Shall we be surprised that a man who defends the collective punishment(home demolitions) of innocent palestinians to sanction the behaviour of their out-of-reach cousins would seek to impose collective punishment on Americans for alleged refusal to cooperate in his tribal enterprises. Guilt by association is a dangerous weapon, particularly for one who indulges himself in the sorts of loathsome associations that have come to embrace, and be embraced, by the once revered, now reviled, pipsqueak of Cambridge.

I think the tactic here is to try to force Obama to wade publicly into the minefield around "the lobby", where almost everything a candidate says will lose him support from one camp or another. Because this challenge comes from someone as high-profile as Dershowitz, some reporters will probably pick up on it and push on it. Let's see how Obama handles it.

It'll be interesting. I guess I'd handle it this way -- if anybody asks for a reaction to Dershowitz's comments, simply say "I don't answer to Dershowitz" and then stick to that. I mean, why's Dershowitz so special?

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

MJ, you really don't understand democracy. Dershowitz can say whatever he wants; you don't have to agree with him. If he thinks that Brzezinski supports Anti Semites, it's his right and even duty to call Obama to fire Brzezinski. When Hillary Clinton hired Peter Fenn, who supports strike breaker, many called Clinton to fire him and I agree with that.

Mc Carthyisms is when you systematically chase down people who happen to have an ideology you hate. None of this applies here. Name calling is really not helpful.

As for Obama, he'll do well to send Brzezinski packing because Brzezinski is a machine generating cliches and not a thinking man; Obama can buy a parrot to do Brzezinski's job.

Last and least, Walt-Mearsheimer may not be Anti Semitic, but wrote an Anti Semitic book. The story of the Jews that control the press, the banks and now the policy in the Middle East is old, and I thought, went out of style long ago. (Even the support of Saddam in the past and the Saudi regime now is controlled by the Jewish lobby, I guess.)

I am reading it now. Mearsheimer and Walt's book is definitely not antisemitic. It simply points out that the US is pursuing policies in the ME that are in Israel's but not the US's interests. Indeed, policies that are hurting the US. This is controversial but not antisemitic.

Dershowitz should be exposed for the the danger that he is to this country. He is evil. He was the first prominent American to argue in favor of using torture in the war on terrorism. He recently organized a national campaign to deny tenure to Norman Finkelstein at DePaul University because Finkelstein supports Palestian rights. He has accused Carter of antisemitism. Of course, he has the right to spew this vile garbage, but because he is so prominent in this country we have the duty to expose him for it.

"Brzezinski is a machine generating cliches and not a thinking man; Obama can buy a parrot to do Brzezinski's job."

Zbig's certainly not a "thinking man" like those towering intellects you probably agree with, namely Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Norman Podhoretz, George Bush, Dick Cheney, ad nauseum...

brewmn,

heh heh heh, good post. :-)

Brzezinski not a thinking man?!

Wouldn't it be great if our want-to-be leaders were forced to go on the record on this subject. Given Iraq and given the drumbeat for war with Iran, both supported by AIPAC, I think it is critical to hear the candidate's opinion about the influence of this lobby on our foreign policy. It should be mandatory

BTW, MJ
"(I mean, we Jews have Scarlett Johannsen, Shawn Green, Jon Stewart, Natalie Portman, Sara Silverman, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Max Blumenthal, Jake Gyllenhaal and Josh Marshall. Why do we have to suffer the humiliation of being "represented" by Alan Dershowitz)? "

We also have Norman Finkelstein.
I wonder why you never write about him and Dershowitz's role in denying tenure to NF. Does it have anything to do with attempt not to disaapoint your supporters like syvanen?
If he in your fame or shame list of American Jews?

koshembos,
I agree with you that Dershowitz can say whatever he wants. Judge Louis Brandeis said in 1927:
"Those who won our independence . . . believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to political truth . . "

But MJ didn't dispute that Dershowitz has the right to speak his mind, did he. And MJ has that same right, doesn't he.

Speaking of hinges, B. said back in 1998 when asked about the US spawning of Muslim fundamentalists in Afghanistan:

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

"for my specific opinion on each. Actually, I was told what my opinion must be . "

So what they (opinion) are?

Rachel Corrie, 23, was crushed under an Israeli bulldozer three years ago. A play from her writings played to great reviews in London but was cancelled in NY due to pressure from the “community” and cancelled in Canada as well.

