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September 13, 2007
The Israel Lobby Strikes!
Zbigniew Brzezinski is a former National Security Advisor, a current professor of foreign policy at John Hopkins University, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a frequent contributor to Foreign Affairs. He is one of the few national security specialists to have loudly and presciently argued against the invasion of Iraq, and predicted the chaotic aftermath. He is also, if you believe The Politico's reporting, a possible bigot. And because he's one of Barack Obama's foreign policy advisors, Obama may be a bigot too!
Last year, Brzezinski published a qualified defense of Walt and Mearsheimer in a Foreign Affairs article. That was enough to unsettle AIPAC, whose displeasure was made known to reporters, which got the Politico to run a story on Obama's "controversial" choice, which included quotes from Alan Dershowitz sighing, "It is a tremendous mistake for Barack Obama to select as a foreign policy adviser the one person in public life who has chosen to support a bigoted book." The Politico, presumably, would argue that they're just reporting out the controversy, and Dershowitz is merely being quoted. But in general, there's a strategy reporters have when someone lets loose with a batshit crazy smear during an interview: Don't print it.
It is, of course, proof positive of the Israel Lobby's clout, and thus Walt and Mearsheimer's point, that this article exists and these quotes have been printed. That members of the Israel Lobby are attacking the character and positions of Brzezinski in the context of denying his (and Walt and Mearsheimer's) claim that there is a politically influential Israel Lobby that wields great influence and punishes those who diverge from their orthodoxy is almost too bizarre to be believed. It's like telling someone to keep their voice down then having them roar back, "I'M NOT LOUD!"
September 13, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Yep, they're driven to prove what they are accused of being: too influential and too intolerant of any variant position to theirs. Being 'heavy handed' used to be a phrase that implied over-zealousness. Now it is the mild alternative to totalitarian.
AIPAC's positions and response to critques has the strong aroma of absolute power in a one-party state driven by idealogy. When do the show-trials begin?
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Sep 13, 2007 11:29:00 AM
Someone needs to set up a fight between Bullshit Bill Donohue and Awful Abe Foxman. I suspect that an expert in Classic Trolling could do it. All we need is something sufficiently insulting to both.
But it's funny how the Spokesman For All American Jews and the Spokesman For All American Catholics never seem to shout at one another. They reserve their knee-jerkery for other people, because the Professionally Outraged never shit where they eat.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Sep 13, 2007 11:41:44 AM
Why should AIPAC stop at impugning the character of erstwhile defenders of the Walt/Mearsheimer thesis? They can also go after the relatives of those defenders.
Like Brzezinski's daughter Mika. If she refuses to distance herself from her father's comments, expect Dershowitz to brand the whole MSNBC network as bigoted.
Eat your heart out, Bill O'Reilly.
Posted by: Mimir | Sep 13, 2007 11:42:30 AM
in general, there's a strategy reporters have when someone lets loose with a batshit crazy smear during an interview: Don't print it.
Bullshitico's reporters just know that the Dersh is a quote-whore who'll deliver. It's fundamentally lazy journalism, but the dynamics of that laziness are noteworthy. The Professionally Outraged make hacks' lives easier, but only certain Professionally Outraged appear to be on speed-dial.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Sep 13, 2007 11:44:12 AM
Someone needs to set up a fight between Bullshit Bill Donohue and Awful Abe Foxman. I suspect that an expert in Classic Trolling could do it.
Where have you gone, Floyd Alvis Cooper? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Posted by: mds | Sep 13, 2007 12:05:59 PM
If I read this correctly, you are suggesting, like Walt and Mearshimer, that there is an Israel lobby. Therefore, you are an anti-Semite.
Posted by: Marty Peretz | Sep 13, 2007 12:28:14 PM
Nice try, 'Marty'. Still, it pretty much defines the mind-set...
Posted by: Captain Goto | Sep 13, 2007 12:50:16 PM
Of course Ezra's an antisemite. He's associated with well-known antisemite Matt Yglesias, who has been compared to Charles Lindbergh (and not for his aviatorial ability) by Jonah Goldberg.
