Yes, how great it is to have Jews like Ruth Wisse who decry anything related to Israel as anti-semitic. With friends like these...

I do admire there discipline. In fact, it reminds me of the good old days of stalinism.

Daniel, you did not read the piece. MJR is right. And you are lying too? Where does W and M or Carter say Jews or Jewish cabal?

Daniel G, your ad hominem attacks on TPM regulars are unwelcome here. If you can prove MJ wrong, cite chapter and verse. Otherwise, beat it.

MJ, after reading her article, I don't have the faintest idea how you could have come up with your inflammatory title for this thread, however, it is in line with other comments you have made here in the past.

Ruth R. Wisse is the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature

The New Republic demonstrates in minature M.J. Rosenberg's thesis on cricitizing Israel. TNR publishes many articles criticizing American policies. Yet it is utterly unthinkable that TNR would publish even a single article critical of Israeli policies.

As a gentile, I can tell you there IS a problem of conflating the Israeli Lobby and Jews in general. But, I maintain, there is nothing unusual about that. Conflation of Germans and Nazis is common. Conflation of Russians with Communist was at one time common.

Moreover, this conflation usually manifests itself in the less reflective segments of the population.

Still, this conflation must have a certain basis of some sort. Why does it happen so universally? Think of the stereotyping of blacks, gays, Jews, etc. Why does it happen?

Let me suggest perhaps some preliminary observations.

First members of a group do not want to criticize others in their groups even when criticism is warranted.

The complement population of the given group, sees that as "cabal type" behavior.

Why is there so little criticism among prominent Blacks of the more objectionable behavior of say gangster rap groups? Or why is there not more criticism amongst Italians of Mafia organizations? Why is there not more self-policing within affinity groups in general?

. This needs to be looked into and a book written about.

The fact that Jews have suffered the Holocaust has made all decent people react with horror and deep sympathy. That perhaps is one reason why there is such a reluctance to be critical of Israeli policy in the Middle East. It is not logical, it is psychological.
The Israeli Lobby uses this to its advantage. Gentiles feel manipulated and anti-Semitism grows

She says it because she wants to stop all discussion of the lobby and all criticism of Israel. Period.

And that is the rub! One cannot stop the above without suppressing a broad range of new thinking by Americans of any religion.

I miss the 60's where an author was not published because of the subject area he or she represented, or to fill a pre-determined point but was writing on the edge or beyond of public discussion for the opportunity of the view to be included in our reality if it sparked in the Gestalt .

-----------------------------------------------
Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking

Ask Feingold or Franken if they agree with Carter or W & M.
On second thought, don't ask, you'll be disappointed.

That perhaps is one reason why there is such a reluctance to be critical of Israeli policy in the Middle East.

and anti-Semitism grows

I agree there is no such reluctance in the Middle East to criticize Israeli policy in the region. I was referring the reluctance in Western countries to be critical OF Israeli policy in the Middle East. Especially in the media.

MJ:

This is the title of your piece:

"Harvard Prof Says All Criticsm of Lobby Is Anti-Semitism"

I have read the op-ed piece by Professor Wisse that you link to, and she just doesn't write that all criticism of the Lobby is anti-semitism. I do agree that she is critical of W&M, and in a sloppy sense, but I don't read what she writes as comporting with the title of your piece.

But fwiw, I submit that most W&M supporters at the TPM Cafe are equally sloppy in terms of what they support in the book. When we speak of W&M's thesis, are we not speaking of theses? That is to say, isn't their principal argument that the many different Jewish and non-Jewish groups who make up the so-called Israel Lobby exercise extraordinary influence in Washington? I believe that is correct. But, as I understand things, W&M also assert something far more sinister in my view, and that is that, but for the influence of the Israel Lobby, American boys and girls would not be dying in Iraq.

Should anyone choose to respond to this comment I pose, please note that I am not convinced by references to the number of footnotes in their book, because even right wing maniacs like Ann Coulter have lots of footnotes, as did Professor Leonard Jeffries when he asserted that the European slave trade could not have occurred but for Jewish financing. Succinctly stated, counting footnotes is not a scholarly exercise; it is, at most, a political statement in this instance.

I would be more interested in someone explaining to me what is in those footnotes, i.e, what is the evidence put forward by W&M that we would not have been in Iraq but for the extraordinary influence of the so-called Israel Lobby. It's this premise, if I understand W&M correctly, that I take issue with, and serious issue with, both from an historical perspective and a realist assessment of what makes George Bush et al. tick.

I think it is fair to ask the foregoing questions, because so many of our fellow posters have embraced W&M, and a few may have even read the book. Embracing W&M, without explaining what one embraces, is an ambiguous and undefined embrace at best.

Finally, MJ, I don't condone davai's ongoing and obsessive personal assaults on you at all and I wish he would stop, but his question to you in this thread is a fair one, one that I have for you as well, and that is, what is it about W&M's book that you find objectionable? You are the principal moderator about I-P issues at the Cafe, an unenviable position perhaps, but that's why you get paid the big bucks. :) I think it's fair for you to elaborate on the flaws you see in W&M's thesis, or more accurately, theses. Thanks.

Bruce

Finally, MJ, I don't condone davai's ongoing and obsessive personal assaults on you at all

davai:

I don't like to gang up on anybody, ever, and maybe that's why I don't criticize you that much since you get plenty of zeroes and stuff from the rest of the gang. But you don't help your arguments, or those on whose behalf you argue, by engaging in personal attacks on MJ.

I promise you this: I will defend you and vigorously so when you make substantive argument and still are personally attacked by folks on here, and I will upgrade your zero ratings when I think they are politically motivated. But I have to tell you that I think it's wrong for you to keep insulting MJ, and I cannot defend you with credibility if that's the approach you continue to take.

Bruce

Well for starters, two wrongs don't make a right davai. You know that.

I never even thought about Kristol's religion

For example, it was in the last day or two that Davai brought up, in the context of the 2003 invasion of Iraq [Note 1], Bill Kristol, a list of Administration people he influenced to launch the Iraq operation. Davai said this was anti-semitic because Kristol is Jewish

To me, this is an example of Davai's constant playing of the anti-semitism card, in a case where Jewish identity was not part of the discussion.

As far as Davai's constant complaining about MJ, conflated with said card, I picture Davai as a little boy jumping up and down

Bruce,

I think it's fair for you to elaborate on the flaws you see in W&M's thesis, or more accurately, theses.

MJ, Howard and others, here is your moment.
Let's forget about W&M.
Would you at least condemn this guy is antisemite. If he is not antisemite, who is ?

Ruth Wisse and others like her can say what they want, but an accurate reading of history reveals that the Palestinians were made into a bulls eye by the Balfore agreement.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

Wordie,
You, MJ, W&M and the rest of the gang allege that AIPAC dictates U.S. policy in the Middle East, helping Israeli interests and hurting U.S. ones.
You guys also argue that AIPCAC is using it's infuence on American media to prevent American people to know the truth. People who are trying to tell the truth like W&M Carter, Finkelstein, MJ and other are subjected to persecutions.
AIPAC is a Jewish organization.
Your understanding of AIPAC can be fairly summarized as "Jewish cabal".
It doesn't mean and nobody allege that every single American Jew is a member of a Jewish cabal.
Authors of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
never alledged that ALL Jews were part of that Jewish cabal.

If he had changed one reference from "Jews" to "Israelis" in

The Jews are stealing orange groves and land from Palestinians

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Bush/Cheney would have gone to war if there was no lobby, but the lobby allows itself to be used for their interests. That's not only a risk to the lobby, it's a risk to other Jews might well become scapegoats in the future. The war profiteers have no friends or allies and no morals either. They serve only themselves. They will throw the lobby (and Israel) to the wolves when it's no longer useful.

Why didn't you attack them when they did that?
I do, I've said several time sin tmpcafe that US
is not Nazi Germany or USSR.
US are still one of the most free country in the world. I agree that many leftwingers are crazy morons not only about Jews but also about
my adopted country, US.
BTW, it makes me feel better to know that left winger anti-semites who also say crazy things about US are reallly, really a very small minority in US and have no chances to get any support.

No, I didn't say make a statement that the US is not Nazi Germany or the USSR. I said that when someone we both may consider crazy such as Clark and Chomsky says anything, I don't see you condemning on threads dealing with their comments. I do, however, see you calling things that criticize Israeli actions, questions if Israel and the US have always-parallel seurity interests, or criticize an ideological figure that happens to be Jewish, you go off about antisemitism.

So no, I don't consider the statement made especially anti-semitic, and I don't consider criticizing Kristol's acolytes remotely anti-semitic.

