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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
I saw the Forward editorial The Wages of Indecision on Friday and passed it on to Phil Weiss, who addressed it in a blog entry entitled The Klein Effect; 'The Forward' 'Jokes' that Zionist Neocons Pushed Iraq War for Israel
The most interesting points made by the Forward are the following. (The column can be found at the end of this blog entry because this sort of Jewishly-embarrassing item has a history of vanishing from the online archives of the Forward -- "A Skeleton in the Jewish Family Closet" -- and the New York Jewish Week -- "Modern Orthodoxy under Attack".)
- Blaming the Jews for the world's troubles is one of the oldest of spectator sports.
In other words, we should not point any accusatory fingers at the Israeli government, American Israeli advocacy groups, or groups within the organized Jewish community for threatening or lobbying for an Iran attack, whose mere mention tends to send oil prices into the stratosphere and whose harm to international relations would last for decades.
- In March 2003 came the few dozen Zionist neocons who finagled the Bush administration into invading Iraq for Israel's benefit.
In other words, the web of American Zionist political economic oligarchs, Zionist think tanks, Israeli Advocacy organizations, Zionist academics, and Jewish communal groups really was not involved in manipulating the US government into causing massive death, destruction and dislocation in Iraq for no reason whatsoever, and we should not be discussing issues of law and justice in dealing with a massive number of Jewish Zionist malefactors and conspirators, who remain in positions of power and influence within the USA.
- Rivers of ink have been spilled examining Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire Las Vegas gaming mogul, who has spent millions in the past two years to hobble Olmert and boost the pro-settler right.
In other words, there is apparently too much scrutiny of Adelson's attempts to manipulate US politics and to control the Israeli government.
- The sentiment that seems to come out of some quarters in Israel is that Diaspora Jews can and should speak out on the affairs of every country, except the one they care about most deeply.
In other words, the Forward may point out that far too many politically influential American Jews conceal their primary loyalty to State of Israel, but if non-Jews wonder about Jewish tribalism, they are anti-Semites.
- Good-government types in Jerusalem take pride in the American-style reforms already enacted. One was the introduction in 1988 of party primaries, replacing backroom nominating committees. Primaries forced candidates for public office to raise big money to reach voters. Ever since, Israel has been plagued by a never-ending series of political finance scandals.
In other words, going back to backroom selection would be preferable to fixing the primary system either in the USA or in the State of Israel. Obviously in the US case, the influence of Jewish political organizers, contributors, and fund-raisers would increase tremendously.
- What drives otherwise sober Israelis to concoct such hare-brained schemes and silly theories? Simply put, most can't face the depressing fact that they are hopelessly divided, making consensual democracy elusive.
In other words, there should be a dictator or political decisions should be left in the hands of Jewish plutocrats or Zionist Jewish oligarchs. The Forward has duplicated much of the anti-democratic reasoning of La doctrina del fascismo of Mussolini.
I know that the new English-language Forward probably mostly reflects the views of Michael Steinhardt, who is the major investor, but after spending so much time in archival research of the Yiddish Forverts (פֿאָרװערטס), I am depressed at the complete abandonment of such a rich tradition of socialism, Yiddishism and Americanism to serve the interests of Jewish plutocrats that the founding editor, Abraham Cahan, would have despised
Yet, I have to admit that in the 1920s Cahan became enmeshed in American Zionism and may have helped plant the seeds for today's Forward.
Talansky is the reluctant star of Israel's latest political crisis, the impending downfall of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The generous New Yorker riveted Israelis in May testimony describing how he handed envelopes stuffed with the cash to the prime minister's aides. That deposition was the tipping point in Olmert's losing battle ag ainst corruption charges.
Journalists and academics have responded with breathless debates over the role of Diaspora Jews, particularly rich American Jews, in Israeli decision-making. Talansky isn't alone in the dock. Rivers of ink have been spilled examining Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire Las Vegas gaming mogul, who has spent millions in the past two years to hobble Olmert and boost the pro-settler right. Others have come before, including Australian mining magnate Joseph Gutnick, a backer of Benjamin Netanyahu , and Florida physician Irving Moscowitz, who funds settler institutions.
The smart Israel-watchers say these Diaspora Jews play an outsized and perhaps illegitimate role in Israeli politics, that foreigners have no business interfering in other countries' internal politics. They often add that hawks are more likely than doves to play the game, forgetting that wealthy liberals like Edgar Bronfman and S. Daniel Abraham were the bogeymen of earlier decades.
