The Atlantic and Israel

I read the Atlantic every day, mainly for Goldblog and the unparalleled Ta-Nehisi Coates (who's so good he'll probably be asked to be a regular op-ed for the Times, which I hope he won't take, because that op-ed page has become dumber than a bag of rocks). At one point, I read Andrew Sullivan but stopped when he became a vicious anti-Zionist (which, as has been proven in every case in every way is the same as an anti-Semite). Sullivan left to spew his bile elsewhere, but in the past few months the Atlantic has added a number of new anti-Israel bloggers.

This morning, I saw an even newer post by another dude, Marc Lynch: Why the Arab Uprisings Will Force the U.S. to Rethink Israel-Palestine. You don't need to read it because you already know what it says: Israel is bad, Palestinians good.

This was the comment I was going to leave on the site:

Does the Atlantic really need another anti-Israel guy? Steve Clemons and Robert Wright are already on that popular bandwagon. Add something new - maybe there's another small ally of the US you can throw ire on. How about Taiwan? They continually resist China, and China is actually better with human rights than Israel's enemies.

Reverse Boycott Time

While I'm not in favor of anti-Semites, and their Halloween costume cousins Anti-Zionists, being so loud (hate speech is rough on the psyche) I am glad when they are vocal. According to Jacob Weisberg's recent Slate column (h.t. Goldblog), a number of celebrities are boycotting Israel. A great quote:

What they're saying instead is: "We consider your country so intrinsically reprehensible that we are gong to treat all of your citizens as pariahs." Instead of warning that Israel risks becoming an apartheid society if it fails to make peace, boycotters have concluded that Israel already is an irredeemable apartheid society.

Now, as I've mentioned here, I keep my eye on those moral artists who davka tour Israel, so I'm happy to track the opposite side of the spectrum as well. So, according to Slate, here are the new immoral anti-Zionist scum: Meg Ryan, The Pixies, Elvis Costello. Now I have no idea who the Pixies are, and now I'm glad that I don't have to, but I have experience with the other two scumbags and I find a bittersweet silver lining to the hate cloud.

First of all, sweet anorexic airhead shiksa Meg Ryan. What red-blooded American GenX male has not feared her presence in any movie? She's in the category of "pretty only to women" (other members of this group: Julia Roberts and Sarah Jessica Parker) and her one character, recycled in numerous romantic comedies, is the same shrill high-maintenance ditz we discovered when Sally met Harry. Those of us who have secretly detested her reduction of femininity to the most irritating traits (helpless, brainless, neurotic, impossible to please, materialist, irresponsible) can have a concrete reason to hate her.

But the real prize is Elvis Costello. Man oh man, I do not like that guy's music. And yet, all the pallid hipster music snobs have insisted for decades that he's some kind of genius. Yet, these aesthetes seem to overlook that the man sings like a geek. It's his own pretentiousness, the arrogance of his fans, and his utter lack of voice quality that has earned my ire before his latest bigoted escapade. And, hey, look at the Wiki, it says that "Elvis" (a.k.a. Declan Patrick MacManus) had a famous incident in 1979 of publicly calling James Brown and Ray Charles the N-word.

So here ya go, the great entertainers and the moral conscience.

Cotello pic from here.

Helen Thomas and Applying the Double Standard

As you doubtless have heard, Helen Thomas - the bubbie-like senior White House Correspondent for the world, a chum of Steven Colbert and champion of freedom under George "The Scumbag" Bush - turns out to be a raging wacko anti-Semite. Thankfully, she has announced her retirement after her these comments were spread all throughout modern technology's platforms:

Thomas was asked by Rabbi David Nesenoff on May 27 if she had "any comments on Israel."

"Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine," she said.

Nesenoff, who was attending the first Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House, asked where Jews should go.

"Go home," Thomas said. Asked to elaborate, she said: "Poland, Germany and America, and everywhere else."

Ya see, simple point for Helen and her fellow Nazis: it rankles many of us Hebrews, or really any thinking educated human, when someone tells Jews to go back to Germany. It's clear Nazi talk. Just a reminder.

You got to see the video for the full effect. She's one crazy Nazi:


OK, now that she's been successfully retired, let's apply a little bit of the double standard that's normally applied to us (Jews/Israelis). First, it should be noted that her comments were made before the Flotilla Debacle, so unlike her soul-brother Mel Gibson, who made his drunken comments in the midst of the Second Lebanon War, she was neither drunk nor responding to a recent crisis.