It really puzzles me, seriously, if Israel's fate is so important to you, why did you not adopt Israel as your country, not the US? I see you terribly concerned about Israel's security interests, but can't remember you commenting about a US security interest where Israel was not involved. Where are you, for example, on threads dealing with East Asian issues? Why are you extremely concerned with the potential of Iran having nuclear weapons, when I haven't seen much from you about North Korea?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Looks like MJ has his very own obsessive-compulsive stalker, at least on the subject of Israel.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the US District Court subpoena of Condoleezza Rice and other US foreign policy officials to testify at the trial of the two AIPAC lobbyists on charges of passing classified information to Israel. Smart legal move by the lobbyists attorneys, but the Administration will likely fight it. This Administration would rather drop the case than reveal any of their so called "secrets", really just embarrassments.

I don't remember any post on tpmcafe about North Korea. People don't care about North Korea and the rest of the world.

People only care about Israel.

Well I don't remember a thread about Chomsky

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

One might observe the similarities between conflation and inflation, and marvel that only one specifically deals with expanding an object with gas.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events." [Winston Churchill]

MJ wrote:
NOTE: This is the 3rd Washington Post piece attacking criticism of the lobby in the past six weeks.

Correction_1:

NOTE: This is the 3rd Washington Post piece
CRITICIZING ATTACKS on the lobby in the past six weeks.

Correction_2:
NOTE: This is the 3rd Washington Post piece
CRITICIZING CRITICISM of the lobby in the past six weeks.

FAQ:
1.Can you critize the lobby?
Yes, if you can clearly define who is and who is not a member of the lobby.
2. Can you critize the criticism the lobby?
Yes.
3. Can you attack the criticism the lobby?
What's the difference compare #2?

BevD:

I think that Bar-K has in fact read that letter and you are seeing how he interprets it.

Looking at Nazi Germany after the fact Bar-K equates the Jews trying to practice Satyagraha towards the Nazis as producing the same result of just letting themselves be killed.

Ghandi then compounds his offense: he 'understands' the Muslim violence but when it comes to the Jews going to Palestine "it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun." This looks remarkably like a double standard.

I always find it amusing that to be a true friend of Israel in these arguments, one must agree with Likud. If you agree with the position of the Labor party, you're an anti-semite.

It's just the same old crap that goes back to McCarthy, Huey Long, Chauvin, Savanorola, an endless list of those who cannot defend their actions and must therefore attack those who dare raise questions.

If he had read the letter, he wouldn't have interpreted it that way. Ghandi didn't ask the Jewish people to do anything more or less than he was doing himself. He said the Jews must stand their ground, not as Jews, but as Germans, and fight the German government as he did in South Africa and was doing in India - passive resistance in all things. Satyagraha is a system of non violent protest which combines passive resistance to any law or laws which are immoral with daily, visible sit downs. (This is the method employed by Poland in its only successful revolution of the 20th C.) Under no circumstances do you surrender or stop or by any means compromise your position, even if it takes years.

If you had read the letter, you would know that there was no double standard there at all. He specifically states that all of sympathies lay with the Jews, that if any war could be just it would be a war to fight this persecution (and this was in 1938) but no wars can ever be just and the only way to real peace is through the practice of non-violence.

Ghandi fully understood why the Jews wanted Palestine, but taking the land from the Arabs by means of violence and with the protection of the British government was inherently unfair to the Arabs and would be a source of ceaseless conflict. How right he was, too.

Thanks for replying to my post MJ.
Bruce

AJM, I don't understand your metaphor. You're saying the Israeli Lobby is a dead 1920's black rapist dredged from a river? How did he/it end up dead in the river? What is the counterpart to the raped Southern belle--U.S. foreign policy?

In any case, discrimination and prejudice against blacks in the Jim Crow South did not come from reportage of actual crimes committed by actual black criminals against actual white victims, but from refusal of white juries and white law enforcement agencies to take seriously actual crimes committed by actual white criminals AGAINST actual blacks victims.

Kinda ironic, in a post where you warn against encouraging the world's prejudice that you would gratuitiously conjure a symbolic black rapist, symbolically kill him and dump his symbolic body in a Southern river.

Bruce: I appreciated your willingness to speak to davai about the problem of his constant attacks earlier, and I appreciate this stronger statement. I applaud your willingness to recognize that insults have no place here at TPM Cafe. You needn't worry about uprating davai's zeros though; he does that himself with his sockpuppet, secretweapon. His doing so only confirms that he is a troll.

Because you were so forthcoming in taking this step, I'll issue my own mea culpa. In an earlier discussion (not with you), I said that another poster, hass, was attacked on the basis of his views about a one state solution (note that I personally do not support a one state solution). But I spoke too soon, and realized as I rethought it sometime later that Hass is also attacked because of the way he argues (insults, rants), much as with davai. I spoke to Hass in the past about this, to little avail; I strongly suspect your comments to davai will have no effect either. I've been meaning to go back and say something about this in the thread where my comment occurred, but it's long since buried, so thanks for opening the door.

“The healthy man does not torture others — generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.” ~~ C. G. Jung

You and MJ, at least, bring up points worth discussing. Davai mostly whines and throws out irrelevant questions, which add nothing to the discussion.

You have the integrity to live in Israel, and take risks. You've earned a degree of respect from me that Davai has not.

Charles Krauthammer many years ago wrote a piece in Time Magazine that said that those who say they hold Israel to "higher standards" than their own or other countries are antisemitic.

I disagree, I don't think it's anti-anything to
ask WHY our CONGRESS has now, for all intents
and purposes, become the United Nations. It
also unfortunately makes plain and clear why
the UN has been allowed to go to hell, because
no one respects it as a venue anymore.

People want money. Specifically, people in
other countries want our tax money. Every
nickel they can grab. Matter of fact, just
shorten that to 'they want our money'. Period.
And, I don't think that their lobby, or any
foreign interest lobby for that matter, should be taking it personally or as an ethnic/racial affront to be asked, politely, to put down our congresscritters, and slowly back away.
You read a lot of this hyphenated-americanism
stuff anymore, these people and those people
and the other people claim basically some
other nationality first, and their american
citizenship SECOND. I say 'take the first one,
and pretty please get the hell OUT. If it's
so great that you just can't bear to let go
of it when you moved to the USA, well, then
by all means, go back there. And, solve your OWN
problems.

I leave it to you to figure out why this has
all come about, my opinion is it's all about
the $$$$, corruption gone corporate, gone
global, and Certain Parties just standing back
and letting it all happen. Meanwhile, it
all largely goes unreported on CNN. Hmmm....

Well, if I was king for a day, I'd go before
Congress and ask that they police themselves
both individually, and as a body, for undue
foreign influence, and go ahead and burn
another quart of the old midnight oil to
help define and mutually understand what that
is. I think America spread thin the world over
is America dissolved, and I don't think it's
quite gonna work out. At least, not for
americans, maybe it'll be ok for all the folks
demanding money and getting it, but not for
americans themselves. Couple that with the
runaway immigration thing, and you've got a
recipe for a Big Problem...O Brave New World
of Globalizationer...

I strongly suspect your comments to davai will have no effect either

Correct, because I’m a wrong target. The problem is hateful inflammatory writing by MJ. He calls religious people crazy, he calls Brooklyn Jews nuts, He blames Russian Jews for all problem in Israel, he accuses Harvard professor in lying, he call every Jew with who he disagrees about anything, neocon, jewish neocon or a member of the Israel lobby and on and on and on. There is nobody else among tpmcafe contributors practice such hate speech.

Viewed from where I sit, the discussions about the Lobby, which began quite some time ago here at TPM Cafe (to my knowledge, they started in March 2006) have been accompanied by so much acrimony and angry charges and counter-charges that it may be hard to know what anyone really thinks at this point. I do know that in the beginning, there were many loud claims that either W&M themselves were antisemitic, or that they had written an antisemitic paper. Even when quotes from the W&M paper were offered that directly contradicted some of these claims, the claims continued, much as they are continuing now with this new article from Wisse (sorry for the earlier misspelling). Even way back then, I personally said I didn't agree with all of what they wrote, but at that time, it was impossible to begin a substantive discussion of the issues raised in the paper, as there was so much disruption of any attempt to do so, and twisting of what they actually had said. It's getting better now, but it may be that people who remember what was said back then are less likely to bring up their reservations, for fear that those who are absolutely certain that W&M represent evil incarnate will sieze on those reservations and miss the larger (and more nuanced) points. (Watch what davai will do to this post for an example of this point in action.)

I do happen to think that "the Israel Lobby" can be a difficult term, as it may be too broad to be useful in many situations. I think that W&M, as I understand it, tried to refine and narrow the term a bit in their book (which I have not yet read, so don't quote me on this). A term that distinguished those rightwing Jewish supporters of Israel who are so prominent in AIPAC, and/or who are neocons, or support the neocon approach to the ME, or who are too willing to go along with either of these, might be far more useful way of describing where many of us feel the problem lies.