Israelis are more blunt. More than a few say that Jews in the Diaspora have little right to weigh in on Israeli policy decisions because they don't live in Israel and bear the consequences.
But foreigners step into other countries' politics all around the world. They donate to political parties in South Africa and Taiwan, launch human rights groups in Poland and Hungary, march for policy changes in Russia, Sudan and Iran. Sometimes they simply invade.
The sentiment that seems to come out of some quarters in Israel is that Diaspora Jews can and should speak out on the affairs of every country, except the one they care about most deeply.
Israelis have been complaining about government dysfunction since the state was born, as though creating a new nation, winning five wars and absorbing two million immigrants all happened by accident. They blame the failures on a system paralyzed by structural flaws. The solution is usually something like the American system, with its incorruptible presidency, efficient Congress and immunity from special interests and fundamentalist religious pressure groups.
Good-government types in Jerusalem take pride in the American-style reforms already enacted. One was the introduction in 1988 of party primaries, replacing backroom nominating committees. Primaries forced candidates for public office to raise big money to reach voters. Ever since, Israel has been plagued by a never-ending series of political finance scandals.
The other reform was the personal election of the prime minister, enacted in 1992. Under the old system, the largest party in parliament assembled a governing coalition and named the prime minister. The reform was supposed to strengthen the executive and make the fractious parliament more tractable. Instead, it freed Israelis from pressure to vote for one of the big parties that would pick the prime minister. Voters could use their second, parliamentary ballot as a form of personal expression. As a result, the Knesset imploded into a jungle of tiny parties. The job of assembling enough factions to create and preserve a governing coalition became all but hopeless. The reform was rescinded in 2003, but to no avail. Since 1992, not one Israeli government has survived a full term.
What drives otherwise sober Israelis to concoct such hare-brained schemes and silly theories? Simply put, most can't face the depressing fact that they are hopelessly divided, making consensual democracy elusive. Half the country wants to keep the West Bank and half wants to withdraw, and each side thinks the other threatens Israel's survival. The stakes are enormous, civility in short supply. Still, trying to sidestep the debate by tinkering with the rules — or trying to silence their friends — only makes things worse. Israelis need to decide, for their own sakes.
Is Alan Dershowitz good for the Jews?
Philip Weiss, who has been discussing Jewish dual loyalty, recently started a discussion of Alan Dershowitz. (See http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2007/07/dershowitz-once.html) The report below provides background.
Dershowitz' Talk at Eitz Chayim in Cambridge, MA
by Joachim Martillo
thorsprovoni@aol.com
9-29-2005
On September 18, 2005, Alan Dershowitz gave a talk on his new book, The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved at Congregation Eitz Chayim (Tree of Life) in Cambridge, MA (see below).
This reform Temple located in a charming Cambrigeport neighborhood has a heymish atmosphere more usually associated with Eastern European Orthodox synagogues. It feels a lot like the Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring in Brookline, and the two memberships probably have a lot of cultural similarity and overlap. If the audience for Dershowitz' presentation is typical, the members are becoming older and grayer, have a left-wing or radical intellectual heritage, but are moving toward the right along with the entire American Jewish community even if they want to think of themselves as progressive activists. The membership of Eitz Chayim never had as many reservations about Zionism as one might find at the Arbeter Ring, which once upon a time belonged to the tradition of the Jewish Bund, but at one time the synagogue probably a fairly strong anti-Zionist (or at least Zionism-critical) contingent. It was not in evidence at Dershowitz' lecture.
Dershowitz gave his talk in the temple auditorium in front of the Aron Hakodesh, where the Scroll of the Torah is housed. The hall was practically full (probably more than 100 people). A reporter for The Boston Globe attended, but no article has appeared in that paper as of September 27.
Dershowitz did not present much material not contained in his book, and reading the book is probably more efficient than actually making the effort to see him in person. The Boston Public Library has at least eleven copies of it (but only six copies of Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah, which provides careful analysis of Dershowitz' claims in The Case for Israel). Dershowitz told the audience that the profit from the sale of this new volume in Dershowitzian oeuvre will go to assist needy college students in the purchase of textbooks.
Of course, as far as can be determined, Dershowitz has never made the payment that he promised for finding factual errors in The Case for Israel.
