Often, these people claim they are not against the existence of Israel, but are merely criticizing specific actions taken by Israel. Certainly, since no country is perfect, there is much to criticize about Israel, but these haters overwhelmingly distort Israel's actions and, even in cases where some criticism is justified, ignore or whitewash far more serious transgressions by Israel's enemies.
In recent years, Israel-haters have gotten bolder and crossed the line separating anything that could be considered legitimate criticism from undeniably illegitimate criticism. People generally considered respectable, such as former President Jimmy Carter, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, have put forth arguments worthy of the infamous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
Ignoring all reality and evoking images of a global Jewish conspiracy, they argue the "Israel Lobby" is pervasive and controls American foreign policy.
Much could be written about the double standard they employ. While sometimes using one side of their mouths to acknowledge Jews have the same rights as other Americans to try to influence the government, they try to destroy the ability of Jews, and other supporters of Israel, to use that right. Nothing is said about other Americans trying to influence the government in matters relating to countries they have an affinity for. Nothing is said about the pervasive of Arabists and the corrosive effect they have had both on our foreign policy and the prices we pay for gasoline and other forms of energy.
Much could also be written about the absurdity of the essence of their arguments, that loyal Americans such as the President of the United States and the majority of the House and Senate all put the interests of a foreign nation above the interests of the nation they have solemnly pledged to serve.
On either of those bases alone, their arguments could not be taken seriously by anyone with an open mind and even a modicum of intelligence.
A recent article by Gareth Porter in the Asia Times, published with the misleading headline "Israel urged US to attack Iran - not Iraq," a headline in conflict with the content of the article, demonstrates another critical flaw at the center of those arguments.
The so-called "neocons" are said to follow the bidding of Israel and the "Israel Lobby," ensuring that our elected officials put the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of America.
Exhibit Number One is generally the war in Iraq, which the "neocons" allegedly led us into in order to do Israel's bidding.
It may be that the "neocons" led us into the war in Iraq, but we now all know rather than doing Israel's bidding, they were acting against the desires of the Israeli government.
As revealed by former Bush administration official Lawrence Wilkerson, the Israeli government was pressuring our leaders to not invade Iraq!
Porter reported
The warning against an invasion of Iraq was "pervasive" in Israeli communications with the US administration, Wilkerson recalled. It was conveyed to the administration by a wide range of Israeli sources, including political figures, intelligence, and private citizens.It wasn't that Israel didn't recognize Iraq as a threat, but they knew Iran was a much greater threat.
Soon after Israeli officials got wind of that planning [for an invasion of Iraq], Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon asked for a meeting with Bush primarily to discuss US intentions to invade Iraq. In the weeks preceding Sharon's meeting with Bush on February 7, 2002, a procession of Israeli officials conveyed the message to the US administration that Iran represented a greater threat, according to a Washington Post report on the eve of the meeting.In a recent article in the Waterbury Observer (see Overabundance of Sand in the Middle East), another relentless critic of the only democracy in the Middle East complained "its offensive to me and the American people who oppose the war [in Iraq] to be accused of being unpatriotic." How hypocritical to complain like that while effectively accusing American Jews and our Commander in Chief of being unpatriotic!
A message to Jimmy Carter, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, Marilyn Aligata and others who apparently believe in something that doesn't exist: There is no international Jewish conspiracy.
2 comments:
There is the philosophical debate over whether it is anti-Semitic when someone does or says something that is anti-Semitic in effect; there is also the philosophical debate over whether someone who does something anti-Semitic is necessarily anti-Semitic.
When I was a student, my best professors expressed their opinions, but also encouraged students to express their own opinions and their reasoning, even when it differed from the professor's.
Currently, I am a college professor myself, but in a field where world affairs do not come up. However, I have observed many anti-Israel professors force their messages of hate on their students, even when it has nothing to do with their classes, and intimidate into silence students who do not share their hatred of our only friend in the Middle East.
Blogger Zombie beat me to creating a graphic of the Walt/Mearsheimer Jewish Lobby drek in the toilet, at Little Green Footballs. (Zombie: Walt and Mearsheimer, Right Where They Belong.)
After thinking this over carefully, I don't think these professors are really anti-Semitic. Read on.
Walt and Mearsheimer are utilizing the same anti-Semitic tactics as despots who wish to distract their subjects from the malignant social ills that they themselves foster, but unlike despots who espouse Jewish conspiracy theories out of a combination of opportunism and actual hate, these professors have written their essay and book based on the former motivation, opportunism. Like bank robbers, their motivation for this outrage is primarily because “the Jews are there” and have proven useful as punching bags to countless others in history.