As far as the responsibility for the Iraq war is concerned, I think the description of some Jews in both Israel and the U.S. as being co-opted is probably accurate, but at the same time I think there were other Jewish-Americans who did play a more active role, and W&M rightly point that out. I think that an article I read some time ago on the Jewish Voice for Peace site describes it best:

Did Israel Lead the US into the War on Iraq?

By Mitchell Plitnick, Director of Education and Policy, Jewish Voice for Peace; Joel Beinin, Professor of Middle East Studies at Stanford University; and Cecilie Surasky, Director of Communications, Jewish Voice for Peace

As the war on Iraq rages on with no end in sight, the scandals around its beginnings continue to proliferate. Because of these scandals, one question now being revisited is the role the state of Israel may have played in initiating the invasion of Iraq.

Israel's role is debated whenever American policy in the Middle East is discussed. This is inevitable, because Israel is America’s key ally in the region and because the Israel-Palestine conflict is the focal point of attention for virtually anyone who cares about the Mideast.  Some critics of the war on Iraq maintain that the decision to go to war was made largely to advance Israeli interests. Others maintain that Israel had nothing to do with it. The evidence suggests, however, that neither of these views is accurate.

The neocons and Israeli support for the war
We know that the Iraq invasion was pushed forcefully by the neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration. Many of the neocons are Jewish, though not all of them. But when it comes to US Mideast policy, there is virtually no disagreement among them in relying on a powerful Israel as a key component. This, in and of itself, would fly in the face of the notion that Israel and Israeli interests were completely removed from the decision to invade Iraq.

A number of key figures among the neocon wing of the Bush Administration were involved in writing an advisory paper for the Netanyahu government in 1996 entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”. This paper listed removing Saddam Hussein from power as an “an important Israeli strategic objective.” It defies logic to believe that the same people, in their push toward war on Iraq, simply didn’t think about this. Writers involved in the “Clean Break” paper included Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David and Meyrav Wurmser and James Colbert. All of them were powerful proponents, in and out of government, for the war on Iraq.

Israeli support for the invasion was never a secret. Both the Sharon government and a clear majority of the Israeli populace favored attacking Iraq. A Guardian (UK) report on the undermining of US intelligence agencies in order to provide “evidence” to support the invasion describes how Americans working outside the CIA worked with Israelis operating outside of the Mossad to help produce that “evidence.”Reports before the war indicated that Israel was playing a key role in preparing for the invasion, and other reports indicate that Israeli operatives have been working among Iraqi Kurds.

They go on to describe the competing reasons - those elements that also led to war that had nothing to do with "pro"-Israel influence. So this article has one view of the mix of influences that led to war, W&M have another perhaps slightly different one, and probably everyone who has thought seriously about the issue has yet another slightly different take on it. It seems to me that it may be really impossible to know in exactly what proportion the differing elements that resulted in war all came together in the ultimate decision to act. But it's undeniable that there were a number of influential neocons both in and outside of the Bush administration who had been pushing for "regime change" in Iraq since the middle of the 90s, some of whom (but not all) were hawkish Israelphiles, and so it doesn't seem unreasonable to conclude, as W&M do, that they had a definite effect on the decision. 

“The healthy man does not torture others — generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.” ~~ C. G. Jung

Militant Zionist fanatics are walking in the footsteps of 1930's Germany. Not terribly surprising since they for all intents and purposes are Germanic culturally and genetically and their formative experiences all revolve around the Nazi era. Like abused children they seem to know only violence and are themselves mentally unstable and will inevitably frustrate themselves as well.

It's tragic that so many cliches about the Nazi, the paranoia, the militarism, the Napolean complex, the bunker mentality, are again playing themselves out among those militant Zionists whose psychology were shaped by the traumas of the 20th century.

You have the integrity to live in Israel, and take risks. You've earned a degree of respect from me that Davai has not.

Krauthammer apparently believes that as long as one country in the world does worse things than Israel, it is antisemitic to criticize Israel before criticizing that state. Essentially, Krauthammer is saying, as I read it, that Israel expects not to be criticized as long as it is one better than the least common denominator of the world.

No it's not what he said at all. Your interpretation of what he said is totally wrong.
However, Israel and I hope all reasonable people in the world should find inexcusable that Israel is the only country condemned by UN Human Right organizations.

Look at how desperate you are to claim Carter is implying a cabal when he's said to such thing.

Carter and M-W said there are some very influential and powerful people, some of whom are Jews, some of whom are uber hawks, some of whom are zealously pro-Israel, and that they coordinate sometimes and share common interests sometimes. Which is undeniable.

It's pathetic how deeply you apparently need to feel your being victimized and slandered unfairly. It's some sort of mental illness where you rationalize that since your critics are always evil, you're de facto beyond criticism. That's the same crazy defense many fanatics adopt, from the Nazis to Jim Jones. That's insane.

Sane Jews and sane Israelis would do themselves a favor to distance themselves from the fanatics. It's a bad idea to let the lunatics represent one's country, religion and culture.

It's also no coincidence the Israeli fundies and wingnuts hooked up with the American fundies and wing nuts, and had an evil spawn the Neocons, and all hell broke lose.

I didn't say generic American Jews don't have a right to support Israel. I said that you, Davai, being as militant as you are about Israel's hyperaggressive defense position, and having left one country to go to another, is a hypocrite for not having settled in Israel and taken risks personally.

Had you been born here, and then said, safe in the US, that Israel should ignore the fact that it's one of the world's strongest militaries and played the Holocaust-is-around-the-corner card, I could chalk it up to lack of knowledge. I could understand it even better given your demonstrated lack of military knowledge.

But I call you a hypocrite and a coward, for choosing to emigrate to a land where you were safe from real antisemites, and then criticizing everyone else for criticizing Israel. As I've said, while I disagree with Bar Kochba, I have a certain respect for him living his convictions.

Forget Krauthammer. You, Davai, have so often criticized people for saying anything negative about Israel as long as some other country doing worse, and I have so often pointed out that you are using the tu quoque defense used at Nuremberg, that I believe that your tactic is to shift responsibility to anyone you can think of before accepting criticism of Israel. Failing that, you play the antisemitism card.

Frankly, I have very little concern for what UN human rights organizations may or may not do. I've never made it a secret that while I believe the UN provides a useful venue for world organizations dealing with technical issues, which can include humanitarian operations, I believe that peace operations can work only with regional groups, possibly supplemented with something along the lines of Barnett's Leviathan.

I do note, however, that this is yet another way you are trying to change the subject. Nevertheless, I have never criticized Israel because some UN human rights organization passed a resolution about something or other. The closest I've come is criticizing IDF troops for shooting up a UN observation post. My criticism of Israel has to do with its observable military and political actions.

I have even harsher words for the PNAC ideologues, for whom a dominant Israel is part of their agenda but certainly not the only part.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Utter nonsense friend. Utter nonsense.

Howard, don't hide behind such nonsense.
If you don't want to comment on MJ hate speech,
don't comment, just skip it.

I don't think that there's much evidence to support your statement that many posters at TPM "embrace" what W & M have written in their book. I do think, however, there is ample evidence to suggest that many here at TPM support their right to say what they have said without being called anti-Semitic which they most certainly are not. W & M receive this kind of support from people on this site because of the irrational, hysterical and totally unreasonable reaction of a certain segment of those who are pro-Israel and who reflexively use this label to stifle debate that is not 100% supportive of whatever the Israeli government happens to be doing at any given point in time. Many who are pro-Israel have to endure being called anti-Semitic if they dare make any suggestion that not everything Israel wants is best for the middle east generally or even Israel particularly.

You don't have to agree with most or even anything in W & M's book to know they are not anti-Semitic and to defend their right to make the points they make without being tarred and feathered as such for daring to suggest that the present arrangements in Washington regarding Israel should, perhaps, be reviewed with a more critical eye. Our national debate suffers and so does Israel because of this censorship of and ostracization of anyone who dares to wonder aloud if we maybe oughta consider doing things differently with respect to Israel.

Any sane person can see that the current situation is untenable and fraught with increasing danger. We have a right, as Americans, to assess what our government is doing over there and also what the Israeli government is doing and make suggestions for change as we do in any country that we assist as heavily as we assist Israel. Our policies need a thorough review not just by officials and politicians, but by the people. However, no intelligent review of middle east policy can occur if no mention is allowed of anything that might approach a criticism of Israeli government policy.

We have to get past this weird hyperparanoia and start taking a cold, hard look at how we can get from where we are to a lasting and worthwhile peace for everyone in the middle east. This is the only way to secure Israel's future IMO. I have no prescription for how we achieve this goal but if we can't talk about how things work in American politics when it comes to Israel we will be unable to achieve much.

Our national debate suffers and so does Israel because of this censorship of and ostracization of anyone who dares to wonder aloud if we maybe oughta consider doing things differently with respect to Israel.

Talking about "ostracization", please don't play the victim card. People who who dares to wonder aloud if we maybe oughta consider doing things differently with respect to Israel should not be immuned to critizism.