Dershowitz did not present any new ideas in his talk. He merely made frequent assertion that the vast majority of reasonable Palestinians accept the self-evident rationality of his two-state plan. After reading the five basic elements of Dershowitz' framework for peace (pg. 2, The Case for Peace), no one should be surprised that Dershowitz is unable to provide the name of any Palestinian that agrees with him.
Here are elements 2 and 5 (the quote marks belong to Dershowitz):
2. Some symbolic recognition of the rights of Palestinian "refugees," including a compensation package and some family reunification, but no absolute "right of return" to Israel of the millions of descendants of those who claim refugee status -- a questionable "right" whose exercise would produce the great wrong of returning the Jewish state into yet another Muslim Arab state. All Palestinians should have the right to "return" to what will become the Palestinian state.
5. An end to the singling out of Israel for demonization and delegitimation -- and to the hatred directed against the Jewish state and its citizens and supporters -- by international organizations, many academics, religious leaders, and media pundits; and the normalization and acceptance of Israel as a full and equal member of the international community.
Dershowitz' bigoted refusal to acknowledge that ethnic Ashkenazi Eastern Europeans uprooted the native Palestinian population when they stole the territory of pre-1967 Israel makes it impossible for him to use the term refugees without quote marks.
Dershowitz' peace proposal reduces to forcing the ethnically cleansed Palestinian population to forfeit basic human rights of property and residence and to find homes elsewhere while murderous genocidal racist thieves and interlopers go unpunished, and the rest of us are not even allowed to discuss the villainy of Dershowitz, of his fellow racist Ashkenazi Americans and of murderous militaristic Zionist colonizers, who routinely use Palestinian children for target practice (according to the casualty statistics supplied by Israeli and non-Israeli human rights organizations).
For Dershowitz "peace" means that all the stolen property should remain in the hands of robbers, that the criminals should be granted amnesty, not only for past outrages but for what they are going to do. His "peace" puts native non-Jews in open-air prisons surrounded by tanks and checkpoints. His "peace" requires that all non-Jews in the US and in Palestine should accept second-class status to Jews while racist anti-Arab anti-Muslim Neocons dictate governmental policy, which includes using American youth to commit genocide and torture throughout Arab and Islamic countries, despite the wishes of the majority of the American population.
When Dershowitz elaborates his solution, he consistently places the onus of the conflict on the native population, whose right to democratic self-determination was thwarted by the British Mandate for Palestine with the connivance of the racist Zionist leadership. He insinuates that the native Palestinian population is guilty of some sort of original sin for rebelling against Zionist colonization, for ineffectively seeking aid from the Germans during the 40s -- something the Zionists did very effectively during the 30s, for very infrequently stating the facts of Zionist ethnic cleansing/re-folking (Umvolkung) in Palestinian Authority textbooks(*), and for reacting violently to Zionist depredations during the post-1967 occupation.
Occasionally, Dershowitz admits flaws in Zionist behavior (like the "relatively minor" prejudice and bigotry found in Zionist textbooks). Yet he is certain of the moral superiority of ethnic Ashkenazim and Zionist colonizers, and Dershowitz asserts that in response to every violent act that Palestinians commit (almost invariably in reaction to some Zionist outrage) Israel has the right (or maybe even the absolute obligation) to steal even more land in addition to the territory that Zionist colonizers stole in 1947-8. The Zionist occupation forces generally do much worse than steal more land when Palestinians reply to Zionist provocation. The IDF shoots up towns, bombs residences, kills civilians, destroys farmland, and walls up towns. The situation in the Occupied Territories approximates Nazi-Occupied Poland just before the mass murders began.
While discussing Finkelstein, Dershowitz made a very obscure claim that he really did not justify collective punishment against Palestinians of the sort that German Nazis applied to the Czech village of Lidice, and he also tried to prove that he really was not anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian because he intervened with the Harvard administration so that a student organization would be able to fly a Palestinian flag on Harvard campus last winter. Dershowitz expects his readership to overlook the vicious murderous Eastern European völkisch racism that underlies the Dershowitzian ideas, argument and proposal.
While American Poles, American Italians and Americans of other ethnic groups generally do not manipulate or exploit America for the sake of their racist tribalism, racist ethnic Ashkenazim like Dershowitz and his Harvard colleagues, President Lawrence Summers and Professor Ruth Wisse, have no problem with the sacrifice of American values and principles for the sake of militant Jewish exceptionalism and aggression.
