by PHILIP WEISS on May 4, 2012
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/05/
It's finally happening. The great slumbering and privileged body of
integrated American Jews is lifting its head and saying, Wait, you are
doing what in my name? Peter Beinart is giving them a doorway. Paul
Krugman went through it a week back. Rick Perlstein at Rolling Stone
now enters. An accomplished historian/journalist, Perlstein avoided
this issue like the plague, he says.
Note in my excerpt his relentless focus on what Zionism has done to
Jewish identity, note his focus on Jewish power. Oh and notice the
writer who writes about everything admitting that he has been gutless
on this question. He was intimidated, he admits. As Obama was
intimidated by the lobby. Notice that Perlstein has glommed a
statement in Beinart's book that others have walked past: an Obama
official saying it's "apartheid" in the West Bank.
This is a real challenge to the Tablet Jews, tribal parochial Jews.
The integrated Jews are waking up and asking, Where did my identity
go?
Oh and notice the specious '67 history, from a historian.
In the suburban Midwestern Reform Jewish world I was raised in, in the
nineteen-seventies and eighties, grown men built plastic scale models
of Israeli tanks and F-15 jets and displayed them throughout the
house, dangling the warplanes from bedroom ceilings with fishing line.
My dad, who had a replica Uzi sub-machine gun on his office wall, wore
a tiepin that read, in Hebrew letters, Zachor, which means "remember."
What was meant to be remembered was the "six million," the number of
Jews killed in the Holocaust, a number seared into all of our souls –
at home, in Sunday school, at religious services, and at the Jewish
Community Center summer camp in the Wisconsin North Woods, where we
began each morning by raising the Israeli and American flags side by
side.
...The one safe haven: Israel, whose formidable tanks and planes would
hold the line against the eliminationist contempt in which most of the
world held us. The message provided a kind of quasi-spiritual ballast
to our acquisitive upper-middle-class lives; but as an morally
precocious little dude I found it all so far from observable reality,
it made me want to puke.
All of which background made Peter Beinart's powerful new book The
Crisis of Zionism read like autobiography to me, which felt uncanny,
because I thought I had been alone.
...Beinart unearths a story of 1970s politics that was unknown to me –
except as I so intimately lived it – showing that at the root of this
sense of embattled tribalism was a transformation worked by the
leaders of right-leaning American Jewish organizations, who traded in
their founding (liberal) aspirations to universal justice for a wagon-
circling parochalism.
I knew how the 1967 simultaneous Soviet-backed invasion of Israel by
Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, which put Israel's very survival at stake,
profoundly intensified American Jews' emotional connection to the
Jewish state.
But Rick they didn't invade.
It follows that the actual world we kids inherited, in which Jews now
serving on the Supreme Court outnumber Protestants three to zero and a
Jew serves as House majority leader and the Jew who used to be the
president's chief of staff runs our third largest city, and in which
Israel is a nuclear-armed regional superpower can really be only a
mirage...
The deeply unsatisfying tribalism that marred the religious education
of my youth laid an unpromising foundation; and though I respect the
way in which many people I love have carved deeply satisfying
spiritual lives for themselves in Judaism, many in the same
independent minyanim movement Beinart so admires, my religious
direction tended elsewhere. As for Israel, I don't think of it much.
Even in a career as a political writer given to disputation, the sheer
viciousness (which you'll see from the hate mail this piece produces:
I plan to publish it) faced by those who criticize not merely Israel,
but certain specific de rigeur formulations about Israel, turned me
off the entire subject. Instead, and I've never admitted this publicly
before, the deeply saturated irrationalism surrounding it as I was
growing up was what made me fascinated with political irrationalism as
such – and helps explain why I ended up a scholar of the American far-
right.
That reflexive intimidation, in the end, is what most fascinates me
about The Crisis of Zionism. I'd heard great things from friends about
the book — but read almost nothing admiring about it in the public
prints. People are cowed at the thought of taking on the shrieking
Israel absolutists, the ones who imagine themselves every day saving
six million lives and their critics as hastening the slaughter.
And here is his bit on Obama:
Another anonymous source [for Beinart] is a "senior State Department
official," who recently traveled with Secretary Clinton from Jerusalem
to Ramallah in the West Bank: "There was a kind of silence and people
were careful, but it was like, my God, you crossed that border and it
was apartheid." For the most prominent victim of this climate of
intimidation, and the retreat from reason and empirical observation it
enforces, is the president whose Chicago home sits across the street
from a venerable synagogue where, Beinart argues, he learned from the
Jewish community that embraced him a Zionism that was both deeply felt
and opposed to settlement growth. But then Barack Obama moved into the
White House, where he found it impossible to follow through on his
convictions, thanks to "Jewish pressure," as a revealing headline in
Time magazine puts it.
About Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
View all posts by Philip Weiss →
Posted in American Jewish Community, Israel Lobby, Israel/Palestine,
Media, US Politics
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{ 15 comments... read them below or add one }
Les says:
May 4, 2012 at 11:10 am
Rolling Stone is giving this more serious and more dramatic coverage
than the rest of the media. This is good news. Thanks for sharing.
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Mooser says:
May 4, 2012 at 1:40 pm
“Rolling Stone is giving this more serious and more dramatic coverage
than the rest of the media. This is good news. Thanks for sharing.”
Best to be cautious! Rolling Stone may have an axe to grind. After
all, did we do Rock and Roll any favors? Many people blame us for
Springsteen, you know.
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Sumud says:
May 4, 2012 at 8:02 pm
Many people blame us for Springsteen, you know.
I can’t tell where the sarcasm is in that comment Mooser so I’m just
gonna do this:
Bruce Springsteen – Dancing In The Dark
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pabelmont says:
May 4, 2012 at 11:10 am
“People are cowed at the thought of taking on the shrieking Israel
absolutists, the ones who imagine themselves every day saving six
million lives and their critics as hastening the slaughter.”
Do they [the shrieking Israel absolutists] really believe this, or are
they (sedulously, of course) trained to act as if they believe it? Or,
as more likely, are there a core of trainers, frighteners, who believe
in nothing except a political program and see this training as a way
to achieve it? What’s certain is that a lot of people stand up and
bark when the trainers say “bark”. And, of course, they ARE
frightening. Lots of people have lost their jobs, especially in
universities, upon orchestrated “barking” (or “braying”) by Israel
absolutists. The much-noted pro-Likud uniformity of the USA’s MSM may
(in part) be a result of media folks being parties-to/partners-of/co-
opted-by this awful training (or, of course, merely but understandably
frightened by it).
People still find time to praise American democracy, but these Israel
absolutists certainly spend a lot of time and energy trying to prevent
free speech when that speech seems likely to step on their absolutist
corns.
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Krauss says:
May 4, 2012 at 11:14 am
Neither brave nor special. Simply needed to maintain his liberal
status.
And I think this is what we will increasingly see in the coming years.
Real liberals simply won’t accept the pseudoliberals like Jeff
Goldberg or Alan Dershowitz for much longer.
Rick senses this and positions himself early on to save his face. But
at least he is honest enough to admit that he is a limping coward who
shun away from this topic and took on the easiest topic any left-wing
journalist can take on: right-wing Christian Republicans.
Max Blumenthal also took them on, but he understood soon that there is
a bigger issue out there that nobody wants to talk about. And it cost
him nearly his entire career, but he stood up for his liberal
principles, instead of craven careerism like Pearlstein who feeds off
left-wing bigotry of Christians evangelical Christians(many are not
rabid Jesus freaks, quite a few even leftists). Blumenthal will one
day be vindicated and people will be ashamed that they didn’t stand up
for him when it was not opportune and when it was convenient and
comfortable to stay silent and attack the easiest targets out there.
And I don’t want Pearlstein and others who didn’t lift a finger and
who cynically positioned themselves very late, to receive the same
praise, because they deserve none. They went over to the other side
once the shift was already well underway and it was no longer possible
to pretend not to see, hear or understand.
I still maintain that the biggest reason why the topic on Israel has
opened as much is because of Walt/Mearsheimer. Even the frantic
Zionists at Tablet Magazine admits as much(calling them anti-Semites
for the millionth time) in a recent piece.
Finkelstein also did great, before he snapped and become a centrist
‘liberal’ Zionists who spends his time throwing up all over BDS
claiming ‘they want to destroy Israel’ as if he is a right-wing loon.
Still, he deserves recoginition for his hard-work and the sacrifices
he made, just like Walt/Mearsheimer and Blumenthal. And yes, Mr. Weiss
himself too. Pearlstein is a poser who understands the gig is up and
better pro-actively position yourself to further enhance your career
before it becomes too obvious and too transparant.
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American says:
May 4, 2012 at 1:01 pm
“I still maintain that the biggest reason why the topic on Israel has
opened as much is because of Walt/Mearsheimer.”
I think so too. I did a jig on my computer when the article in the
London Book Review came out and exchanged some emails with them giving
what I believe the is average American’s view or would be if Americans
knew enough about the Lobby, and urging them on.
The zionist played right into the book with their attacks, making it
attract even more attention than it would have without the attacks. I
gave two copies to my local library and checked later to see if they
had been checked out….they had been.
So there was some interest and knowledge among people even before the
book came out or people would have ignored it. The attacks by the zios
if anything helped, not hurt.
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Fredblogs says:
May 4, 2012 at 12:09 pm
They didn’t physically invade because Israel beat them to the punch.