However, no intelligent review of middle east policy can occur if no mention is allowed of anything that might approach a criticism of Israeli government policy.

The wierdest thing about calling people like Carter and Ghandi antisemites is that it threatens to rehabilitate antisemitism. Let's reserve the term for truly repugnant and hateful types like Hitler. If Ghandi is now an antisemite, antisemitism is a characteristic of some truly admirable people. But I don't believe that's the case--and not because Ghandi wasn't admirable.

The amusing thing about all this is that if there were an Arab professor in any American university even half as nuts as Wisse, liberals here would become defensive and the reactionaries would throw a fit.
But somehow she ended up at Harvarvd and in the Washington Post, a full-on racist.
That reality skews the entire debate. The Arabs are the outsiders being discussed.

And as some have pointed out Mearsheimer and Walt's argument attempts to put the blame on others for the actions of the US. That ideological nationalism is not worth defending.

Maybe we should be asking davai if he has the integrity to join the National Guard and spend several tours in Iraq.

You know, this is probably one of the more anti-semitic posts in this thread.

You first describe anti-semites as "someone who cannot accept that Jews are different" and the anti-semite thinks that "they bring all the persecution on themselves for being different." That doesn't make sense in even the most existential interpretation, nor does it make sense in the basest of interpretations. Jews are not any different than any other human beings. They are not separate from the rest of humanity in any physiological normative development. They assimilate into every single culture in which they have emigrated, just like every other group which has migrated from place to place.

What anguished Jews the most in pre-war Europe wasn't that others wouldn't accept them as "different" it was that others wouldn't accept them as the same. They considered themselves Germans, French, Dutch, Polish and Russian (to name a few) and the anti-semitism that swept Europe at that time was a complete reversal of what they had fought so hard to achieve - a national identity of birthplace, sacrifice and historical/ancestral ties. For too many reasons to list here, the Jews were betrayed by their own countrymen, not because the Jews were different, but because the Jews considered themselves the same. That was the great crime of that war - that a nation could turn on its own citizens and kill them to further a political agenda. (Just as it was a crime for the U.S. to lock up American citizens of Japanese descent no matter how it was rationalized - it was morally wrong.)

Your example of a "bad" Jew (whatever that is supposed to mean) is really abhorrent - why would embracing the political philosophy of communism make them "bad?" It would seem that you're exhibiting a prejudice and bigotry of your own - "all communists are bad." It's also a ridiculous claim - the fact that they were Jewish had nothing to do with their activism, it was political, not religious activism. The Russian revolutionaries who happend to be Jewish who fought the despotism of Russia did so not out of religious conviction but political conviction - they wanted a better Russia. (As to your claim that a high percentage of communist activists were Jewish sounds straight out of Goebbels' propaganda machine.)

No one claims Gandhi was perfect, especially Gandhi, but you have absolutely and completely given a false and derrogatory description of Gandhi and his beliefs. That site you mention is connected with an anti-semitic organization that has made false and morally reprehensible claims about Gandhi for the sole purpose of propagating anti-semitism. (Do you see now how propaganda works? You were certainly pulled into it, weren't you?) The man's life was a complete and utter repudiation of bigotry, hatred, violence and religious prejudice and with only cursory knowledge of his work and philosophy, you are willing to believe the most vile accusations against him, the same thing you seem to rail about in just about every thread you engage in at this site. That you so disengenuously throw out that website as a source makes me suspect any claims you make about anyone because even a modicum of research would have told you exactly what that site is all about - and yet you used it to reinforce your false claim, what does that tell us about you?

Shame on you, sir, shame on you.

MJ,

They each specifically and repeatedly write and say that "there is no cabal" and that they are talking about the "Israel lobby which is made up on Christians, Jews and others." They say that over and over again.

And yet, even MJ's own Israel Policy Forum is part of the Israel Lobby (at least by Walt's & Mearsheimer's LRB definition of the term).

(1) So Communism wasn't "bad", huh? Go ask the people in Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, etc, etc, old enough to remember the Communist regimes there and see what they think about it. I know a lot of Jews in Israel who lived under Communism and they all hated it.

(2) Gandhi's quotes about Jews are in open literature, including the Jesus-killer quote. I don't know anything about the web site you are talking about, it was put together by someone with an Indian name and didn't strike me as antisemitic.

(3) Your statement about Jews in Europe is totally incomprehensible to me. Europeans looked upon Jews as "different". I know many Jews from the pre-war Europe and I have heard what it was like, in both "liberal" western Europe and "antisemitic" eastern Europe. The countries with the highest death toll of Jews in the Holocaust included "liberal, democratic" Holland and Norway. They handed over their Jews to the Nazis quietly and efficiently. If there hadn't been a "low-level" genteel antisemitism in these "liberal" countries that brought the general population to collaborate, then the German's genocidal antisemitism would have been much harder to implement, as indeed was the case in Denmark, where the population refused to help the Germans.
Gandhi's "well-meaning" antisemitism was just the sort to set the stage for the Holocaust, after all, didn't he tell everyone in Europe NOT to fight the Nazis (Len Deighton in his non-fiction book about World War II mentions that Gandhi sent a message of admiration to Hitler on his conquest of France). He also told the Abyssinians to roll over and die in front of the Italian invaders.

Again, I am, as you say "prejudiced and racist"-Communism is BAD and those who supported it in the West have to account morally for supporting such an evil system.

Are you serious? You said:

-----------------------
He said the Jews must stand their ground, not as Jews, but as Germans, and fight the German government as he did in South Africa and was doing in India - passive resistance in all things. Satyagraha is a system of non violent protest which combines passive resistance to any law or laws which are immoral with daily, visible sit downs.
------------------------

What right does he have to tell ME that I must not "act like a Jew" but as a "German"? Jews are supposed to be loyal citizens of the country they live in. That is a given, but he has no right to tell me to give up my identity (if indeed that is waht he said) in order to put me in some box (i.e. a "good Jew" in his terms) defined by a bizarre political philosophy, which his own India and his disciple Nehru chucked out as soon as he was dead.
IIRC George Orwell said Gandhi had the good luck to be up against the British, not the Nazis. We Jews weren't so fortunate.

Hi Z,
Good point. You remind me that W-M make that point which, in my opinion, is silly.
IPF and AIPAC are only part of the same lobby in the sense that we are both pro-Israel.
In fact, however, in the 9 years I've been at IPF, our positions have been consistently at odds with AIPAC.
We tend to work with Americans for Peace Now, Churches for Middle East Peace, Brit Zedek v'Shalom, and the American Task force for Palestine consistently opposing the AIPAC-drafted bills and resolutions.
To include IPF in the lobby is just silly, and I don't know why W-M used that rubric, It is more accurate to say that pro-Israel opinion in America is represented not just by groups like AIPAC but also by pro-Israel groups like IPF etc which, in contrast to AIPAC, believe that the only way to effectively be pro-Israel is to support the two-state solution.

He didn't tell anyone to do a damned thing and if you knew anything about him other than the crap you picked up at some neo-nazi site, you'd know that.

He spent his entire life fighting against racial and relgious bigotry and in the end was killed for it. For your information, Gandhi's philosophy WORKED. It achieved exactly what he said it would. The fact that the Muslims and Hindus were too blindly bigoted to understand what he was trying to tell them, isn't Gandhi's fault, it was their fault, and they're still suffering for it today. As he so presciently pointed out, you cannot separate yourself from bigotry, you cannot run from it and you cannot live with it - any moral person MUST confront it.

Interesting that George Orwell would so conveniently forget the racist, murderous occupation of India by Great Britain. If it proves anything, it's that all people are willing and able to overlook their own history of brutality in the attempt to comfort themselves that the other people are so much worse than they are.

I know exactly from what website you culled these lies and canards - quit trying to bullshit people and quit bullshitting yourself.

Any port in the storm, huh, to prove your point, even if it's a racist, anti-semitic site that EXACTLY like the nazis propagates smears and lies to destroy the reputation of someone who was so inherently good, so beyond corruption, so greatly humane that the only way to respond to his philosophy is to besmirch his reputation and sully his legacy.

I don't know much about satan worshipers , so let's talk about antisemites or racists.
You say that you can't label people racists or antisemites if it isn't true.
I agree. My question is who should decide who is and who is not xxx-ist? One Ivy League school professor think that W&M are antisemites.Another Ivy League school professor think that Reagan is race-baitor. Should they have a right to say what they think or not?
What they say is not facts, it's just opinions.
You might disagree with their opinions, but why you want to deny Krugman and Wisse the right to say what they think?

I agree, Bev. One of the most effective things we could do to reduce the power of lobbies in general would be to pass legislation for public financing of elections, thereby reducing the dependence of our representatives on interest group funding,  

“The healthy man does not torture others — generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.” ~~ C. G. Jung

In unguarded moment anti-Zionist shows his true ugly face of anti-semite.
Jews who started according to bluebells all the wars don't don't fight the wars but instead send gentile to fight their wars. Good job bluebell.