Second of all, it turns out that she's the child of Lebanese Christians - which shows that it's not easy to profile the enemies of Israel and the Jews into simple categories.

Third: a good sign for an anti-Semite is the automatic conflation of "Israel" with "Jew." Israelis should go back to where they came from? Yeah? And that's Germany & Poland - the wonderlands of genocide - or America (part of the Jewish American notorious Israel lobby, no doubt). An anti-Zionist non-Anti-Semite (who may exist) would say, possibly, "Europe" instead of the concentration-camp intensive specific countries. Just playing Devil's advocate. Almost literally.

Fourth: let's apply the double standard here. This evil woman was a "dean" of the Press Corps and she's a closet neo-Nazi. I think that just as every Jew is put on the hot-seat every time Netanyahu commits another in his colossal string of screw-ups, so now every journalist should be under the presumption of being a barely hidden anti-Semite. Payback's a beeyatch.

Obama and the Jacksonian Zionists

Goldblog sent me to one of the best things I've seen written about the non-Jewish American support for Israel - this article by Walter Russell Mead at The American Interest: Obama and the Jacksonian Zionists. I don't know what the journal "American Interest" is about (its anodyne title could mask any sort of partisan lunacy) nor who Mead is, but Goldblog highly recommends him by name.

Pic made by me from an original within Mead's piece.

Lieberman, The Nut

As I just explained, one of the heroes of my 20s, Senator Joe Lieberman, has turned into a real monster. This was apparent soon after the 2006 Midterms and, according to my social-psychological calculations, was the major trigger for is now 3 year long psychotic episode. There have been many effects, his endorsement of McCain and speaking at the RNC Convention are major league sins, but his recent behavior about health-care-reform is just unspeakable.

Repercussions of His Monstrosity

He's no longer my senator nor quasi-congregant, so why should I care? Well, besides my early ardent support (just see my blog posts from 2003-2006), he is probably the most prominent Orthodox Jew in the world. And because his behavior is terrible, it is a chillul Hashem. In a year following Madoff (and the Jewish *sounding* Goldman Sachs, a point for another time), we Hebrews are taking a major hit. Prominent pro-Israel schmucks like Lieberman contribute to the mainstreaming of anti-Zionism, as well.

An Example

Many decent, moderate-leftists have been pillorying Lieberman over the past few days - and with good cause - because he has just killed the public option for health-care-reform. Mark Kleiman, of the Reality Based Community, states:

In 2000, when Al Gore selected Joe Lieberman as his running-mate, Jesse Jackson decided to throw a tantrum about it, portraying Lieberman as some sort of crypto-reactionary creep. My reaction at the time was that Jackson was acting like a jerk and helping hand the election to the Republicans.

Of course I had no idea how close the election would be; as things turned out, Jackson’s move was probably the difference between having George W. Bush as President and not having him as President, which means the difference between war with Iraq and no war with Iraq. So Jackson was, indeed, acting like a jerk.

But, as Joe Lieberman has amply demonstrated, Jackson wasn’t wrong.

Now, while I will write Kleiman and suggest to him that in 2000 Joe wasn't so bad, I feel torn about lending any credibility to Lieberman and his rishus. But the crucial point of Kleiman's post isn't the original author, but from one of his commenters Ed Whitney" who says :

"[Lieberman's] goody-goody sanctimony combined with regressive politics was captured by Calvin Trillin in The Nation in 2000. He wrote his contribution to the tune of "O Tannenbaum" that went in part:

Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman,
A Democrat who’s newish,
Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman,
We’re awfully glad you’re Jewish.
Though welfare kids may live on gruel,
At least you’ll always go to shul,
Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman,
Your Shabbas rides are fewish."

OK, got that? Some random blogger, in reminiscing about how bad Lieberman is, needs to quote treife-celebrating, Xmas-ogling, self-hating Jew Trillin to write an anti-Semitic jingle against Lieberman (in 2000!) set to a Xmas carol.

That's how chillul-Hashems work, my friend. And especially how Trillin - the terminal sinner - comes off as a better person than Lieberman, the Orthodox Jew. And I can't really argue that point now: Lieberman's actions are indefensible.