When someone pulls a gun on you, and says they are about to shoot you,
you don’t have to wait for them to shoot you to shoot them in self-
defense.
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Woody Tanaka says:
May 4, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Except, Fredo, that’s a bunch of complete ahistorical nonsense, as
even Eban Abba and other Israeli politicians admitted that they knew
the Egyptians weren’t going to do anything, but the Israelis wanted a
war, so they invaded Egypt, on an excuse about as believable as
Hitler’s claim that Poland invaded Germany in 1939, and provoked Syria
into a war. No one but the terminally stupid and the hopelessly brain
dead believes the “Israel was attacked” lie anymore. (Which is why I’m
not really surprised to see you trotting out that broken-down ol’
mare.)
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David Samel says:
May 4, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Fred, while your 1967 history is still warped, your last sentence
gives Iran an excellent rationale for attacking Israel.
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eljay says:
May 4, 2012 at 4:24 pm
>> Fred … your last sentence gives Iran an excellent rationale for attacking Israel.
I’ve said many times that, by the West’s own standards, Iran – which
is continually bombarded with existential threats and which is
currently being “softened up” by punitive sanctions – has every right
to launch “pre-emptive self-defence” attacks on Israel.
But:
- “They” do not have the same rights as “we” do.
- Rather than comprehend the logic, Zio-supremacists quite stupidly
bellow “Bring it on!”
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Talkback says:
May 4, 2012 at 4:36 pm
“They didn’t physically invade because Israel beat them to the punch.”
They didn’t even attack Israel.
“When someone pulls a gun on you, and says they are about to shoot
you, you don’t have to wait for them to shoot you to shoot them in
self-defense.”
Nobody pulled a gun before Israel’s attack. And Begin said Israel had
a choice to attack.
So are you a nutcase or lying?
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Dutch says:
May 4, 2012 at 6:53 pm
@ Fred. You missed something.
Miko Peled – The General’s Son
link to mondoweiss.net
Watch the interview and read the two chapters of his book.
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HarryLaw says:
May 4, 2012 at 12:42 pm
Krauss, “Finkelstein also did great, before he snapped and became a
centrist ‘Liberal’ Zionist.” In my opinion his centrist Liberal
Zionism simply means what the majority of the world also believes ie,
that the Israeli state is a fact and that it is a legitimate fact
[within its 67 borders] and that any attempt to destroy that state
would not garner much support, so he is working within the parameters
of what is possible in the real world. He also agrees with targeted
BDS, Here I may disagree with him, I personally think BDS should
target all of Israel, not to destroy the state but to force it to obey
International Law.
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American says:
May 4, 2012 at 12:42 pm
“It’s finally happening. The great slumbering and privileged body of
integrated American Jews is lifting its head and saying, Wait, you are
doing what in my name?
Note in my excerpt his relentless focus on what Zionism has done to
Jewish identity, note his focus on Jewish power.”
Wait, what are they doing in America’s and Americans name?
How many ask that question? Some ask that question.
The appeal to Jews on Palestine seems framed this way by a lot of
Jewish activist…what they are doing to their Jewishness.
Sometimes I say o.k., those that do it this way, appealing to a Jew’s
notion of himself, or Jewish morality, are trying what they think will
work with them.
So I’d say hey, …if it works, ends Israeli-zionist atrocities …..then
use it.
But I also see, it deliberately by some and inadvertently by others I
suppose, reinforces the narcissism and separation that is zionism and
tribalism.
So even if this approach is successful on this issue, particulary if
it is successful, it just kicks the can down the road to another
chapter.
MJRosenburg and Atzom, different characters that they are, get this I
believe.
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piotr says:
May 4, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Annals of free thought.
The speech, [of Mao Zedong] published on February 27, 1957, encouraged
people to vent their criticisms as long as they were
“constructive” (“among the people”) rather than “hateful and
destructive” (“between the enemy and ourselves”). [...] In the period
from May 1 to June 7, 1957, millions of letters were pouring in to the
Premier’s Office and other authorities.
People spoke out by putting up posters around campuses, rallying in
the streets, holding meetings for CPC members, and publishing magazine
articles. For example, students at Peking University created a
“Democratic Wall” on which they criticized the CPC with posters.[3]
“They protested CCP control over intellectuals, the harshness of
previous mass campaigns such as that against counterrevolutionaries,
the slavish following of Soviet models, the low standards of living in
China, the proscription of foreign literature, economic corruption
among party cadres, and the fact that ‘Party members [enjoyed] many
privileges which make them a race apart’”.
Of course, intimidation on Communist China was harsher by orders of
magnitude, but we still have rowing gangs of intimidators like the
black sotnia of Ataman Horowitz. But hopefully their bark is worse
then bite.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/05/
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