Thursday, February 11, 2010
Well, this is a thoughtful response to the TNR piece taking Andrew Sullivan to task for recent remarks about Israel and AIPAC and "neocons":
The whole kerfuffle could have been avoided though with a little less stereotyping.
That shot at AIPAC and using Israel to attack Palin, Kristol and Cheney was unfair. It was stereotyping. It wrongly conflated supporters of Israel with supporters of Palin, which we may or may not be; and it specifically stated that the Israelis were attempting to deep-six Obama's Peace Plans without considering that protecting Israeli citizens from repeated rocket barrages was the reason for the attack on Gaza.
Now, here I feel I must insert the usual disclaimer: "This has nothing to do with Not Being Allowed To Criticize Israel And/Or Talk About The So-Called Israel Lobby."
It is however about unfair stereotypes about Israel, Jews, supporters of Israel and canards about Jews, Israel or AIPAC controlling the US government.
That said, even in this piece, the reason people fear Mearsheimer/Walt doesn't seem to register. Indeed Mr. Sullivan digs himself in deeper on that score. There's a lack of understanding on his part as to why conspiracy theories and dual-loyalty memes upset Jews enormously (and with reason).
And, given the way people misuse each and everything that can be tracked on Google, even to the point of deliberately misquoting famous people like Ben Gurion, or even simply making up quotes, bloggers do need to make balanced posts - especially famous ones.
They cannot rely on the fact that back in 2007 they posted a picture of an Ethiopian Jew as "Face of the Day" and conclude thereby that the author isn't a bigot.
For example - "I disagree with the architects of Cast Lead and think it was probably an overreaction. I believe that far too many people died, that violence may have been excessive. However, the rocket attacks were unconscionable and the people of Southern Israel were suffering intensely. We must all attempt to seek a peaceful solution rather than resort to the brutality of war. To that end the United Nations needs to be an effective arbiter and currently it is not, but enforces human rights violations selectively."
That's a far cry from what Andrew actually said. Admittedly also it isn't very punchy!
And maybe that's part of the problem. When you're trying to make a living writing, people want zing, don't they. But sometimes "zing" really hurts people. Look at all the outside agitation that's feeding the cycles of grievance and violence in the Middle East!
Is it just me or what?
Well obviously "or what" judging from the responses: this is a stunningly insensitive piece of work. It not only plays on antisemitic memes it reinforces them.
And even in his response to Leon's piece he stereotypes the settlers as "religious fanatics" when many - maybe most - are no such thing, and characterizes the whole nation of Israel as becoming something bad, without balancing the apparent drift to the Right with the facts of the Intifada, the war with Hezbollah, the terrorist attacks and the genocidal rhetoric.
Is antisemitism really something only Jews understand?
I'm beginning to wonder.
Some of this would be a lot easier if, in pieces like Wieseltier's, people would be more careful to make it plain that they are examining, not the individual for anti-Semitism, but more clearly the things they say. It's only after you've done that, carefully, sensitively, and time after time the individual shows no consciousness or interest in adjusting their personal editorial decisions can you then start to say that what we now have exposed is what amounts to a serious character flaw.
I hold up Buckley's examination of Pat Buchanan and Joe Sobran as an example. He was very clear in his criticism that he was not discussing either man's heart -- he felt neither would ever mistreat a Jew knowingly -- but simply whether their writing was so insensitive to history that it was functionally anti-semitic. That is a good approach. (In the event, the intervening years have shown, to me at least, that Buchanan has a character flaw -- call it what you will -- ...and no one knows who Joe Sobran is anymore anyway.)
Stop mincing around. Andrew Sullivan is an anti-semitic son of bitch. He has sympathy only for the poooooor palestinians, who suffer from zionist imperialism. People who think this way, after years and years of the Ps never missing and opportunity to say not to sharing the Land, are is either ill-informed or ill-willed. Sullivan is the latter.
Sullivan also legitimized Trig Palin conspiracy theories of the Left, by giving them voice on the right.
See, Andrew Sullivan is saying it.
Andrew Sullivan smeared Palin as representative of certain groups. He is the most vile sort of bigot.
He makes his living as a token Conservative, writing for Leftwing media. Like Frum. Attacking the Right, for them, legitimizing their smears and criticism.
In Andrew's defense, Jonathan Chait writes of his previous philosophy in an article entitled "Andrew Sullivan Is Not An Antisemite,"
"Not long ago, Andrew Sullivan had ultra-hawkish views on Israel and the Middle East. The problem as he saw it, was very simple: The Muslim world was anti-Semitic and wanted to kill all the Jews. Naive Western governments pushed innocent Israelis to make peace, when the only answer was force. Here are some excerpts from an August 2001 column he wrote:
[T]he notion of a negotiable peace with the murdering hoodlums who run the PLO was always a fantasy. ...