Defending Myself

His fall has been swift, in my mind and the shame I feel is mitigated by my feeling/knowledge that he wasn't always like this. I made a similar point when I had my final break with John Mamzer Edwards:

many people are correct only by chance. For example, the smartasses who said that John Edwards was *of course* cheating on his wife... basing their assertions on the sole facts that (a) Edwards was good-looking, and (b) they disagreed with Edwards' policies/profession/accent.

Not liking somebody, and thus attributing to the disliked person all sorts of crimes, does not make your criticisms prophetic. You just got lucky.

However, if you said that Edwards was a wife-cheater because of certain provable factors (e.g. you knew of some shady behaviors, you read in his book that 'cheating on your cancer-stricken wife ain't the worst thing a person can do', or if you personally slept with him), then - fine - you can be considered a perceptive prognosticator.

For the record, I didn't believe the rumors that Edwards was cheating on his wife because I didn't think that someone as successful as him (self-made multi-millionaire, young Democratic senator in a red-state) would do something so destructive and stupid. I mean, it was Spitzer-esque! And even then, I had some glimmering that Spitzer was a sexual-schkutz because he intermarried. Ya see, that's a provable indicator. Sex crime here leads to sex crime there. But Edwards? Why would someone running for president - someone who constantly references his wife's terminal cancer - have an affair on the campaign trail.

I feel the same way about Lieberman, and not just because I have counter-proof: what Lieberman is doing now is new and while his sanctimoniousness is a constant, and makes his wickedness especially galling (a holier-than-thou villain is hard to take), it is not his current crime. So those who say they were right for hating him in 2000 are deluded: his sanctimoniousness wasn't a crime then, nor now. His moderate-contrarianism wasn't a crime then, nor now. He's not being just 'contrary' now, he's being a Republican, and it's because his only friends now are Republicans (McCain, Graham - who, it should be said, are being shoved off by their own party).

So, Smarty Pants, What Happened?

When I lived in New Haven, I was told these main reasons for why Lieberman changed/was changing:

1. In general, Joe is not the brightest bulb in the electric menorah. No, he's definitely not stupid - he's not in the Bush league (har). It was tough for a Jew to go to Yale in 1964; to quote the Wiki:

   "He received a dual Bachelor of Arts in political science and economics from Yale University in 1964 and was the first member of his family to graduate from college. At Yale he was editor of the Yale Daily News and a member of the Elihu Club. He later attended Yale Law School, receiving his law degree in 1967. "

   But he's not in the league of Bill Clinton or even Al Gore.


2. He's not a Natural Politician = This needs to be added to the intelligence problem: he's not really an ambitious suck-up, like Bill Clinton, or a political legacy, like Al Gore or Chris Dodd. From what I heard, he became a politician because of a collection of friends, hangers-on, and especially because of his Mother. And that leads us to the most crucial reason for his fall from grace.
   
   
3. He lost his Political Soul in 2001 and again in 2005: For these facts, you needed to be on the Connecticut inside, but basically Joe lost two people over that time, his political head and his political heart: Jimmy O'Connell in 2001 and his mother in 2005. I will let this Chicago Tribune story from 2006 give the details:

   But the chapter that started in November 2000 would not end, not only because of the presidential campaign, but because of personal tragedy.
   
   Since Lieberman first ran for the State Senate in 1970, Jimmy O'Connell was Lieberman's eyes and ears on the Connecticut ground, one of those political pros who seemed to know every Democrat in every town-and someone who could tell the boss where he may have to make a phone call or a diner visit to calm an angry town chairman.
   
   In December, 2001, O'Connell, 53, was found slumped in his car off an exit ramp off I-91 in Windsor, the victim of an apparent heart attack.
   
   Three and a half years later, Lieberman's mother Marcia died. Lieberman for years has taken comfort and advice from four strong women: Brown; his wife Hadassah; Washington chief of staff Clarine Nardi Riddle; and his mother.
   
   Joe and Marcia Lieberman were not only close, they were political soulmates. Marcia Lieberman had traveled the country with her son in his national campaigns, vigorously defending him before voters and reporters-and one of the few people able to tell the senator when things didn't seem right.
   
   After her death in March, 2005, Lieberman seemed different to his extended family, less inclined to dive into intraparty politics. Ornstein, for one, said he regular lunches with the senator stopped.

   All of that corroborates what I heard in New Haven, and it should be said, that the Tribune story was in August 2006 - before it became totally clear that Lieberman was cracking up.