Posted by: KCinDC | Sep 13, 2007 12:58:41 PM
What if I'm down with the Jews but can't stand other Semitic peoples? Or the other way around? Is it like a one-off special, no substitutions?
I'm a liberal Catholic and that whackjob Bill Donohue is so extreme he wouldn't find supporters even in the most devout side of my family.
Why are these douchebags being given forum and "official" representation of millions who have no signed on to their agenda to perform political hit jobs?
Posted by: Ellie | Sep 13, 2007 1:47:23 PM
"It is, of course, proof positive of the Israel Lobby's clout, and thus Walt and Mearsheimer's point, that this article exists and these quotes have been printed."
Comedy gold.
"That members of the Israel Lobby are attacking the character and positions of Brzezinski [e.g., saying he's supporting a bigoted book] in the context of denying his (and Walt and Mearsheimer's) claim that there is a politically influential Israel Lobby that wields great influence and punishes those who diverge from their orthodoxy [which Dershowitz does where?] is almost too bizarre to be believed."
Your confusion about the argument noted above in brackets.
"Obama has already distanced himself from the book, with his campaign saying in a statement earlier this week that “the idea that supporters of Israel have somehow distorted U.S. foreign policy, or that they are responsible for the debacle in Iraq, is just wrong. And Obama’s positions on Middle East affairs are, like his main rivals’, within the American political mainstream and firmly in favor of Israeli’s aggressive security policy."
Looks like they got to Obama. Sounds like by your reasoning he's part of the "cabal", assuming non-Jews are allowed.
Posted by: rilkefan | Sep 13, 2007 3:09:14 PM
Rilkefan, I don't understand your point. Dershowitz and the rest of the Israel lobby acknowledge that "there is a politically influential Israel Lobby that wields great influence and punishes those who diverge from their orthodoxy", they just think anyone who says so is bigoted?
And of course the Israel lobby contains plenty of non-Jews, though I'm not sure how to interpret your last paragraph as something other than an accusation of antisemitism against Ezra.
Posted by: KCinDC | Sep 13, 2007 3:35:45 PM
KCinDC: "Rilkefan, I don't understand your point. Dershowitz and the rest of the Israel lobby acknowledge that "there is a politically influential Israel Lobby that wields great influence and punishes those who diverge from their orthodoxy", they just think anyone who says so is bigoted?"
Come on, there's a long list of arguments against the W/M work. Denial of the existence of a powerful pro-Israel lobby is not on it. Ezra is making a Malkin-quality strawman argument here. Even the much better sentence "The claim by a prominent commentator that the book is bigoted is obviously wrong to me so in a sane world the press would never mention it" would be by far the silliest thing I've read this week.
"And of course the Israel lobby contains plenty of non-Jews"
Good point, if one writes '"the Israel Lobby"' - I'd forgotten the W/M definition was as comically expansive as it is (but I do have the sense they mean "pro-Israel Jews in the public sphere plus Christian fundis". Is Lieberman a part of it but not HRC?). I think it's correct to say that by the standard here Obama's part of the Lobby, and that's ludicrous. I by no means intend to accuse Ezra of anti-Semitism, just risible logic and a refusal to acknowledge the serious arguments against the thesis, e.g. those linked in the earlier thread by Haggai. (And jftr, if you weren't someone I know to be entirely sensible, I'd suspect you made the accusation just to stifle dissent.)
Posted by: rilkefan | Sep 13, 2007 4:25:33 PM
And if you weren't someone I know to be entirely sensible, I'd suspect you made your accusation to stifle dissent. "Sounds like by your reasoning he's part of the 'cabal', assuming non-Jews are allowed" is pretty offensive.
Posted by: KCinDC | Sep 13, 2007 4:52:49 PM
KCinDC, do you think religion is actually irrelevant to W/M's categorization? That is, is "pro-Israel Jews in the public sphere plus Christian fundis" wrong? And is the Lieberman/HRC question apposite? Is their discussion of "dual loyalty" irrelevant?
It seems to me that the categorization arises from the same basic mistake as the rest of the thesis - confirmation bias.
Posted by: rilkefan | Sep 13, 2007 5:46:08 PM
... which is incidentally what I'm charging this post with - "Dershowitz gets published, that proves there is an Israel Lobby controlling the media".
