’t invent the term. it’s a new term and they don’t like it, therefore they are defining it (the way they want) and they are demanding people respond to their charges as if the user used it the way they define it.
before this recent hullabalu surrounding the term erupted when i heard ‘israelfirster’ my assumption was it meant ‘someone who puts israel first’. that could be in their consideration of voting, whom to support politically, positions they may take politically, who to fund, etc etc. a large percentage of these people see no daylight between what is good for amercia and what is good for israel. so it doesn’t insinuate these people are being treasonous unless one also insinuates the person being labeled as an israelfirster does not believe this is what’s good for the US.
they just don’t like the term and they want it to disappear just like they don’t like the term dual loyalty. but many people have dual loyalties, that’s obvious and any child who’s been in the middle of their parents divorce knows exactly what i am talking about.
this is all about labeling certain topics they do not want discussed as verboten topics. the tactic of saying ‘well an incident like this has happened before in the history of jews and that was anti semitic therefore anything related to this concept is therefore also anti semitic and is therefore verboten too. and you can imagine how those historical incidences could build up to a point of having many many topics become verboten. even if it gets to the point of erasing or not exploring the truth of the matter.
the truth of the matter is, our incursions into the ME and our FP policy were initially prepared not for us, but for the israeli government. that’s just reality. the concept of our country having a foreign policy identical to any other is not a good idea. we must remain independent. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
george washington farewell address abundantly clear.
the people who pressure presidential candidate after presidential candidate to re assert their alligiance to israel? they are israelfirsters. the people who write congressional legislation with no daylight between the likud party? they are israel firsters. they see no difference between what’s good for the US and what’s good for israel, generally. that doesn’t inherently make them treasonous, although it doesn’t necessarily exclude the possibility either. but it sure as heck shuts us up when we try to talk about it. i am not afraid of them, if someone acts like they put israel first, they deserve the title.
and kampeau should try to stay away from using the term ‘inherently’ when he’s talking about insinuations. one is definitive, the other isn’t.
Phil,
You must be joking that
“It seems inarguable that the world is coming to my position here, the Walt & Mearsheimer position. Their view that the Iraq war was fostered by neoconservatives concerned with Israel’s security has become acceptable in mainstream discourse and may well become conventional wisdom before long. ”
I think the opposite is the case, that it is more and more obvious each day that the reasoning for the war was about oil and restoring the Bush family prestige.
Did you see the Finkelstein interview?
http://podcast.lannan.org/2011/12/14/norman-finkelstein-with-chris-hedges-conversation-6-december-2011-video/
Look at the last 7-8 minutes.