In Tablet Magazine, Lee Smith writes about the ways that Steve Walt and other writers seem to be playing fire with terms in their writing that support an anti-Semitic world view:
Jew-baiting is simply one way that the new old media and old new media are trying to find their collective footing in a changing press environment and a bad economy. So, in the interests of sharing my understanding of this successful recipe with my colleagues in the opinion press, these are some notes on how to increase traffic to your struggling website.
The Jew-baiter’s Lexicon
Here are some of the euphemistic catchphrases that will cover your ass with your queasier colleagues in the press corps while announcing to those in the know that your cesspool is open for business, with examples drawn from top anti-Israel blogs:
1. “The Israel lobby”
A conspiracy theory by any other name, the “Israel lobby” has long been invoked to explain unconditional U.S. support for the Jewish state. This conceit hit the mainstream in 2007 with publication of the Walt-Mearsheimer book explaining that a broadly inclusive coalition of U.S. citizens of Jewish descent ranging from the far left to the far right are subverting U.S. foreign policy on behalf of Israel. Walt and Mearsheimer deny that what sounds, looks, and smells like a conspiracy theory about Jewish power is in fact one. Why? Because conspiracies about Jewish power are for anti-Semites, and they, by contrast, are tenured professors at two of the most esteemed universities in the United States, men who are simply trying to explain the mysterious forces that have poisoned the U.S. public so much that it overwhelmingly supports the Jewish state in poll after poll, subverting rational U.S. interests in the Middle East through a uniquely irrational process that is applicable to the behavior of no other state on the planet. That’s why.
Here, for instance, Stephen Walt finds the proof vindicating his claim that it was indeed the Israel lobby that drove the United States to make war on Iraq—Tony Blair says so! The problem however is that Tony Blair said no such thing. Walt not only wrenches Blair’s quote out of context, he also wildly twists the evidence surrounding the run-up to the Iraq war to fit his theory. In Walt’s account, the fact that Israel was vocal in its opposition to the Iraq war, until it eventually fell in line behind the George W. Bush Administration’s democracy-promotion crusade like a good ally, was a feat of astonishing misdirection, which appears to have fooled even Stephen Walt himself (as well as Mearsheimer). By the end, it appears, the United States was taken to war not by the Bush Administration but by a remarkably complete list of nearly every Israeli and American Jewish politician, journalist, activist, and thinker, liberal and conservative alike, including Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, “Every Israeli politician who Bill Clinton knows … and he knows a lot,” Howard Kohr of AIPAC, Nathan Guttman of The Forward, Michelle Goldberg of Salon.com, John B. Judis of The New Republic, Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker, the Brookings Institution, Martin Indyk, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Mortimer Zuckerman, Matthew Berger of the Jewish Telegraph Agency; Dr. Mandell Ganchrow, executive vice president of the Orthodox Religious Zionists of America; Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism; David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee; Gary Rosenblatt, the editor of The Jewish Week; and Rabbi David Saperstein Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
So how does Jew-baiting work in practice? Let’s look at the comments on this particular post.
“Bush and Cheney only had to walk down the hall to consult with Israel, considering how many in their cabinet and appointees have dual citizenships with Israel and were already actively involved with the Israeli government… All roads lead to PNAC, AIPAC, JINSA, ZOA, AEI, etc.” says one commenter, leaving out only ZOG in his paranoid alphabet soup. Another writes: “Everybody knows that many (not all) Jewish Americans care more about the security and preservation of the Israeli state than they do about the safety of American citizens.”
A commenter named Jacob, whom the other commenters appear to believe is Jewish, remarks that among other troubling issues with Walt’s argument is that his list of Jews responsible for the war seems to include virtually every public figure in the American Jewish community. Once baited, the mob zeroes in: “Calm down Jacob.” “Stop whining and make your point.” “Stick to the point and ease up on the histrionics.” “[Y]ou are, unfortunately, indicative of the sickness called Zionism that has perverted the Jewish community. It’s time to start to take RESPONSIBILITY for the actions of YOUR community. Get some help, Jacob.”
2. “Neocons”
This is a synonym often used to designate the kind of American Jew who has forced Washington officials to sacrifice U.S. interests, as well as U.S. blood and money, in order to make war on behalf of Israel’s desire to gobble up Muslim and Arab lands. First, the neocons slipped something into the well that Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and other policymakers drank from before they made war on Iraq; now the neocons are eager to push the U.S. into a conflict with Iran. If Weiss is to be believed, Washington Times reporter Eli Lake and a bunch of other Jewish journalists with no evident influence on the decision-making process are in fact setting the agenda for the entire Barack Obama Administration. To the Mondoweiss audience, it appears to make perfect sense that the decision on how to deal with the Iranian nuclear program will not be shaped by administration principals like Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Vice President Joe Biden but rather by Sen. Joe Lieberman’s op-ed in the Jerusalem Post. “[W]ith the neocons and aipac’s plugs in congress/media calling openly for war,” writes one commenter, “and with zionist liberals and fake leftists/progressives demonizing Iran more subtly to pave the way, how much longer before zionism, inc. gets their way on this?”