In fact, however, in the 9 years I've been at IPF, our positions have been consistently at odds with AIPAC

No way.
They want to be able to call people with whom they disagree wit all kind of -ism labels, but they themselfes don't want to be called antisemites no matter what they do or say.

I don't understand how American Jews will become scapegoats for what the Israel Lobby does, unless critics of the Lobby do a pretty poor job distinguishing the American Jewish community in general from the hardliners on issues pertaining to Israel and the Middle East. I understand, for example, that W&M almost stand on their heads to point out the distinction between the so-called Israel Lobby and the overall American Jewish community.

You say that the critics of the Lobby may contribute to a rise in antisemitism, but doesn't the furious smear campaign against W&M, in which those who wish merely to discuss the book are themselves at risk of being labeled as anti-semitic, a much greater concern in this respect? An unjust label of antisemitism may in some cases create a self-fullfilling prophecy, if only for the resentment it causes. 

That said, I think many of us who think W&M have done a very good thing in opening the topic up for discussion, have often stepped up to make just the distinction you describe when W&M is misconstrued to apply to the Jewish community in general. I know I have.

“The healthy man does not torture others — generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.” ~~ C. G. Jung

Let check your logic.
The following is NOT true:
"Harvard Prof Says All Criticism of Lobby Is Anti-Semitism"
Do you agree that she didn't say what MJ claims she said.

I haven't asked Davai to fight in Iraq.

Yes, perceptive Gandhi saw how much Hitler "loved" his people. What did he think of Hitler's order at the end of the war to destroy the entire infrastructure of Germany because the "German people had no right to live because they let him down" Hitler said? So we can now quote Saint Gandhi as a source when people look to Hitler as a model?

Bar_

You're saying that people should "look to Hitler as a model?"

I didn't misquote you, did I?

First, how would you know sanity if you saw it?

Second, this is a conversational blog. If you were having an email correspondence with Bluebell, of course you should expect privacy. This isn't a private conversation.

Given the amount of essentally content-free noise you generate, the extremely rare cases when you actually contribute some new information, and your own incessant bombardment of prosecutorial questions, I will continue to challenge nonsense when I see it. Perhaps enough people will challenge your nonsense that you will not discuss anything with anyone.

Should that come to pass, I shall borrow from someone that makes as much sense as you do, but with a good deal more literary flair.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.


`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

... I decided to open up Pandora's box, let the cat out of the bag and get the ball rolling.

Dup

Would that Davai would realize that so long as there is anything to be gained by saying nothing, it is always better to say nothing than anything. Some fine day, he may rise to the level of logic demonstrated by Sir Humphrey Appleby.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Free advice is seldom cheap." [Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #59]

I wasn't commenting on MJ, whether he was speakings sonnets of love or torrents of hatred. I was speaking of your barrage of what fundamentally is random noise, occasionally interspersed with victimhood, while you are actually quite safe. You take no responsibility whatsoever for anything you say.

Since Flip Wilson's character, Geraldine, answered any challenge of bizarre behavior with "De debbil made me do it", no matter how absurd a statement you make, it is your position that that devil MJ made you do it. I know a fair number of cats with more sense of personal responsibility than yours.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

to confuse dataguy's post as antisemitic reveals as clearly as ever the degree to which paranoia and ignorance (if not intellectual deficiency) informs your determinations of who is or is not an anti-semite.

just as actual xenophobic jew-hating anti-semites don't deserve any serious consideration of their views, your views on what constitutes anti-semitism don't deserve serious consideration because they are rooted just as equally in ignorance and paranoia. it's different slop but it's served from the same trough.

Thanks, gentlemen.

At least my nothing comments are usually short, your nothing comments are very long.

OK,
I understand that you consider the following to be appropriate:

He calls religious people crazy, he calls Brooklyn Jews nuts, He blames Russian Jews for all problem in Israel, he accuses Harvard professor in lying, he call every Jew with who he disagrees about anything, neocon, jewish neocon or a member of the Israel lobby and on and on and on.

you creep me out. honestly. aside from the changing of the subject (and what i can only guess is an implication that unless someone keeps a little black book where they maintain a list of left-wing anti-semites, then they are an apologist for left-wing anti-semites and by extension themselves an anti-semite) which i understand you don't imagine to be a changing of the subject because the only subject you ever seem to be on about is that everyone on the left and their uncle is an anti-semite but only you can see it, your witch-hunting and trolling is really quite scary. but i don't take your bait because i don't take you seriously. except for the part where you frighten me.

Interesting that George Orwell would so conveniently forget the racist, murderous occupation of India by Great Britain. If it proves anything, it's that all people are willing and able to overlook their own history of brutality in the attempt to comfort themselves that the other people are so much worse than they are.

Couldn't let that one go by. Orwell spent his entire adult life advocating for Indian independence from Britain. In fact, some of the most damning portraits of British imperialism in India and Southeast Asia came from Orwell's pen.

But Orwell was able to see what you apparently cannot see, that there is a distinction between bad and worse. The British were bad. The Nazis were worse.

Gandhi's strategy worked, true enough, but it worked because he was fighting the one and not the other.

Noel

As usual, you misunderstand completely. I am not making any judgment on what MJ said. Mind you, I don't think he actually said that.

But if it annoys you, Davai, for someone not to join you in attacking MJ, I can only hope that eventually, you will become so annoyed that you will go somewhere else, where you might be more appreciated. I have some thoughts on such places, but they are either inappropriate for a family audience, or for other than a professional seminar on psychopathology.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

This is how it all ends
This is how it all ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper

I am not making any judgment on what MJ said

professional seminar on psychopathology

As I've already said, one word was ill-chosen, but no, I don't consider someone who has made one inappropriate statement an anti-anything. The severity of the incident might vary with the sort of olives involved; I hate black olives.

Davai, you've been consistently anti-semantic as you toss around wild accusations. You are eager to label everyone who doesn't support your hard line an anti-semite, not that you have the moral courage to put your body anywhere within thousands of miles of what you insist is an existential threat.

--
Howard

"Holding down a shadow" is used when can see the enemy's attacking spirit.

In large-scale strategy, when the enemy embarks on an attack, if you make a show of strongly suppressing his technique, he will change his mind. Then, altering your spirit, defeat him by forestalling him with a Void spirit.

Or, in single combat, hold down the enemy's strong intention with a suitable timing, and defeat him by forestalling him with this timing. You must study this well. [Miyamoto Musashi]

You need not explain why you are asking a question, since your questions are almost invariably asked for the same general reasons that a 3-year-old keeps asking "why?" to any answers who are given. Your practice in asking questions is not to gain information, but to agitate the situation.

In this specific case, you assume, incorrectly, that I consider it a useful exercise to categorize people into two binary categories of anti-semite and not-anti-semite. I'm not obsessed with the label the way you are, and I don't equate judgments about Israeli governmental behavior with judgments about Jews.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Brave Sir Robin ran away.
Bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!

He is packing it in and packing it up
And sneaking away and buggering up
And chickening out and pissing off home,
Yes, bravely he is throwing in the sponge...

i am well aware of your theories on left-wing anti-semitism. but my reluctance to condemn this person as an anti-semite based on a single phrase in one comment on the internet has nothing to do with how narrowly or broadly i define anti-semitism. it has everything to do with my being generally reluctant to jump wildly to conclusions. that you have no reluctance in jumping wildly to conclusions does not mean that you define anti-semitism any more broadly than i or anyone on 'the left'.

but what i find especially troubling in your eagerness to find anti-semites and their apologists on the left cleverly hiding their anti-semitism behind narrow definitions, is that it seems your method for deducing this hidden anti-semitism relies heavily on the parsing of language when you yourself (particularly as a non-native speaker of english) often struggle with linguistic precision. if i read your posts at all, i am perfectly willing to take at face value your intended meaning. it is a shame that you are unwilling to extend the same courtesy to others. except of course your unwillingness doesn't seem to be a question of courtesy so much as it seems to be a pattern of prejudice and paranoia.

Look it's not a single phrase, it's every word:

There are Jewish Nazis, and some teach at Harvard, and some at Yale.

method for deducing this hidden anti-semitism relies heavily on the parsing of language

To turn serious for a moment

your use of the term "antisemitic" is so vague and emotional as to have no useful meaning.

Why should I offer alternatives to something meaningless, such as your vague definition of antisemitism? Why is it important for me to join in your paranoia and hostility? Why is it always important to answer a question with a question?

I have already said that a clear antisemite is in favor of physical destruction of Jews wherever they may exist. That is not synonymous with the continued existence, or destruction, of the State of Israel. I believe it is a waste of time to decide, on the basis of a few words short of "death to the Jews" or "Endloesung", whether someone is an antisemite or a wide receiver.