Posted by: rilkefan | Sep 13, 2007 5:48:05 PM
AIPAC and Abe Foxman have done more to push me towards anti-semitism than everything else combined.
Posted by: MNPundit | Sep 13, 2007 8:28:50 PM
Last year, Brzezinski published a qualified defense of Walt and Mearsheimer in a Foreign Affairs article. That was enough to unsettle AIPAC, whose displeasure was made known to reporters
That strikes me as a kooky conspiracy theory. This Politico article was generated by Obama's selecting Zbig as an adviser, not by Zbig's year-old article. No one affiliated with AIPAC was even quoted in the story!
Posted by: Ragout | Sep 14, 2007 9:23:37 AM
One of the tragic ironies that the creation of the State of Israel has engendered is the festering of an expansive paranoia. This paranoia has debased the term anti-Semitism to the point that it has practically lost all meaning beyond "Someone who disagrees with me about Israel."
Far from normalizing the status of the Jewish people and securing their place among the community of nations, the demands of "National Security" vis a vis the State of Israel have required the stoking of a pervasive climate of fear and insecurity, both within Israel and throughout the Diaspora. All the better to manipulate and exploit the reflexive response of communal defense.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Sep 14, 2007 11:07:11 AM
That strikes me as a kooky conspiracy theory. This Politico article was generated by Obama's selecting Zbig as an adviser, not by Zbig's year-old article. No one affiliated with AIPAC was even quoted in the story!
So now it's a "conspiracy theory" to suggest that Brzezhinski's published statements provoked AIPAC? That, having been provoked, AIPAC might use its influence to attempt to discredit and marginalize Zbig?
What I find "kooky" is the effort expended to deny that AIPAC is a powerful political lobby that operates in the standard fashion of powerful political lobbys.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Sep 14, 2007 11:17:22 AM
Oops. That should, of course, read Brzezinski.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Sep 14, 2007 11:19:04 AM
I guess Riilke missed all those tussles on the Blogonet where anyone talking about the Israel lobby got accused of anti-semitism. I think there was a not insignificant bit of it on this very blog's comment pages.
Posted by: Sandals | Sep 14, 2007 11:26:31 AM
"the effort expended to deny that AIPAC is a powerful political lobby that operates in the standard fashion of powerful political lobbys."
Evidence?
Also, this is again straw - the thrust of W/M's thesis is that the Israel Lobby is uniquely important in DC. Brez himself notes the fact that AIPAC is just one of a number of such organizations as a problem with W/M's work.
Posted by: rilkefan | Sep 14, 2007 12:09:16 PM
Sandals: "where anyone talking about the Israel lobby got accused of anti-semitism"
I've seen many more accusations of people falsely using "anti-Semitism" to stifle debate than actual accusations, but the latter exist.
Note that the Remnick article Ezra was crying about earlier says directly that W/M aren't anti-Semites, while at the same time respectable people have pointed out where their arguments parallel those of the David Dukes.
So, well, there probably is some anti-Semitism among supporters of the W/M thesis; and there are some idiotic pro-Israel commenters making dumb accusations; and some people on each side like to point to the worst of the other side and say "See!"; and there is a lot trolling from various indecipherable stances.
For reasonable people the only way to proceed is to call things as we see them and ignore the bigots and idiots and trolls as best we can.
Posted by: rilkefan | Sep 14, 2007 12:24:58 PM
rilke, the book is quite open about the fact that the Israel Lobby is only one of many.
Have you, well, actually read it? Or are you just parroting Dersh's disingenuous attacks?
And the "paralleling Duke" line is an anti-semitism jab, full stop. Don't be dense.
Posted by: Demosthenes | Sep 14, 2007 12:41:45 PM
Evidence?
Rilkefan, you're begining to appear silly. I was obviously commenting on Ragout's post. You can agree or disagree with my take on it but please don't make yourself ridiculous by pretending that I wasn't addressing something concrete. If you don't think his post is good evidence for my comment, make your case. Otherwise, you appear nonsensical.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Sep 14, 2007 1:42:11 PM
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