3. “Good Jews” vs. “Bad Jews”
If you give evidence that you have a problem with all Jews, you’re identifying yourself as an anti-Semite. It’s important then to make a distinction between two kinds of Jews—the “good Jews,” who agree with your conspiratorial views, and the “bad Jews,” who are often referred to with the shorthand term “Likudnik.” John Mearsheimer makes the distinction a bit more baldly, calling the bad Jews the “New Afrikaaners” and the good ones, “righteous Jews,” a cleverly nasty twist on the Jewish concept of the righteous gentile.
“Most American Jews,” writes Andrew Sullivan, “retain a respect for learning, compassion for the other, and support for minorities. But the Goldfarb-Krauthammer wing—that celebrates and believes in government torture, endorses the pulverization of Gazans with glee, and wants to attack Iran—is something else. Something much darker.” In other words, the “Krauthammer/Goldfarb wing” represents the bad Jewish thoughts of U.S. Jewry. As Leon Wieseltier put it in The New Republic, “[Sullivan’s] assumption, in his outburst about ‘the Goldfarb-Krauthammer wing,’ that every thought that a Jew thinks is a Jewish thought is an anti-Semitic assumption, and a rather classical one.”
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Elvis Elvisberg // Jul 29, 2010 at 3:49 pm
1) “Israel Lobby” is a phrase like “gun lobby” (over 100,000 hits on Google). God only knows what unwieldy politically correct euphemism you’d rather use, but it isn’t actually an issue worth noting. As with the gun lobby, or the Cuba lobby, its critics charge that Israel is pursuing immoral, counterproductive policies, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank, and the US is unwilling to put meaningful pressure on Israel to change them. Now, one can agree or disagree with that, but it’s not an illegitimate thesis. And lord knows you could pick comments from Frum Forum and use them to discredit writers here– picking comments saying obnoxious things proves exactly nothing.
2) Neoconservatism, quoth Irving Kristol, means (1) “patriotism is a natural and healthy sentiment,” (2) “world government is a terrible idea,” (3) “distinguish friends from enemies,” and (4) “for a great power, the ‘national interest’ is not a geographical term.”
3) Yeah, the dividing people into groups is something I don’t care to defend. It’s pretty creepy, no doubt.
All this psychoanalysis of folks like Walt and Sullivan is a smokescreen to avoid discussing the merits of Israel’s policies, and the US’s policies toward Israel. Is this an accurate report? Is it a good thing or a bad thing for Israel and for the US? Why? That is the kind of thing we need to be talking about, when we discuss foreign policy.
abk1985 // Jul 29, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I think the situation would be much improved if the word “Jew” was banished from discourse like the “N word”. Of course, I am not being serious but the point is that Jewishness is constantly brought up and it really has no relevance and can only discomfit Jews.
Let me give an example. Let’s say the Neocons banged the drum for war in Iraq. That’s true. Now let’s quote Ha’aretz and point out that 25 of the leading Neocons are Jewish. Then one CAN say that “the Jews” banged the drum for war with Iraq. But to what purpose?
If we have a thing with Neocons — and I certainly do, I think they are idiots — their ethnic or religious affiliation is IRRELEVANT. I am not opposed to Neocons or Neocon interests because they have something to do with Jews or Jewishness, I am opposed to Neocons because they are STUPID.
There’s a flip side to this. The minute people start focusing on the Jewish aspect of a problem, let’s say, Neocons, pretty soon you are no longer talking about the PROBLEM, whether it be Iraq, or the settlements, or what have you, pretty soon you are talking about “the Jews” and all of a sudden, JEWS become the problem. See what I mean?
Neocons, Israel, AIPAC, etc. these are all problems to some degree or other. But the religion or ethnicity of the dispute should be out of bounds. and, BTW, I don’t think Walt and Mearsheimer are “anti-Semites” either. I just don’t think they understand that once you start injecting Jewishness into the equation pretty soon the equation is reduced to “what’s wrong with those Jews anyway?” And that gets no one anywhere.
pampl // Jul 29, 2010 at 4:29 pm
It would be easier to discuss foreign policy if there were fewer people talking about nebulous, shadowy cabals controlling the government and the media. I don’t think Walt is consciously anti-Semitic but I think it’s clear he’s fallen for some anti-Semitic myths and they shape his view of the “Israel lobby”
JJWFromME // Jul 29, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Joe Klein uses “Likudnik”. I suppose that means he’s a “self hating Jew”?
Come on. We can’t criticize policies of the Israeli government, and Israeli policy factions, just like we could our other allies? Sometimes, “opposition is true friendship.”