Rarely does Dershowitz allude to the bigger picture like the anger of the whole world against the US for pandering racist ethnic Ashkenazi Americans in supporting Israel. Can anyone take the US government seriously when the US proclaims support for democracy, anti-racism, and human rights but supports a perverted criminal ideology like Zionism, which is inherently antidemocratic, racist and opposed to the very concept of human rights?
Dershowitz made a point of condemning the Somerville Divestment Project (SDP) for singling out Israel, and he parroted the ridiculous and vacuous logic of the subversive and racist Boston Israel Action Committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC). Dershowitz is apparently unaware of the traditional activism and history of Somerville, which led in the anti-slavery movement and which has divested from other human rights abusers in the past. Dershowitz never explained how his support for undermining American democracy would lead to "peace" in the Middle East, nor did he explain why he thought that Americans should be forced against their will to pay the tab for Israel's existence.
Dershowitz' reply to a questioner during the discussion period betrays the true nature of Dershowitz' "solution" to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The attendee, who claimed to have worked in Israel for the last decade and to have witnessed many human rights violations, pointed out that the organized Jewish community and many individual American Jewish scholars have condemned American individuals and corporations for being invested in 1930s Germany, which was a human rights violator not much different from Israel today. He concluded by asking Dershowitz whether it was wrong to reject a standard for Israel that Jews want to apply to non-Jews. Dershowitz rather lamely replied that Israel was not like Nazi Germany and therefore should be exempted from the human rights yardstick. Dershowitz accords to Israel a privileged status that excludes it from the scrutiny of non-Jews. Dershowitz's answer is a good summary of the book, whose whole purpose is a justification for preserving the privileges of Jews shamelessly living on stolen Palestinian property.
Are the only parties to the conflict the native Palestinian population and the criminal Zionist colonizers or should we perhaps be asking whether an ethnic fundamentalist state whose ideology differs little from that of 1930s Germany (except for the obvious ethnic substitutions) should be permitted to exist in the twenty-first century? The US destroyed Baathist Iraq in a matter of weeks. The US could probably abolish the Zionist state of Israel in a similar timeframe with no comparable negative consequences and at much lower cost.
Dershowitz made it clear several times during his talk that he reserves special enmity for intellectuals like Tony Judt, Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky and Susan Blackwell who work to undermine the legitimacy of the racist ethnic Ashkenazi exceptionalist mind set. There is probably an element of self-preservation in Dershowitz' hatred of these people. If the anti-exceptionalist point of view becomes dominant in the USA, Dershowitz, Summers, Wisse and their intellectual bedfellows could find themselves the next generation of denizens of Guantanamo and similar concentration camps, where they could be interrogated or tortured according to Dershowitzian principles to determine the extent of their anti-American conspiracy to support Zionist terrorism.
(*) PA textbooks rarely deal with the issue at all. Dershowitz does not read Arabic and is simply repeating the standard Zionist disinformation and demonization that racist ethnic Ashkenazim disseminate in the USA. See http://www.ifamericansknew.org for a study of Palestinian textbooks.
ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Congregation Eitz Chayim's Adult Education series continues Sunday, September 18, from 10:30-12 noon (come early for bagels and coffee) with Alan Dershowitz speaking on his latest book, The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved. President Bill Clinton has this to say about Prof. Dershowitz's new book: "The simple chord that resonates through the complex scenarios described in The Case for Peace is one of decency and respect -- for Palestinians, for Israelis, and, ultimately, for humanity itself. . . Hopeful and wise, the blueprint for stability presented in this book is among the best in recent years." Alan Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a leading appellate lawyer in the defense of individual liberties. His many books include The Case for Israel (2003), the #1 New York Times bestseller Chutzpah, and The Vanishing American Jew. His talk is cosponsored by Porter Square Books as part of the new Cambridge Jewish Community Authors Series. After Prof. Dershowitz's presentation, all are invited to stay for coffee and good conversation with Eitz Chayim leaders and members, to learn about our long-time Cambridge non-denominational, egalitarian community, children's school, celebrations, membership, and more! Eitz Chayim is located at 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge (in Cambridgeport). For more information, call, email us, or visit our website. All are welcome!
136 Magazine Street Cambridge MA 617-497-7626 info @ eitz.org http://www.eitz.org/