To review: Lieberman, not super-intelligent and a bad-fit politician, had his career created and sustained by two people - O'Connell and Joe's mom - who both died between 2001 and 2005. What I heard was that O'Connell was Joe's political brain and Joe's mom was his heart.

Is it any surprise, then, that Lieberman seems to be a stunningly stupid politician - as his August 2006 primary performance showed - and also a person who has lost his neshama - as his Republicanism of 2008-2009 shows.

Makeh B'Patish: The Final Hammerblow

The primary loss of 2006 has been, correctly, credited as the moment when Lieberman The Good became Bizarro Lieberman. For any outside observer, it's when he felt that his true friends were not Democrats - who abandoned him - but his Senate pals McCain and Graham. But with the above data, you can see why 25+ year political veteran (10 years in State Senate, 6 years as state AG, 3 terms as CT Senator) felt betrayed by a political - not personal - setback. Because he's not a natural pol; he actually felt he had "friends" in politics; and since his political & moral compasses had, by that year, both died, he made decisions not as a politician but as an aggrieved, friendless, persecuted old weirdo.

So I do not regret supporting him in 2006 - before it became known how nuts he was; and possibly, had the idiot leftoids of the Nader Democrats not tried to kill him in '06, he'd be a friendlier ally right now (to paraphrase the ultra-fictional Omar: "if you come at the king, you best not miss.")

But since his opposition to Obama in '08, I've grown apart from him, and now I must repudiate him as a politician. It's not personal, Joe. But you're a chillul Hashem and you seriously need to do teshuva.

Pics have been used before by me, except the Palpatine one, which I've thought for years, and the Wonder Twins from here.

Is Sullivan an Anti-Zionist? Part 3

OK, this may be strike three. As I detailed in two (recently published back-)posts here and here, Andrew Sullivan has been worrying me, as of late, with his unnecessary swipes against Israel. But yesterday he totally crossed the line. Here's the letter I wrote him:

Dear Andrew,

You were making an important point in the [linked] post about taking Plain and Cheney seriously as potential GOP candidates. Then you said this (emphasis mine):

"[Palin and Cheney] represent a real populist and authoritarian option for a declining power. In the face of a bewilderingly changing world, they stand for white America, the extension of its power across the globe, the elevation of torture as a core American value, the permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and American occupation of client states like Iraq and Afghanistan."

Now, I have been a Democrat - and a liberal - all my life. I'm also a born American. I am repulsed by Cheney and Palin and the entire Republican party, and this revulsion has partially come from my growing up in the Reagan era (another Republican who I believe damaged my country). And I am also a Zionist and in favor of nuance and wisdom about the Arab-Israeli conflict. You are committing a great wrong by equating the Palin/Cheney lust for torture and preemptive war with anything to do with Israel. Israel's occupation of the West Bank is a matter of international law and is something with which reasonable people can disagree. I am a liberal, and a Zionist, and I'm calling you to task.

I know Goldblog defends your Zionist bona-fides and you get angry when someone accuses you of being Anti-Zionist... but that was an evil thing you said. It's so strange - you single out the behavior of a U.S. ally as a symbol of a domestic political party's depravity. That's not such a 'Zionist' thing to do.

Why are you so insistent to be called a 'Zionist' anyway? Just say that you're neutral about Israel - that you're treating it with the same ignorance and apathy that you would for Kashmir or Northern Ireland or Quebec, or any other of our U.S. allies.

It reminds me of Ta-Nehisi Coates' talk about 'racism' - that it's impossible to call a racist by that title in the U.S. despite a person's actual bigoted words and deeds. [ed: e.g. how Rush Limbaugh or Joe 'You Lie' Wilson will push back against being called racist even though they clearly are.] So to with you - just admit that being a Zionist isn't actually that important. And, again speaking as a liberal and a Democrat, your support for Reagan while you attack Cheney makes you sound daft.

Sincerely, JC

No, I don't expect him to respond. And I really should have cc:ed Goldblog, but he's not my constituency. And, as I said in part 2, there are reasons to read Sully as an info-resource and not as an editorialist. So be it.

Is Sullivan an Anti-Zionist? Part 2

As I asked below, here, Sullivan's swipes against Israel have been getting more frequent and irritating. It's like he's gone enough to the left because of Bush-Cheney that he now has to hate Israel like a J-Streeter.