And how about that Charles Krauthammer? http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_08/009311.php
msmilack // Jul 29, 2010 at 9:58 pm
“John Mearsheimer makes the distinction a bit more baldly, calling the bad Jews the “New Afrikaaners” and the good ones, “righteous Jews,” a cleverly nasty twist on the Jewish concept of the righteous gentile.”
I love that distinction, it matches what I see. Thanks.
msmilack // Jul 29, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems to me that the Goldfarb-Krauthammer wing DOES advocate war where others do not (including possibly with Iran), does it not?
That wing takes the side of Israel sight-unseen, without a discerning eye.
These observations concern an affinity to a continuous war which they appear to promulgate.
pampl // Jul 30, 2010 at 12:59 am
Neoconservatism isn’t a wing of Judaism. It’s a wing of conservatism. Jews are overrepresented in it – just like they’re overrepresented in every elite demographic – but that doesn’t make it a Jewish thing any more than crime is a Black thing.
mickster99 // Jul 30, 2010 at 3:40 am
Thanks goodness for the Frum Forum commenters saving us from the imminent conversion of the U.S. from Christianity to Sharia law. Oklahoma state rep Rex Duncan/Lt. Gov Ron Ramesy states it clearly: it’s obvious liberal judges want to convert the US to the cultiist Islamic Sharia law. And Rep Sue Myrick stopping the infiltration of despicable cultist Islamic spies in the form of interns in the US congress. Thank god for these Republican young guns that keep us free from the yoke of Obama imposed Al Qaeda Sharia Law. And thanks to David Frum the balls/cojones of the republican party for providing this thriving and vital platfrum dedicated to preserving freedom. Amen.
JJWFromME // Jul 30, 2010 at 7:50 am
Neoconservatism isn’t a wing of Judaism. It’s a wing of conservatism. Jews are overrepresented in it – just like they’re overrepresented in every elite demographic
I’d say there’s more to it than that. There are certain themes you can trace back to 1) the Trotskyist 30’s in New York and 2) the debates between bohemian-sympathizers and anti-bohemians among the New York Intellectuals of the 1960’s. So we get a coherent strain of thought that tends to be 1) military Romanticist, and 2) decidedly anti-bohemian. And these strains of thought developed among Jewish intellectuals in New York, so not surprisingly it’s also 3) pro-Israel. By the way, I don’t think the US would be the same without these communities, so I’m not disparaging them, far from it (but I would probably take different sides of these debates than the neocons and proto necons did).
Check out this dialog between Jacob Heilbrun and a nervous, grape soda drinking Eli Lake for more details: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/9077
JJWFromME // Jul 30, 2010 at 7:51 am
Neoconservatism isn’t a wing of Judaism. It’s a wing of conservatism. Jews are overrepresented in it – just like they’re overrepresented in every elite demographic
I’d say there’s more to it than that. There are certain themes you can trace back to 1) the Trotskyist 30’s in New York and 2) the debates between bohemian-sympathizers and anti-bohemians among the New York Intellectuals of the 1960’s. So we get a coherent strain of thought that tends to be 1) military Romanticist, and 2) decidedly anti-bohemian. And these strains of thought developed among Jewish intellectuals in New York, so not surprisingly it’s also 3) pro-Israel. By the way, I don’t think the US would be the same without these communities, so I’m not disparaging them, far from it (but I would probably take different sides of these debates than the neocons and proto necons did).
Check out this dialog between Jacob Heilbrun and a nervous, grape soda drinking Eli Lake for more details: http://tinyurl.com/286nws7
JJWFromME // Jul 30, 2010 at 7:51 am
Neoconservatism isn’t a wing of Judaism. It’s a wing of conservatism. Jews are overrepresented in it – just like they’re overrepresented in every elite demographic
I’d say there’s more to it than that. There are certain themes you can trace back to 1) the Trotskyist 30’s in New York and 2) the debates between the bohemian-sympathizers and anti-bohemians of the 1960’s New York Intellectuals. So we get a coherent strain of thought that tends to be 1) military Romanticist, and 2) decidedly anti-bohemian. And these themes developed among Jewish intellectuals in New York, so not surprisingly Neoconservatism is also 3) pro-Israel.
By the way, I don’t think the US would be the same without these communities, so I’m not disparaging them, far from it (but I would probably take different sides of these debates than the neocons or proto necons did).
Check out this dialog between Jacob Heilbrun and a nervous, grape soda drinking Eli Lake for more details.
JimBob // Jul 30, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Who’s afraid of the Israel Lobby? Virtually everyone
http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=11719
And how has this been swept under the rug???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWpWc_suPWo
JJWFromME // Aug 2, 2010 at 10:05 am
Oops. Sorry for the triple post. The moderation filter kept eating my submission, so I was trying to create one it wouldn’t eat…