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August 29, 2006

'Fight the Israel Lobby'

One of the most frustrating -- and alarming -- debates I engage in, from time to time, with left-of-center people is about Israel, Jews and Zionism. Naivety and disingenuousness mix together in varying proportions in the responses to my assertion that much of the demonstrations (by organizations like A.N.S.W.E.R.) ostensibly about "anti-war", "anti-occupation" or "anti-Zionism" are steeped in old-fashioned anti-Semitism. Just as the origin of the word "anti-Semitism" was coined as a pseudo-scientific phrase in an attempt to make visceral Jew-hate more acceptable, so do contemporary anti-Zionist anti-Semites cloak themselves with rationalizations and academic "studies." So it shouldn't be surprising to find John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, two "academics" of Harvard who produced a controversial paper about the "undue influence of the Israel Lobby", being feted at an event sponsored by front-group, CAIR. The fig-leaf drops

Yesterday, at the invitation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), they [Mearsheimer and Walt] held a forum at the National Press Club to expand on their allegations about the Israel lobby. Blurring the line between academics and activism, they accepted a button proclaiming "Fight the Israel Lobby" and won cheers from the Muslim group for their denunciation of Israel and its friends in the United States.

Whatever motivated the performance, the result wasn't exactly scholarly.

Walt singled out two Jews who worked at the Pentagon for their pro-Israel views. "People like Paul Wolfowitz or Doug Feith . . . advocate policies they think are good for Israel and the United States alike," he said. "We don't think there's anything wrong with that, but we also don't think there's anything wrong for others to point out that these individuals do have attachments that shape how they think about the Middle East."

"Attachments" sounds much better than "dual loyalties." But why single out Wolfowitz and Feith and not their non-Jewish boss, Donald Rumsfeld? [...]

Walt seemed defensive about the charges of anti-Semitism. He cautioned that the Israel lobby "is not a cabal," that it is "not synonymous with American Jews" and that "there is nothing improper or illegitimate about its activities."

But Mearsheimer made no such distinctions as he used "Jewish activists," "major Jewish organizations" and the "Israel lobby" interchangeably. Clenching the lectern so tightly his knuckles whitened, Mearsheimer accused Israel of using the kidnapping of its soldiers by Hezbollah as a convenient excuse to attack Lebanon.

"Israel had been planning to strike at Hezbollah for months," he asserted.

I'll point out this assertion, without one scrap of evidence, mirrors a similar claim by Nasrallah in an attempt to duck who was responsible for igniting the last round of war in the Middle East.

The far-Left, dominated by an anti-Western pathos, has become the center where contemporary anti-Semitism resides -- and none are more in denial than "progressive" Jews who tie themselves into rhetorical knots to avoid facing that anti-Semitism face on. Noam Chomsky embraces the Hezzi-nazis. Tony Judt advocates the destruction of the state of Israel. Leftist Michael Lerner, an outspoken critic of certain Israeli policies is, none-the-less, a Zionist, and critical of "anti-war" protests being used to advance an anti-Semitic agenda. For that he was blackballed by A.N.S.W.E.R.

On the personal level, my latest debate on this subject was frustrating because I kept encountering such disingenuousness as someone claiming not to know the chant that calls for the annihilation of Israel (from [Jordan] river to [Mediterranean] sea, Palestine will be free [judenrein]) to people actually denying that the radical ideology of Islamism even exists. Yet, these "progressives" are supporting an ideology that finds them as abhorant and worthy of oppression as pro-Western right-of-center people.

Sadly, Dennis probably is right in this regard

Consciously or not, the Jew who sides with those dedicated to murdering Jews feels that he will be spared. He becomes the "good Jew" in the anti-Semites' eyes. How else to explain the visit of a Jew named Noam Chomsky to Lebanon to support Hezbollah or the fact that Chomsky wrote the foreword to a French book denying the Holocaust? How else to explain Norman Finkelstein telling cheering German audiences that the Jewish state is morally the same as the Nazis? How else to explain rabbis visiting Tehran to extol the Holocaust-denying regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran that seeks to exterminate Israel?

The other psychological explanation is related. The Jew -- specifically the radical Jew -- who sympathizes with Jew-haters wishes to announce to the world that he is not really like other Jews. While the other Jews are moored in provincial Jewish ethnic or religious identity, he is a world citizen who no more identifies with the Jews' fate than with the fate of Iroquois Indians.

My frustration is mixed with utter pity. It's not easy to see people demonstrate in an effort to commit suicide by jihadist.

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Posted by Darleen at August 29, 2006 06:15 AM

Comments

leftist anti-Western pathology is a very apt description

Posted by: Jane at August 29, 2006 09:09 PM

"Israel had been planning to strike at Hezbollah for months," he asserted.
"this assertion, without one scrap of evidence"
Sy Hersh in the 8/21/06 The New Yorker.

"two "academics" of Harvard"
It doesn't necessarily mean they're right, but they most certainly are real academics.

"such disingenuousness as someone claiming not to know the chant that calls for the annihilation of Israel (from [Jordan] river to [Mediterranean] sea, Palestine will be free [judenrein])"
I've never heard of it, either, and have no reason to lie about it.
"to people actually denying that the radical ideology of Islamism even exists."
Who did that?

"While the other Jews are moored in provincial Jewish ethnic or religious identity, he is a world citizen who no more identifies with the Jews' fate than with the fate of Iroquois Indians."
You mean like universal human rights? Is that such a bad idea?

Posted by: zippy at September 2, 2006 08:56 AM