One of the minor distractions of the Iran deal came when Zbigniew Brzezinski tweeted:
“Obama/Kerry = best policy team since Bush I/Jim Baker. Congress is finally becoming embarrassed by Netanyahu’s efforts to dictate US policy.”
And Jeffrey Goldberg responded on twitter:
“Jews run America, suggests ex-national security adviser.”
Logan Bayroff of J Street wisely tweeted:
“[Brzezinski] doesn’t say or even imply that. Willingness to accuse everyone of anti-semitism makes it impossible to respect you.”
Goldberg promptly excommunicated him:
I continuously defend @jstreetdotorg‘s place inside the Jewish tent. But the behavior of its employees makes such defenses difficult.
Bayroff is national communications chair for J Street U. Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street stood up for his employee:
Can’t agree with your read of
@zbig tweet. Doesn’t say “Jews run America.” You’re putting words in his mouth.No question Bibi has tried/is trying to influence US policy by pushing Congress when he disagrees with White House.
Corey Robin did an excellent post on the excommunication issue. “Can I come back into the tent now, Rabbi Goldberg?”
That’s what nationalism—especially nationalism hitched to a state—does to people. It makes the Goldbergs of this world think they can give Jews a passport or take it away. Well, guess what, Rabbi Goldberg: you can’t. I don’t need you defending my right to be in the Jewish tent because that’s not within your, or any other Jew’s, power to decide.
Bayroff’s point is very important. The belief that anti-Semitism is a persistent condition in the west is a core premise of Zionism. Goldberg’s career arc reflects the fact that his view of anti-Semitism is closer to his parents’ generation than his own; he has said that he once saw a “red river” of anti-Semitism running under American culture, even in Long Island, and that’s why he moved to Israel.
He saw the same red river when Walt and Mearsheimer published their criticism of the Israel lobby, he saw the same red river when Brzezinski disparaged Netanyahu’s influence in our Congress.
Myself, I think the Red River runs between North Dakota and Minnesota. But then Jeffrey Goldberg has said that I’m not a Jew because of my universalist beliefs.
Despite young Bayroff’s intervention, Goldberg is representative of the Jewish consensus. In fact, Jeremy Ben-Ami soon sought to mend his bridges with Goldberg. He does so because Goldberg (who once served in the Israeli army in a prison for Palestinians) is a powerful figure who really does hold the tent-flaps.
And Goldberg also got a handsqueeze from the New York Times correspondent in Jerusalem, Jodi Rudoren (who once called me “upper-class”; and I don’t think she meant that as a compliment). Rudoren tweeted a Goldberg piece saying he was “still very smart.” And the two then canoodled: “Still? Was I ever?” cracked Goldberg. And Rudoren responded, “Yes, more and more so it seems,” and Goldberg asked Who are your sources for this claim, and Rudoren wrote, “It’s my own expert ‘analysis,’ so expect it to be publicly flayed by both sides.”
Which it was– publicly flayed. Still she went on, praising Goldberg.
@JeffreyGoldberg @BloombergView You are multifacted & multitalend. And of course these criticisms have nothing whatsoever to do w/you
— Jodi Rudoren (@rudoren) November 25, 2013
As I say, Goldberg is powerful. And very pro-Israel. That remains the Establishment consensus; in fact the Iran deal shows the reshuffling of the Israel lobby, to make J Street central, but to keep Goldberg on the elevator too. No room for you and me.
”As I say, Goldberg is powerful. And very pro-Israel. That remains the Establishment consensus;”
I’d say Goldberg is only powerful (useful) within the Zionist establishment.
He’s their main ‘fear disseminator’.
How many Jews does he influence?…..I see no paniced US Jewish masses fleeing to Israel on his dire warnings.
Phil, If you are not a Jew (or not in Jewish Tent), it is because [1] you are willing to challenge Israel and AIPAC and the Israel Firsters and [2] the precious few (or few precious) Jews who say things like “you are not in the Jewish tent” give themselves permission to say that about anybody who (from their precious viewpoint) breaks ranks.
Don’t Hillel groups nationwide cast certain topics “out of the tent” (even if they allow that the Jews who propose those topics are “still in the tent, sorta, kinda)?