As far as being sane, I can think of few things that would confirm my confidence in my mental health than being called nuts by you. On the other hand, I believe it is a public service to point out your irrelevancies and irrationalities, to say nothing of your hypocrisy and cowardice. Why, I'll bet you'd make just as good an F-102 pilot as George W. Bush.

Perhaps you may get sufficiently annoyed to leave, although you've promised that before and reneged. I suppose your minor entertainment value may compensate for the irrelevant contributions to discussion. You have, I am sure, an agenda, but no one is quite sure what it is besides disliking MJ.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

"Nothing to say" means, in this context, "nothing that agrees with that which you already decided." You asked for a definition of antisemitism. I gave you one, but indicated the concept, as you use it, is meaningless.

Were you gifted with intellectual honesty and serious interest in any views that do not fit your preconceptions, you would make a substantive response. Your practice, however, is either to dismiss, sweepingly, anything that has been said, or return a barrage of questions. This practice, of course, means that you never actually commit to any position that can be challenged.

Life must be difficult when you are so afraid of so much.

Dataguy writes:

"Israel and its hard-line defenders have become the fascist. They are heirs in some ways to the Nazis. The Nazis built walls and enclosed the ghetto of Warsaw. The State of Israel has built a wall and enclosed the ghetto of Palestine.

The nazis stole paintings and businesses from Jews. The Jews are stealing olive groves and land from Palestinians."

I have been thinking about this post by dataguy all weekend, and I have resisted saying anything because I was a coward: because I was afraid some well-meaning fellow liberal would accuse me of attempting to stifle debate. Fuck that. Shame on me and G-d forgive me.

I think dataguy's post is absolutely despicable, disgusting and I think it is anti-semitic. And, frankly, I don't give a fuck if people think that by saying so I am stifling debate.

How can we have a serious good faith, discussion if this kind of stuff is acceptable? Do we have to reiterate what the Nazis did behind the walls they created? Do we have to reiterate what they did once they took the kinder (the children) out of those walls? Is the Occupation, as horrible and shameful as it is, really the same? Give me a fucking break.

Progressive? Please.

Bruce S. Levine
New York, New York

Troll-bait:

I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of posts in this thread NOT responded to by davai.

dataguy,

Israel and its hard-line defenders have become the fascist. They are heirs in some ways to the Nazis.

And here is where we may learn to distinguish the self-styled from genuine progressives.  Is there anyone involved in this discussion as concerned over the effect dataguy's rape of history may have on our debate as they are over the occasionally flip accusation of antisemitism?

For those who keeping asking me for more elaboration of my views on the Walt-Mearsheimer book, here is my article on it in Ha'aretz. It appeared in English and Hebrew. I got lots of responses from Israelis on it. Almost all were supportive. NONE were hysterical as is the case here. That could change.

The rightwing organization, CAMERA, whose mission is to stifle debate about Israel and the lobby here now says that they have got the US media under control but that the Israeli media is rabidly anti-Israel. They will now dedicate a chunk of their efforts to intimidating the Israeli media. Really.

It's lobbying, but is it really pro-Israel? By M.J. Rosenberg 

Ha'aretz SEPT. 25, 2007

Critics of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by John J. Mearsheimer and Steven M. Walt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), cannot be surprised that the attacks on the book prior to publication helped propel it as high as no. 10 on Amazon's best-seller list. Not only that, the names "Mearsheimer-Walt" have become almost People-magazine famous, odd for two mild-mannered political scientists from the University of Chicago and Harvard, respectively. It just shows you what a little "buzz" will do - and a lot of buzz surrounds this book.

And why not? It's an important, heavily sourced and documented book (108 pages of footnotes) by two distinguished professors at two of our best universities. It deals with Middle East policymaking at a time when America's problems in that region surpass our problems anywhere else. And it is a serious book about a subject that is decidedly provocative, a much improved and expanded version of the original London Review of Books article.

The book asks the question: How much power does the pro-Israel lobby have? The authors answer: Too much, and both America and Israel suffer as a result. It's an arguable question, and people are definitely arguing about it. It is also the kind of book you do not have to agree with on every count (I certainly don't) to benefit from reading it.

The authors do not say that there is anything intrinsically wrong with the existence of a pro-Israel lobby. As political scientists, they understand that lobbies are as American as corn in Kansas. They know that lobbies play a major role in virtually all areas of American policy-making, domestic and foreign. Nor do they suggest that the pro-Israel community is out of bounds when it uses its influence on Israel's behalf. Their question is whether or not that influence is used to promote policies that are in America's interest, or even Israel's.

The authors' answer is "no." They believe that the interests of both countries would be better served by aggressive American involvement intended to produce an Israeli-Palestinian agreement along the lines of the so-called Clinton parameters. Israel would withdraw more or less to the '67 lines, a Palestinian state would be established, Israel's security would be guarded by ironclad guarantees, and the Palestinians would abandon any future claims on Israeli territory.

They believe that it is the influence of the lobby that has prevented the U.S. from vigorously pursuing this goal, despite the fact that both presidents Clinton and George W. Bush have endorsed it.

I spent almost 20 years as a Congressional aide and can testify from repeated personal experience that senators and House members are under constant pressure to support status-quo policies on Israel. It is no accident that members of Congress compete over who can place more conditions on aid to the Palestinians, who will be first to denounce the Saudi peace plan, and who will win the right to be the primary sponsor of the next pointless Palestinian-bashing resolution.

Nor is it an accident that there is never a serious Congressional debate about policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. Moreover, every president knows that any serious effort to push for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement based on compromise by both sides will produce loud (sometimes hysterical) opposition from the Hill. Walt and Mearsheimer mostly limit themselves to exploring whether all this is good for the United States (and to a lesser extent, Israel).

The question I ask today, and not for the first time, is whether this type of behavior is good for Israel. Forty years after the Six-Day War, the occupation continues, the resistance to it intensifies, and Israelis in increasing numbers question whether they have a future in the Jewish state.

Has "pro-Israel" advocacy consistently produced "pro-Israel" ends? At several critical moments, it most certainly has not. Was it pro-Israel to lobby the Nixon administration in 1971 to support Israel's rejection of Anwar Sadat's offer of peace in exchange for a three-mile pullback from the banks of the Suez Canal? Nixon capitulated to the pressure and backed off, leaving Israel free to reject Sadat's offer. Two years later, Sadat attacked and Israel lost 3,000 soldiers in a war that would have been prevented had Israel accepted the Sadat initiative. Israel gained nothing in that war, and ended up giving Sadat all the territory he sought in 1971, and much more.

Was it pro-Israel to urge the Reagan administration to back Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982? That war, and its bloody aftermath, lasted for 18 years, with the last Israeli soldier not leaving Lebanon until 2000 - after a thousand soldiers were killed. Just days after Israel's invasion, Lebanese Christian forces massacred almost a thousand Palestinians at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps. And 241 United States Marines, serving as post-war peace keepers, were killed (the most on any single day since Iwo Jima) when Hezbollah blew up their barracks. In the end, the war accomplished nothing and Israel withdrew unconditionally.

Was it pro-Israel to press Congress to attach so many onerous conditions to aid to President Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority that Abbas was unable to demonstrate to his people that a moderate president, who fully accepted Israel, would produce benefits that they would not achieve by choosing Hamas. The U.S. (and Israeli) policies of all sticks and no carrots led predictably to Abbas' defeat by Hamas and a Hamas-controlled Gaza that has resumed its attacks on Israeli towns.

Was it pro-Israel to prevent the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II administrations from insisting on a permanent freeze on settlements or, at the very least, the immediate removal of the illegal settlements? Wouldn't Israel be infinitely better off if the United States had used friendly persuasion to end the settlement enterprise right from the get-go? After all, the vast majority of Israelis consider the settlements to be impediments to peace and so has every president since the first settlement was erected. Similar questions could be asked about the arguments favoring the Iraq war as good for both the United States and Israel (when critics correctly predicted that it would be disastrous for both), and should be asked about some future attack on Iran.

These questions are especially urgent with a presidential election coming up. Once again, presidential candidates are being told that in order to earn the "pro-Israel" label, they must heartily endorse the status quo. That means that when asked what they would do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they must state unequivocal support for Israeli policies. They must put the onus for the failed diplomacy of recent years on the Palestinians. They must indicate that although they support peace, they will not adopt the kind of proactive peacemaking engaged in by presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. They must never use the words "even-handed" or "honest broker."

There is a script and the candidates must not deviate from it. For the vast majority of us who care deeply about Israel, the politically correct (and safe) approach to Israel is insulting. Sure, it keeps candidates out of trouble with that small minority of the pro-Israel community which believes that Israel can survive as a Jewish state while holding on to the territories. But that isn't most American Jews, not by a long shot.