Anti-Semitism is a distraction from the real issues here. Walt and Mearscheimer know full well there is no super-powerful "Jewish Lobby”, that the pro-Israel lobbyists have competing counterparts representing many other causes and countries, and that the pro-Israel lobby is not particularly remarkable in this environment. They know full well that the misrepresentations of fact, omissions, things taken out of context, logical errors, etc. in their prior paper and this book are indeed risible, the trash produced by dilettantes, not by serious researchers.
But they don't care.
What would make them produce such garbage?
Fear, and the standards of (mis)conduct that come right from the halls of academia with which they've lived their lives, notably amorality and betrayal of friends when some self-interest is served. (For professors, it's usually money and status.) They are clearly enthralled with university culture and attempting to export that pathologic "culture" to the rest of the world.
What is the "gain" here? In the main, I do think the reason d'atre of their book is one of appeasement and surrender to Islamofascism.
A few hundred million insane bloodthirsty Arabs and other followers of the death cult of Islam calling for Death to Israel and Death to America: what better way to appease them than writing a book that the authors hope will cause the U.S. to hang Israel out to dry in the face of genocidal maniacs, groups and countries like Hezbollah, Hamas, Ahmadinejad, Syria and Iran?
In fact, they are not anti-Semites. Rather, they are equal opportunity amoralists. If the Islamofascists were chanting “Death to Mexico! Death to America!”, Walt and Mearsheimer would undoubtedly craft conspiracy theories that might justify allowing Osama and his minions to relocate from Waziristan to Acapulco.
University professors are renowned for turning on their friends, students and colleagues at the drop of a hat, if they see a personal gain in doing so. They could care less about ruining careers and lives. See for example, “Academic Tyranny: The Tale and the Lessons”, Robert Weissberg, Review of Policy Research, Vol. 15 no. 4 P. 99-110, Dec. 1998, and especially "Authorship: The Coin of the Realm, The Source of Complaints" by Wilcox, Journal of the AMA, Vol. 280 No. 3, July 15, 1998 that describes how stealing of others’ work and career-ending professorial retaliation against those who complain is common at Walt's university, Harvard. Of course see www.thefire.org as well.
So, Walt and Mearsheimer wrote this book in all its faux-academic glory in the cowardly and academic-culture-inspired hope of spearheading a U.S. betrayal of its friend, Israel, in their hope that this will satiate the Islamofascists' appetite for blood and "honor."
They are incredibly reckless in this regard. Their book is quite socially irresponsible (not a new thing for academia). Their whole theme, abandonment of friends for supposed secondary gain, i.e., the appeasement of a brutal terrorist killer culture, is explicitly amoral (and likely immoral as well for those of us not prone to moral relativism) as well as anti-American.
They are using this book and likely their educational pulpits with students as a weapon, with the desired collateral damage of weakening the U.S. (Does anyone even need to ask anymore why Ivy professors might be against a strong United States?)
Walt and Mearsheimer, through their arrogance, stupidity, and exportation of academia’s amoral tyranny, are tacitly working for our enemies.
These professors are out of control, like a runaway locomotive, thanks to the cheerful support of opportunistic anti-Semites and the MSM (I’m not sure those two are entirely separable). They need to be stopped – however, accusations of anti-Semitism are a distraction and they know it.
Walt and Mearsheimer have more in common with Arthur Neville Chamberlain than David Ernest Duke or Alfred Charles Sharpton.
That said, as Abraham Foxman and many others observed, Walt & Mearsheimer's faux-scholarship is "riddled with errors" that tend to slant it "in the exact same direction, thus we are dealing not with a little unfortunate carelessness but with a culpable degree of bias."
I submit again that their "carelessness and bias" is most likely knowing and deliberate, but not due to anti-Semitism. Its purpose is promoting appeasement and the weakening of America, at a cost to Israelis and Jews the professors are indifferent to and simply don't care about, typical of Ivy professors who want their way, period.
There is a term for deliberate and knowing falisification in academia for any secondary purpose:
Academic Fraud.
Walt and Mearshiemer have placed themselves in the same league as Finkelstein, Chomsky, and other academic fabricators.
Charges of anti-Semitism are a distraction from their motivations. Charges of academic incompetence are not highly credible considering the experience, resources and positions of these professors.
Charges of deliberate academic fraud are, I believe, closer to reality, and perhaps hold the key to successful challenging of this dangerous charade.
- ERIS
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