From Philip Weiss in Nation: But Nicola's statement about a back channel to Jewish leaders suggests the presence of a cultural lobby that parallels the vaunted pro-Israel lobby in think tanks and Congress. [snip] Having spent five months defending Munich, he [screenwriter Tony Kushner] says the fear has two sources: "There is a very, very highly organized attack machinery that will come after you if you express any kind of dissent about Israel's policies, and it's a very unpleasant experience to be in the cross hairs. These aren't hayseeds from Kansas screaming about gays burning in hell; they're newspaper columnists who are taken seriously." These attackers impose a kind of literacy test: Before you can cast a moral vote on Palestinian rights, you must be able to recite a million wonky facts, such as what percentage of the territories were outside the Green Line in 1949. Then there is the self-generated fear of lending support to anti-Semites or those who would destroy Israel. All in all, says Kushner, it can leave someone "overwhelmed and in despair--you feel like you should just say nothing."

Who will tell Americans the Middle East story? For generations that story has been one of Israelis as victims, and it has been crucial to Israeli policy inasmuch as Israel has been able to defy its neighbors' opinions by relying on a highly sympathetic superpower. Israel's supporters have always feared that if Americans started to conduct the same frank discussion of issues that takes place in Tel Aviv, we might become more evenhanded in our approach to the Middle East. That pressure is what has stifled a play that portrays the Palestinians as victims (and thrown a blanket over a movie, Munich, that portrays both sides as victims). I've never written this sort of thing before. How moving that we have been granted that freedom by a 23-year-old woman with literary gifts who was not given time to unpack them.

Corrie's play was going to travel to Israel, but it can’t play here? I think that Americans would loudly denounce censorship here in defense of a foreign country's interests (be it Israel or anyone) if they were aware of it. Free speech is the backbone of democracy where the system is structured for ideas to compete in an open “marketplace.” There is too much chilling of speech and attacks on academia from the right as it is. Walt and Mearsheimer have performed a valuable service in documenting this undue influence and initiating an honest debate about it.

"A majority of the American Jews do not support right wing Israeli politics, but the American Israel lobby does."
Can you give me an example of a specific policy
that a specific well known Jewish organization/Lobby advocates (pointers please) that is not supported
by majority of the American Jews (pointers please)

Good point. While its true Zbiggy sounds like a paragon of reason these days, at least when compared to the neo-conartists, he in great part was a driving force in setting into motion the virus of Islamist asymmetrical warfare. He was and is a proponent of the imperial Great Game strategy of surrounding and containing emerging Eurasian powers (Russia, China, India, Iran, Pakistan). This is just as delusional and counterproductive as the neocon worldview, and just as dangerous in the long run, if not as overtly militaristic (and a bit more subtle). He is just a softer, a little more "left" member of the War Party in America and has no place as an advisor to a sane Democratic president. Nothing will change until we get rid of these hacks who dream into being a Clash of Civilizations.

UA

OK, Let's pick up one issue a time.
"Expansion of the Westbank settlements."

I don't think that majority of American Jews dsupport this.

Which Jewish organization support Expansion of the Westbank settlements? Pointers please.

In the days of JF Dulles' Massive Retaliation, it was argued we couldn't afford to match the Soviet's conventional force quantities, thus nukes were cost-effective. Then some troublemaker at RAND asked how the Soviets could afford it if we couldn't. The contradiction was ignored, and the doctrine was changed only because it didn't work in the war games. 

I find an inherent contradiction in the scare-view of Iran, which considers it an irrational, religious-fanatic rogue state, while ignoring the statements of its supreme religious leader.

Maybe we can someday accept that, while no one is purely rational, most people aren't crazy.

"(1) AIPAC lobbied for the Iraq war vigorously"
Any pointers?
As I pointed before, Sharon goverment was against
war in Iraq. but I don't want to re-start tis discussion.

AIPAC lobbies vigorously against any US penalties against Israel for settlement expansion

Yes, during Bush 1, if I remember correctly
AIPCAC lobbied for loan guaranties, however, if I remember correctly most American Jews supported
that position.

"(3) AIPAC lobbies against the two-state solution by consistently opposing US aid to the Palestinians as incentives for negotiation. AIPAC is the neocon lobby on Capitol Hill."

Yes, AIPCAP lobbies against any help to Hamas,
but I'm guessing that majority of Americans as well as majority of American Jews agree with AIPAC on this issue.

I don't think that AIPAC objects to US aid to
Abbas .

So, it seems to me that while you might not approve specific positions of AIPAC, most of Americans and American Jews support specific policies advocated by AIPAC.

"I was blown away by the all-out attack on this work."

Did you find any critizism that was not
"all-out attack " ?

In general, Is it OK to critize (not attack) Mearsheimer and Walt?

Davai,

I don't remember much except the accusations of shoddy scholarship. I'm sure there were more substantive criticisms, but the attempts to discredit the authors themselves overwhelmed any discussion about the substance.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/09/03/070903taco_talk_remnick
The Lobby By David Remnick

Is this attack or criticisms ?