Candidates who avoid saying what they believe out of fear of offending lobbyists and activists who have been proven wrong over and over again are not doing Israel any favors. And they should not be rewarded for it by being granted the label of "pro-Israel." There is nothing pro-Israel about supporting policies that only promise that Israeli mothers will continue to dread their sons' 18th birthdays for another generation. For that we are supposed to be grateful?

OK, davai - here's some more red meat for you:

The problem is that a lot of people on the Left define antisemitism so narrow so that nobody on the Left can ever be accused of antisemitism.

I am one of the people you are talking about and I emphatically state that you have slandered the intent behind my narrower-than-yours definition of antisemitism. I did not arrive at my definition "so that" the left would be immune from the charge but because I actually believe my definition to be useful and your definition to be useless and worse, pernicious.

What is YOUR definition of antisemitism, anyway? You're always saying "if this is not antisemitism, what is?" But that's not a definition. That's basically the notion that "I know it when I see it." The trouble with such definitions is that they have no power to convince anybody else who doesn't see it that way. They're subjective! When various Black people have attempted to make similar declarations, they are accused of "playing the race card" and generally paid less attention. Which is not to say that such people are always wrong - SOME of the instances they cite might be seen as racist by others outside their circle. But they overreach. As do you.

My father was a victim of REAL antisemitism. He was not allowed to enter the profession he'd chosen for himself because it was well known at the time that Jews would not be hired for such positions by the industry. Such restrictions are thankfully a thing of the past in the USA now.

Contrast this with a currently popular "definition" that basically says that anything that a large number of Jews are uncomfortable with is antisemitic. Hey, a large number of Jews probably agree with my defitions as well (we can quibble over which group is larger but what would that prove?) but you don't see left-wing Jews arguing that that makes those who disagree antisemitic, so what gives?

You really should drop this weapon. It does you little good in the long run. It may help in rallying a dwindling number of troops, or if your goal in life is to be a troll-like pest to MJR, but you really should aim for better than that.

Purple State,

Zionista, I have enough respect for you to believe that you're not really in the camp that considers Carter and Ghandi serious antisemites.

Did I say that?  I do recall making a point about limiting broad terms to particular extremes, however.

sTiVo,
I mostly agree with you.
I personally don't see a point to agrue if W&M are antisemites or not. They are wrong. Even MJ accepted that. I see no point calling Carter antisemite. His book had many errors, Dennis Ross and many other pointed to those errors without calling Carter antisemite.
On another hand people should have a right to free speech and call somebody antisemite if they want. Here is what I said:

You say that you can't label people racists or antisemites if it isn't true.
I agree. My question is who should decide who is and who is not xxx-ist? One Ivy League school professor think that W&M are antisemites.Another Ivy League school professor think that Reagan is race-baitor. Should they have a right to say what they think or not?
What they say is not facts, it's just opinions.
You might disagree with their opinions, but why you want to deny Krugman and Wisse the right to say what they think?

The case of Dataguy is different.

There are Jewish Nazis, and some teach at Harvard, and some at Yale.

Another point that I'm making is that people on the Left should drop "the Israel lobby" weapon.
It's very il-defined term, and it's used on the Left as a discussion stopper against anybody they disagree with. Do you agree?
You don't to say that W&M are wrong because they are antisemites, you don't need to say that congressman voted wrong way because he is a member of Israel lobby.

MJ wrote:
------------------------------------
There is a script and the candidates must not deviate from it. For the vast majority of us who care deeply about Israel, the politically correct (and safe) approach to Israel is insulting. Sure, it keeps candidates out of trouble with that small minority of the pro-Israel community which believes that Israel can survive as a Jewish state while holding on to the territories. But that isn't most American Jews, not by a long shot.

---------------------------------------

As has been pointed out by myself and others here, this statement is simply FALSE.
YOU ARE THE MINORITY. First let us define what "care deeply about Israel" means:
(1) visit Israel frequently, (2) regularly give significant amounts of money to Israeli institutions (3) send children to visit and/or study for an extended amount of time and (4) personally go to events, meetings or the such where Israel and its affairs are discussed (and I am including synagogue activities in this because synagogues coordinate the previous three items)
If we define "deeply care" this way, then the majority of those in the US that fit this category are "Right-wing". Many may feel that Israel may have to give up some territory in order to have peace (something I personally disagree with but that is not the point here) but they do NOT feel that it is "immoral" for Israel to control Judea/Samaria and they are willing to let the Israeli gov't decide what steps it is going to take without the US pushing them in a direction that will endanger Israel, and they are willing to let AIPAC speak for them. Just as a large majority of Israeli oppose giving up Judea/Samaria without a firm commmittment of the Arabs to make REAL peace, a majority of Amercan Jews in the "deeply care" camp feel the same way, and my feeling is that even in the NOT "deeply caring" camp, it is probably the same. Sure they might answer a poll by saying that they are willing to have a Palestinian state created and Israel pull out of Judea/Samaria for REAL peace, but most Jews in both the "deeply care" camp and outside of it realize that currently that is not the situation and that having the US pressure Israel in the way MJ wants is counterproductive. US politicians, much to MJ's chagrin, understand this and that is why MJ is on his Quixotic crusade to try to convince them the true situation is not really "true".

I've already said that his words were poorly chosen. There is, I believe, a distinction between an antisemitic statement, and a person being committed to antisemitism.

Much to my surprise, as I studied the Nazis so I could better understand the defense of our system, here and there, there was an individual in Nazi uniform who demonstrated decent behavior. "Ernst B.", the physician at Auschwitz, described in Robert Jay Lifton's book, The Nazi Doctors, absolutely refused to have any part of selection and killing, believed his role was as a healer and he carried out his belief, and, a minor thing here but apparently shockingly unusual in a camp, was courteous to all.

Konrad Morgen was somewhere between a criminal investigator and a judge, and was relentless on finding Nazis that were dishonest. He was a respected German judge after the war, and apparently a shining light for truth and fairness.

Do either of these men make the National Socialist movement good? Absolutely not! Nazi is one of the gravest insults in the language, and Dataguy was wrong, or at least guilty of hyperbole, to use it.

Lidice was an atrocity, but there is a point, admittedly a smaller one, where massively disproportionate firepower in response pushes that limit. There were attacks in Lebanon that may well have violated the Geneva Convention rules on collective punishment. Does that make the IDF the SS? Of course not! But there are incidents that might well be called war crimes in an independent court.

Having been through the declassified records, my sense is that the USS Liberty incident did not happen due to orders from the highest level, and there were huge mistakes on both sides. Nevertheless, the tactical commanders again may have committed war crimes. The US command was irresponsible, at the least, not to send warship(s) with the intelligence collection system, as they did three years earlier in the Gulf of Tonkin?

Is, however, Dataguy an antisemite? Remember that Harry Truman, who pushed for the independence of Israel and full integration of the US armed forces, used derogatory terms for Jews and blacks in his private conversations and letters. If he were judged on one letter, or on one public act, there would be radically different conclusions.

There is, IMHO, too much time spent on these threads on deciding who does, or does not, fall into the category of "antisemite". Accusations of "Nazi" are less common, but both may simultaneously be reprehensible, and also reasons to think about why the statement might have been phrased. Occasionally, there is even an opportunity to educate.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Davai, why don't you get a job. Most of us work and can't devote our lives to asking dumb question.
Also, how to put this. You act as if those of us who post here are under some obligation to respond to your crazy posts. Here's the deal. It's Josh's site. MJ is a featured writer. You are just a nudnik. But you sure drive up MJ's numbers!!!

Zionista,

I simply wanted to express my admiration at the way you responded to the quote. You set a framework about what you did and did not know. You then asked a meaningful and specific question, directly relevant to the point. You then made a suggestion of how a point, neither all-black or all-white, could become part of the discussion.

Would that more responses to posts read like this.

Again, thank you.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

You already posted this article in tpmcafe.

...

Why you kept it to yourself until today?

Davai, do you ever think before you type?

Okay, MJ, now is the time for you to put your money where your mouth is. I am going to challenge you to set up meetings, in the name of your Israel Policy Forum (IPF) with the political advisors of the top Presidential candidates. You go to them and tell them that you, NOT AIPAC represent the views of the "large majority of American Jewry", let us say, 3 Million for the sake of argument. You tell them that you agree with the learned professors W&M that past policies of the US towards Israel are against American interests, and that the "large majority" of American Jewry agreew with this. You tell them that you agree that the onus for making peace between Israel and the Arabs is on Israel, and that the US had better push Israel, against its government's policies to make more concessions, even if this means endangering Israel's security, prior to any peace agreement. Keep emphasizing that you speak with authority for 3 million American Jews, and that neither AIPAC nor the Israeli goverments stated policies are in accord with the views of these 3 million Jews.