Follow the money! This is politics! There are people who don’t think that they “have respect” unless they can (use their money to) prevent democratic discussion on topics they don’t like.
But consider yourself lucky — he says you are outside the Jewish tent and thereby (ho ho ho) protects you from those antisemites who only attack people who live in tents.
I loved how you juxtaposed his twitter response to Brezinski’s. Soooo obviously misguided. So obviously prejudiced.
Concerning list, Goldberg’s is close to endless and thus meaningless. Reading it into Zbig’s comment is as crazy as his mad ravings against antisemite Caryl Curchill, or her antisemic Seven Jewish Children was plain crazy.
I have no idea about his parents, maybe they are not even guilty and finding antisemites is part of his job.
One thing the guy surely isn’t: smart. But that may tell us something about Rudoren. Does she flatter him since she realizes or knows he is well connected. I guess some would call that powerful. Or does she actually mean it?
Should we forget that Goldberg praised Kahane in his memoirs? He did some waffled condemnation of racism, but ended up essentially endorsing Kahane’s view of the Jewish condition. That’s like a white Gentile saying David Duke may be wrong in his methods but has the fundamental analysis correct. Read his memoirs, it’s all there.
But that also points to the length at which there is an inherent “need” for a Goldberg. If there’s a demand, there will be supply, and forgiveness will be almost total.
Goldberg is useful primarily because his main task is to police the upper echelons of American media and society. He’s not the advocate type, he doesn’t write soaring essays about the need for a “New Zionism” or something. He’s the informer(which I don’t mean as someone who enlightens) and the corporal of the debate.
He reads tweets by so many journalists. Remember his tussle some time ago when the Times’ Cairo correspondant wrote that the Israeli view of the Arab spring was “ugly”? Goldberg rushed to the defence of Israel and essentially harped until Fitzpatrick walked back his (relevant) criticism. Why? Fear. He knows that if Goldberg wants to, he can marshal a lot of journalists to his cause.
To draw another analogy, this is the role Ben Smith, now at Buzzfeed, played during the smearing of CAP in 2011 which made quite a few very decent people lose their jobs. He was on a listserv for neocons, Josh Block had his dossier and then Ben Smith did his innocuous “reporting” while at all times keeping the central claims of Block the AIPAC goon at the center of the story, asking very leading questions about insufficient devotion, slavishness really, to Zionism.
I think an overlooked reason why the elite media is still very white is that a significant part of those whites are Jewish liberal Zionists who are recruiting other Jewish liberal Zionists partly because of cultural recognition, but also becuase of an inherent wish to keep the Zionist concensus in the American media. And then you sprinkle people like E.J. Dionne who will do and say whatever the current concensus is.
Goldberg himself admitted in the Charlie Rose segment that if it weren’t for American Jews, Israel’s standing in the world would deterioate significantly. AIPAC plays a role, sure, but it’s also about using the significant Jewish presence in the MSM.
The difficult part, of course, is if some Jews disagree with this agenda. Goldberg isn’t just about banding together Jews against a Gentile, he is also about excommunicating Jews who he deems insufficiently loyal to the cause of defending an Apartheid state.
He is doing this job better than almost anyone, and not just on I/P but on most political topics. People simply fear him, not because he himself has a lot of power, but because he is the nexus of the effort to keep a Zionist concensus in the American media at a time when its becomming ever harder to do so. This is also why he is so valuable at this stage. The downside is that he is increasingly coming across as a liberal version of Bibi. Always in opposition, fightning a losing battle, just reading his Twitter feed over the past year or so, you can detect an increased bitterness and even despair. He’s simply slowly losing it. And when he is calm, he will admit he and people like him are losing the battle, as he has done on numerous occasions.
Goldberg is a journalist blogger rather than a professor, but he seems to see his role as successor to professor dershowitz, and it is clear that dershowitz sees his role as defense attorney for Israel.
Btw, where’s the link to Goldberg denying Phil’s Jewishness because of his universalist beliefs?
Also, why waste so much time on Goldberg’s clumsiness. I would much prefer an analysis of Wieseltier’s review of Shavit from yesterday’s Times Book Reviews.