It should be mentioned that as a "representative" of the Jewish public and Israeli lobby, and by presenting politicians with that lose/lose dilemma and the notion they must toe the line of AIPAC, he's only doing harm to Jewish political influence in the long term. To whatever extent that clown actually has influence on the matter.

Despite Dershowitz's other personal accomplishments as a lawyer and scholar, he's fanatical in regards Israel and basically espouses that what's good for Israel is good for the US.

Israel shares many values with America, rule of law, a free press, etc. and in those regards Dershowitz is an accomplished scholar. But to question Israeli policy, on human rights, and many of the same issues at play in American FP, is to be labeled a bigot by him.

Again and again he argues the US must support Israel, unconditionally, and may never question their polices. According to Dershowitz Israel can do no wrong. And neither can anything the US does in support of Israel be questioned.

This isn't a question of expertise within a given legal framework. This is a question of national loyalty.

I hope to God you're not onto something, Mopper8, but some reporter should look into this. It certainly would not be out of character for Mark Penn, Hillary's Rove, to enlist Dershowitz to try and drive a wedge between Jews and Obama -- and to do it during the High Holidays season when Jews do tend to talk politics a lot. If Obama is asked about this directly, all he needs to say is, "Unlike George W Bush, I listen to people with a wide range of viewpoints and perspectives. I don't believe in Groupthink. I don't agree with everything Mr. Brzezinski has written, nor do I agree with everything that any of the people I receive foreign policy advice from have written. I decide matters of policy for myself based on consideration of all the facts and all the relevant perspectives. If more politicians did that, maybe we wouldn't be in Iraq right now."

By the way, Dershowitz wrote a book shortly after 9/11 justifying the use of torture. If Obama played politics in as dirty a manner as Dershowitz, he might say, "I demand of Hillary that she return the contribution of Mr. Dershowitz and any other known apologists for torture."

"Again and again he argues the US must support Israel, unconditionally, and may never question their polices. According to Dershowitz Israel can do no wrong. And neither can anything the US does in support of Israel be questioned."

Obviously, Dershowitz never said anything like that. This is your impression of Dershowitz.

Koshembos, I agree that the "McCarthy-ite" label is too often resorted to, but here it's about right. What McCarthy did is lump together actual communists with those who merely defended their rights. What Dershowitz is doing is saying that Brzezinski should be blacklisted from working for any politician, not because Brzezinski is an anti-semite, but because he defended Walt and Mearsheimer from the charge that they are anti-semitic. For the record, I should say that I would not and do not defend Walt and Mearsheimer's argument; many others have demolished their methodology without resort to Dershowitzian hysteria. Nor do I agree with some things that Brzezinski has said about Israel, but I hope and expect that politicians will tap into experienced people with differing perspectives; otherwise you get the Cheney/Bush mentality, where diversity of opinion is lacking and Colin Powell is left out important decisions while Perle, Wolfowitz, and Cheney -- all sharing the same preconceptions and orthodoxies -- made policy.

Truman famously overruled George Marshall, the framer of the Marshall Plan, on recognizing Israel. I think Truman got that one right, and Marshall was less than sympathetic to the plight of Jewish refugees, but I would not think that if we could go back in time, we'd demand of Truman that he fire Marshall, just that he not agree with his advice not to recognize Israel.

"By the way, Dershowitz wrote a book shortly after 9/11 justifying the use of torture"

"Dershowitz says that he is personally against the use of torture, yet he argues that authorities should be permitted to use non-lethal torture in a "ticking bomb" scenario, regardless of conventional international legal prohibitions; that it would be less destructive to the rule of law to regulate the process than to leave such permission to the discretion of individual law-enforcement agents. He favors preventing the government from prosecuting the subject of such torture based upon information revealed during such an interrogation. Moreover, he argues, hypothetically: "If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, [then] it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice."[24][1]"

I'm not sure that Obama wants to start discussion what to do in ticking bomb" scenario.
So you are giving him a bad advice.

Rule of law?

The Israeli army has destroyed over 350 homes and damaged 500 in the Rafah neighborhoods of Palestine. This is being done to make way for a gigantic steel wall along the Egyptian border, on which Israel began construction in October 2002. photo 1, photo 2 .

Endless destructions, and family members searching for remains in the rubble photo.

Bulldozer erasing another house in our neighborhood photo.

You win.

"Dershowitz Demands Obama Fire Brzezinski!"

Umm, that's exciting. When did Obama hire Brzezinski?

"Dershowitz and other de facto lobbyists see it as their role to squelch any opinion on the Middle East that they don't agree with."