So thank goodness Jeff Goldberg has been on top of the case. First here in August 2008 he gives Sullivan some pro-Zion backing:

I know Andrew as a supporter of Israel, a Zionist, even,

Fine, but just a few days later he notices the glimmering of a problem:

But "unregistered Israeli lobbyist"? This is vile, like Pat Buchanan-vile. Robert Wexler is pro-Israel, too. Is he an unregistered Israeli lobbyist? What about Rahm Emanuel, and Barbara Boxer, and Frank Lautenberg, and Henry Waxman, and Howard Berman? Are they dual-loyalists as well? Or is their tribal-based treason excused because they're Obama supporters? I wish Andrew would go back to bashing the Jew-baiters, rather than reveling in their smears.

I'd say that it's one of the early signs that Sullivan is equating the GOP with Israel (a problem that I warned about back in 2001 with the stupid frummie love of the evil GWBush) and thus to repudiate the GOP (like Sullivan's been doing) means also attacking Israel.

But in the year since, Sullivan has gotten worse. 'Goldblog' is still defending him, be in doing so we brings up some disturbing counter-proof:

I've gotten a fair number of hostile e-mails for stating that Andrew, in my understanding, is a Zionist. Here's Andrew on his own understanding of what "pro-Israel," or "Zionist," means:

My own definition of pro-Israel would simply be, I think: support for the existence of a secure Jewish state in Palestine. That's my position, and it is as deeply held as it is open to all sorts of arguments about what is best for its security and the interests of the US. I think it should easily be enough to earn one's credentials as a Zionist, as I proudly and passionately remain.

I would make only two points about this. One is small (but actually consequential); the word "Palestine" was invented by the Romans as a deliberate attempt to erase the word "Judea" from the map. So I wouldn't say that Israel is a Jewish home in Palestine; if anything, the future state of Palestine could be called the Arab state in Judea. I know this sounds like a nitpick, but names matter, and chronology matters.

The second, larger point: Zionists generally hold Israel to the same standard they hold every other country. People who don't like Israel very much hold it to a special standard, created for one scapegoated country alone. On this count -- and only this count, so far as I can tell -- Andrew sometimes fails the test. There are times lately when he seems to single out Israel for special excoriation, and times when he holds Israel to a double-standard. By the way, this doesn't make him an anti-Semite, as some marginal figures claim he is. It makes him, if anything, normal. Most of the world holds Israel to a higher standard than it does other countries. Many Jews do, as well. One of our specialties is self-criticism. But even when it comes from Jews, it isn't fair. Context is everything. I'll continue with these profound thoughts on Andrew later on.

I'm not as charitable as Jeff here. Just off-the-bat anybody who casually uses 'Palestine' like Sullivan does is the first strike (he also does a related strike by constantly referring to an 'Israel Lobby' as if it exists as the bogeyman the Looney Left desires it to be). Sullivan's well-known friendship with the scummy anti-Semite Christopher Hitchens is strike two.

And while I have growing respect for Goldberg, I definitely break with him about self-hating Jewish anti-Zionism (J-streetism, for now, until they redeem themselves). Jstreeters hate Israel because it makes them look bad to their imagined goyish friends and neighbors. It's not OK when they do it and definitely not when it's done by goyim.

I'll take this up more later, but there's just something very British about Sullivan's take on Israel - it's a combined paternalism and moral hauteur, as if the Europeans (any of them) have taken the proper moral path on anything.

Backpost finished 2009-12-02.

Quiz: Are You a Liberal Anti-Semite?

[note to people without a sense of humor: this test is absolutely real.]

Take this test. I got, actually, a negative number: Are You a Liberal Anti-Semite?

[note to people with a sense of humor: take a look at all those people who don't have a sense of humor, they think the test is for real!]

More Left-Wing Foolishness

Background:

This is all of a piece, similar to what I recently posted here, about the inane myths in the left-wing echo-chamber. In the example below, the master of the Great Orange Satan, the Kos himself, repeats the standard nonesense:

Daily Kos: State of the Nation:

I grew up in a war zone. And there was one clear lesson I learned -- there will never be peace unless both sides get tired of the fighting and start seeking an alternative. It's clear that in the Middle East, no one is sick of the fighting. They have centuries of grudges to resolve, and will continue fighting until they can get over them.

Centuries of grudges, eh? Moron.

Backpost finished 4/11/08. The link and the quote.