Or maybe these optimists simply read the report of the recent suicide bombing printed in USA Today and noted by conservative commentator George Will: "The blast ... sent flesh flying onto second-storey balconies a block away. Three men were blown 30ft; their heads, separated from their bodies by the blast, rolled down the glass-strewn street ... One woman had at least six nails embedded in her neck. Another had a nail in her left eye. Two men, one with a six-inch piece of glass in his right temple ... tried to walk away ... A man groaned ... His legs were blown off. Blood poured from his torso ... A three-year-old girl, her face covered with glass, walked among the bodies calling her mother's name" ...
Here's the scenario, floated by the Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, the brilliant analyst who helped formulate the Reagan doctrine: "A lightning and massive Israeli attack on every element of Arafat's police state infrastructure -the headquarters and commanders of his eight security services, his police stations, weapons depots, training camps, communications and propaganda facilities--with a simultaneous attack on the headquarters and leadership of Arafat's Hamas and Islamic Jihad allies.
"Arafat has given Israel war; he will now receive it." ...
snip
http://www.tnr.com/blog/andrew-sullivan-not-anti-semite
I don't understand why he's flip-flopped just as hard the other direction.
Whatever happened to nuanced commentary and opinions that can reflect wisdom and complexity?
This goes hand in hand with the disillusionment of many people who voted for the war in Iraq and subsequently became disillusioned with it.
A nasty angle to that arose, which specifically blamed Jews for the war, targetted Senator Lieberman alone and specifically in a national effort to kick him out of the Senate, and also began equating the term "neocon" with "Jew."
Even earlier the antisemitic propaganda machine had been out, blaming us for 9/11. Also, the Durban conference stating that "Zionism is Racism" emerged at the same time, it was overshadowed by 9/11 but the poison was in the water.
Then, images of the Intifada, mostly blaming the Israelis for the violence, got mixed up with images of the Iraq war - I think the whole decade has been a perfect storm of disaster, tens of thousands of people have died in the US, Israel, the PA, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Pakistan and beyond - Iran has been fueling extremists - and it's all been a great opportunity for antisemites who can point to dead people and blame the Jews for all the suffering.
The Walt/Mearscheimer angle is that this has been brought about by "the Israel lobby" - why people can't see how dangerous and inaccurate this is eludes me.
And, what's so painful about this thing with Sullivan is that I don't think he is an antisemite, Leon W. didn't think so either, so - what happened?
He says, he hasn't changed, Israel has changed. But, has it really? Or has the violence had the obvious effect of driving people to a more warlike, less conciliatory position? If so what's so unusual or strange about that?
This recent anti-Israel bias reflects not only the thinking of one blogger either alas - he's just reflecting probably what all too many of us readers want to hear perhaps?
Horrors. I agree with EV:)
The Trig stories are wierd, they're kind of the mirror of the "birther" stories about Obama; also as EV says, he stereotypes Palin supporters, which isn't right either.
Also, one really doesn't know what a "Palin foreign policy" would look like do we? President Obama isn't a peacenik.
We are engaged in two wars in Asia, thousands of miles away from home, and are now pushing into an offensive against the Taliban. We might have to Do Something about Iran, if diplomacy doesn't work; and there are threats in the Far East as well - sabre rattling from North Korea plus Chinese philosophy about Taiwan.
Israel's war on Gaza, awful as it was, was a war on a next-door neighbor which has attacked Israeli citizens repeatedly and which desires Israel's demise.
There's really no comparison is there?
We may have strategic interests in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but if we want to make an "AIPAC" comparison with US foreign policy, a more honest question would be, what would we do if Mexico attacked us with thousands of rockets and threatened to exterminate us?
They are already threatening to take over the US through illegal immigration and anchor babies.
There is a reason that they protested the 2005/2006 Immigration Reform push, hitting the streets by teh 100s of 1000s with Mexican flags.
Its because they are Mexican Nationals and see themselves as proud Mexicans. They dont want to be Americans, they want America to become Mexican.
That might be true of some, EV, for example "Vos de Atzlan," but hardly all, surely!
Here's an update including a comment by moi:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/19-Pundits-on-the-Sullivan-Wieseltier-Debate-2500
And another piece by Leon W:
http://www.tnr.com/article/the-trouble-south-park
You know what upsets me the most about this? The fact that it came up at all:(
Same could be said of the Palestinian Muslims.
They just want the Right of Return.
:rollseyes
"I don't understand why he's flip-flopped just as hard the other direction."
Maybe the answer is to be found somewhere in his biography.
I recall Mikis Theodorakis used to be an admirer and friend of Israel until he made a complete about face and emerged as one of Greece's more illustrious antisemites. What happened? His daughter married a Palestinian.
I'm just speculating here, of course. But Sullivan's poisonous verbal recklessness cannot be explained away by merely some epiphany about primal truth or whatever it is he tells himself to quiet his conscience.
Really enjoyed Wieseltier's latest response.
I subscribed:)