Not to pick nits while you're conspiracy-theorizing, but think about the word "any" above - it makes your sentence nonsensical. And given your "Mc Carthyism!" above, how does this statement not apply equally well to you?

You really ought to have started by noting the fact that Obama says the book is fundamentally wrong, which nearly refutes Dershowitz's attack by itself. But you're apparently just another ideologue like Dershowitz.

MJ: "Alan Dershowitz, legal gadfly and OJ Simpson lawyer, is demanding "

Don: "MJ didn't attack Dershowitz"

Sorry, you lost .... your mind

By all means attack Dershovitz, who tries to destroy anyone who has the audacity to criticise Israel or Zionism. Look at what the guy did to Finkelstein. Dershowitz is a threat to our freedom to discuss middle eastern policy freely and uninhibitedly.

"The story of the Jews that control the press, the banks and now the policy in the Middle East"

What about the story of the Jew that prevented a jewish scholar from getting tenure because he was critical of Israel. Dershowitz is working very hard to prove that the story is true.

"You really ought to have started by noting the fact that Obama says the book is fundamentally wrong"

This once again proves that the Israel Lobby scares the shit out of American politicians. Not a single one, Democrat or Republican has the guts to defy it.

Clearly if the American public becomes aware of the influence of the Israel lobby, its effectiveness will be greatly reduced. This explains the heavy investment by its supporters in denying it exists.

Well, Israel is a pretty fair and open and just society, for Jews anyways.

But hey, what's wrong with another theocratic leaning state created by the Brits in the ME anyways? They've all worked out so well.

"I wonder why you never write about him and Dershowitz's role in denying tenure to NF."

Him and Dershowitz? Who him?

Normal Finkelstein (NF) certainly didn't conspire with Dershowitz to deny himself tenure.

To whom it may concern;

My comment about MJ getting banished was tongue in cheek as I thought the smiley face at the end showed.

Davai's Rule

Dear Howard,
In our previuos exchange, you concluded that you don't respect me. Not that I care, but why would you piggy back on my comments with your garbabe stream of words ?"

In that no one at TPM has any respect for Davai, we should all take his advice and ignore him. Also, since Davai repeatedly demonstrates that he has no respect for MJ, he should ignore MJ by not "piggybacking" on MJ's posts.

So this should be it. Goodbye, Davai. Go where you are respected. I know. I know. But everyone is respected somewhere.

"

FWIW, I suspect that the Dersh will be ignored on this one. Brzezinski has a lot of credibility and weight in the foreign policy establishment, which is more than you can say about Dershowitz, anywhere.

What's more, unlike most of those who are highly respected in the FP establishment, Brzezinski actually deserves most of the respect he gets. I've been very impressed by most of what I've heard him say in recent years on a wide array of subjects, far more than I was, frankly, when he was Carter's national security advisor. That Obama has him on the team speaks well for Obama.

Kevin Youklis, absolutely, and the fallen star, Gabe Kapler)

Obama needs to shore up his image has having experience in foreign policy. Brezinski being Carter's Kissinger helps give Obama some gravitas with the unilateral surrender, anti-Israeli crowd that inhabits the Cafe. However, Bush is compete for worse poll numbers not only with Nixon but with Carter, so it is unclear what it really does for Obama. Brezinski like Kissinger is a grand policy theoriest but unlike Kissinger is well known to be anti-Israel.

As for Dershowitz he has a big ego and a bigger mouth. Rosenberg is big at attacking but not really at discussing or laying out of facts. Dershowitz is not a quisling nor an advocate of policies that make the Left happy but will result in many dead Jews. As for Dershowitz embarrassing millions of Jews, I would be very surprised is that is provable. Thus what separates the this crowd from the Bush crowd? Very little.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Mark,
Did you lose your mind ?
Don't you have anything better to do then mark THIS comment to 0?
There is something tell me you are living on Avenue Q.

You had me at "Scarlet Johannsen".

Quite the literalist, aren't you, Don? John was pretty clearly joking.

There's more than one kind of McCarthyism. The endless, vicious, nasty, insulting comments directed at those who would dare to express an opinion that is different than Walt-Mearsheimer's opinions is textbook McCarthyism. The intolerance and arrogance on the American left these days is absolutely insane.

"No person becomes a dean at Harvard or prof at U of Chicago who hasn’t proven competent scholarship."

That's the funniest thing I've ever heard. Absolutely hysterical. Jesus, I can't believe someone would say that. If you think that American professors do competent scholarship I suggest you read some of the American history books they put out, especially the sections on Vietnam and the last 50 years of American foreign policy. Or read some of the evaluations of new pharmaceuticals put out by professors who claim to be objective but are actually on the payrolls of the pharmaceutical companies. American academic is a long way from being objective. And I could name