At this point,they may ask what your credentials are to speak for 3 million American Jews. You will show him your regular mailing lists and e-mail lists which include maybe 100,000 names of people that receive IPF's newsletter (sounds reasonable for an organization that speaks for 3 million people). You will point out that IPF has dozens if not hundreds of employees on the payroll, and with speical pride you will show him that numerous Jewish and non-Jewish multi-billionaires support you and IPF, such as George Soros, Haim Saban and much of the Hollywood crowd.
You will hint that if their candidate will look favorably on taking a more "evenhanded" approach to the Arab/Israeli conflict, that these gigadonors might feel obliged to divert some cash in the direction of their candidate as well.
I don't see why you haven't done this before, instead of spending your time here preaching to the converted (well, at least, some of the converted). I realize that you have complained in the past that AIPAC has an "unfair" advantage over IPF and other "progressive" organizations in fund raising, but that doesn't make any sense. The really big money in the world today is with groups that are hostile in various degrees to what you might define as "ueber-Zionist" attitudes. I also don't understand why the politicians and their advisors, who usually have their ear to the ground regarding public attitudes, don't realize that the "vast majority" of American Jews DON'T like the "pro-Israel" positions the politicians are taking, meaning they could get a lot more votes by taking an "evenhanded position".

I have thrown down your challenge, MJ. Prove to me that you are right--that you do speak for the "vast majority" of American Jewry.

Howard:

Thanks for your query. You are a good man and I do know your heart is in the right place.

As to your threshold question, I have no insight whatsoever into what Israel is or is not doing with respect to suspension of work on any kind of defense systems. Can't help you there.

I believe your point on the PNAC as distinguished from AIPAC is a sound one, and I also believe that it is something that Bev D briefly addressed somewhere above in the morass.

Bottom line: I ain't no defender of any lobbying organization, including AIPAC. My concern is the historical significance of blaming a group like AIPAC for sending American boys and girls off to war. I don't buy it, and it is the type of allegation that sends chills up what has been called my tribal spine.

More significantly, Howard, my real concern is not what my personal assessment of such allegations are, but how such allegations are viewed in the American Jewish community.

My ultimate point is that the American Jewish community is not going to change its collective perspective so to speak if the community does not trust those who seek to change hearts and minds. And the notion that a so-called Israel Lobby was the ultimate reason we went to war is a notion that will, unfortunately but understandably in my own mind, do nothing but alienate the very people we seek to impact. I'm really making a tactical argument, a political one, i.e. how do we rally the American Jewish community to push for a more progressive approach to the I-P conflict?

Bruce

No.

On November 3, 2007 - 5:18pm mjrosenberg said:

I don't buy the part of the book about the Iraq war.

The large numbers of Amreican Jews who share some agreement with our positions on this issue are not

We have discussed this before. Of course, you are right, but the point is that all you have to do is add the Arab opinion to the "Left" side of the debate. Both the Oslo Agreements and Sharon's destruction of Gush Katif depended on Arab votes in the Knesset to get passed since they didn't have a Jewish majority. The fact is, whether some "progressives" or not, is that Israel is supposed to be a Jewish/Zionist state where non-Jews have equal rights as "individuals" but not as a national entity, the "national entity" is supposed to be Jewish. Both Oslo and Gush Katif are viewed by many people, including myself, as inherently a betrayal of Zionism precisely because they did not have a Jewish majority behind them. If people don't like it or call it racist, all I can say is "too bad", there are plenty of other national entities where the majority culture/religion defines the national ethos which a minority might not like (e.g. all the Arab countries that call themselves names like "The Arab Republic of Egypt" and which define Islam as the state religion, or Muslim Pakistan carved out of India). I think most Israeli Jews agree with me and the Steinmetz people are aware of this and conduct the polls acccordingly. The government is playing with fire when it takes a Jewish minority plus the Arab votes to make an artificial (IMHO) majority to pass legislation turning over Jewish homes and synagogues to rampaging Arab mobs to be desecrated and burned down and the police beating up Jewish children and decorated army veterans as Olmert and Sharon did.

Good to have you back Seth.

No, Purple State, my primary concern is not "semantics."  My primary concern is the political reality of our public discourse, such as it is.  Ask Don Imus about racism's "rather weak teeth," and then ask Pat Buchanan about antisemitism's "relatively sharp bite."  But before you do, at least try to remember which one is still working.

In the meantime, us Zionist thugs will go on being the butt of the blogospheric inteligentsia's demonization as "fascist genocidal colonial racists," in all its righteous linguistic purity.

You'd been quite clear about your intellectual investment in limiting definitions to their most extreme examples.  And it is an interesting juxtaposition that you would insist that I hold an opinion that I have never expressed.  So, let's avoid any discussion of the antisemitic implications in a theory about an ill-defined Israel Lobby's leverage on US foreign policy while I sit back, shut up and enjoy being labeled a Zionist thug, stifling our valuable debate by accusing anyone of antisemitism who disagrees with me about anything.

Purple State,

PS: If your primary point was to defend Zionists from charges of racism, then I agree with your point, though I'm puzzled why you worded your original response as you did.

OK, fair enough.  Let's look at it again....

On November 4, 2007 - 10:02am Zionista said:

Purple State,

Let's reserve the term for truly repugnant and hateful types like Hitler.

Then we must also be prepared reserve similar terms like "racism" for only the most extreme examples as well.

The problem I have with limiting the term to Hitler is that by the time we get Hitler, it's too late to fix whatever made him popular enough to be Hitler (ie, a particularly nasty charismatic leader of an industrialized military power).  If we took your advice and limited the definition to antisemitism only to the most murderously extreme examples, then were I to argue against the position of Corporal Hitler that the Jews had stabbed Germany in the back and caused its defeat in the Great War, and called it out as antisemitic, then I would likely be accused of stifling the debate by the Purple States of the crumbling Weimar Republic.

For a more contemporary example, consider the idea that American Jewish leadership should bear an inordinate responsibility for the debacle in Iraq and for an impending debacle in Iran, as implied by Walt and Mearsheimer in their LRB piece, and expressed by the West Virginia congressman whose name escapes me. 

To accuse Jimmy Carter of being antisemitic is ridiculous.  But does that mean we ought to be prohibited from examining potentially antisemitic implications of his public statements?  If so, then who exactly is stifling the discussion?  For the record, I do not consider Walt and Mearsheimer antisemites.  But some of the conclusions reached in their earlier article (again, I have not read the recent book version of their thesis), due to some questionable premises, arguably advance some antisemitic implications.

Note that I used the word "arguably."  But all-too-often in these discussions, to submit the argument at all is to "stifle the debate with accusations of antisemitism."  That, I submit, is also ridiculous.  And maybe even a bit dangerous.  But not likely as dangerous to you.

I find your phrasing

due to some questionable premises, arguably advance some antisemitic implications.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Let me make a statement and see if it falls under your "short reach" doctrine.

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has a very significant responsibility both for the invasion of Iraq and the threat to Iran. While its position papers tended to assume the residents would meet Americans with flowers, it was a clear PNAC goal to put permanent US bases into the Mideast, dominating and controlling the region.

Any problem, so far, with that statement?

Many of the people who wrote PNAC position papers or endorsed the approach became powerful figures in the Bush 43 Administration, which launched said invasion and threats.

Fair so far?

One of the cofounders of PNAC (I don't know the religion of the other) is Jewish. At least two of the major figures in PNAC in the Administration is Jewish.

Accurate statements? I don't believe this is prejudicial to anyone, unless one considers being associated with PNAC to be a libel. I've seen it suggested that even mentioning that some policy-level officials are Jewish starts to imply "Jewish plot" and is antisemitic.

Some of the positions of the Administration, PNAC, and AIPAC intersect.

Again, I think this is a perfectly reasonable statement, but it seems to hit some peoples' antisemitism button.

The majority of key Administration figures are Christian. Some are supporters of the ideology of Zionism.

Any antisemitism in the above statement?

This is a sequence that I consider accurate, but not antisemitic. Others seem to call the same observations, perhaps not broken out at this level of detail, antisemitic. If so, I honestly think that there is a hypersensitivity causing things not there to be seen.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Howard,

This is a sequence that I consider accurate, but not antisemitic.

Right.  Not necessarily antisemitic, but alot depends on what one does with a given series of facts.  For example, just as the Bush adminstration fixed the intelligence around its policy, the technique is hardly peculiar to them.  This is where implications become more viable, and volatile, than mere branding.

I expand on these thoughts in my reply to Purple State below.

And as with Purple State, thanks for hanging in here Howard.

Much of this tells me that antisemitism has much more potential to metastisize as a cynical emotional catalyst rather than as a personality trait.

Yes, I think this is true of all forms of racism. As humans (and as primates) we have a biological tendency to be clannish and under periods of stress rally around those we see as part of our tribe and attack those we see as alien. The emotions that trigger these responses run very deep and can be easy to exploit and hard to resist.