Whose Jews? Which Empowerment?

Okay, I can't resist. Here's a novel thought I had on the issue inspired by Jeffrey Goldberg's piece on Walt and Mearsheimer. According to Goldberg, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy "represents the most sustained attack, the most mainstream attack, against the political enfranchisement of American Jews since the era of Father Coughlin."

This is an interesting rhetorical move. Rather than defending specific policies, or the policy views of specific groups and individuals, Goldberg has positioned himself as the defender of "the political enfranchisement of American Jews" as such, thus capturing the high ground in, among other things, the intra-Jewish debate about Israel and American foreign policy. Lots of Jewish relatives of mine who probably wouldn't approve of AIPAC's efforts to remove legislative language constraining George W. Bush from attacking Iran certainly do approve of "the political enfranchisement of American Jews" so if we shift the debate to that issue, Goldberg wins.

The trouble, of course, is that Goldberg has no particular interest in the political enfranchisement of American Jews as such. He's not talking about empowering Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein and Eric Alterman and Harold Meyerson and Josh Marshall and MJ Rosenberg and Daniel Levy. He's talking about empowering Jeffrey Goldberg and Alan Dershowitz and Martin Peretz and Charles Krauthammer. Which is fine. Obviously, you'd expect Goldberg to want to see people who agree with him empowered vis-à-vis those who disagree with him, but this has nothing to do with empowering "the Jews" and everything to do with empowering some Jews whose ideas have not, over the years, served the United States or Israel very well.

Comments

"represents the most sustained attack, the most mainstream attack, against the political enfranchisement of American Jews since the era of Father Coughlin."

But is it "worse than the Protocols of Zion," as one-time Kahane supporter Klein Halevi claimed about the original paper? Because otherwise, small beer indeed.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 1, 2007 2:08 PM

And why would a seemingly rational person like Jeffrey Goldberg - self-proclaimed opponent of Judeocentrism, no less - care about "political enfranchisement of American Jews", specifically? It doesn't make sense.

Posted by abb1 | October 1, 2007 2:18 PM

thanks, matt.
couldn't agree more.

Posted by kid bitzer | October 1, 2007 2:18 PM

Also:

The two men gained their fame--which is wildly disproportionate to their achievement--last spring, after the publication of an article in the London Review of Books that condemned the activities of Jewish-American supporters of Israel and argued that those activities are responsible for an astounding number of world-historical developments.

How can you write about foreign policy and not have heard of Walt or Mearsheimer before that?!

Posted by Jack | October 1, 2007 2:21 PM

Daniel Levy is not an American Jew.

Posted by Some dude | October 1, 2007 2:29 PM

Krauthammer/Peretz et al. are "the Jews" the same way that Bill Donohue is "the Catholics" and General Petraeus is "the military."

Posted by SDM | October 1, 2007 2:32 PM

Daniel Levy is not an American Jew.

Fair enough. Nor, for that matter, is Charles Krauthammer (Canadian) but I think the point holds.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | October 1, 2007 2:34 PM

Re Walt and Mearsheimer

1. I think it is a bit strong to accuse Prof. Walt and Prof. Maarsheimer of antisemitism. Not having read their book (and I have no intention of reading it), it appears that they don't hate Jews, they hate the State of Israel. It is clear from the reviews (not just Mr. Goldbergs') that they believe that the existence of the State of Israel is not in the best interest of US foreign policy and therefore, they would not be overly saddened at its disappearance.

2. I have previously posted the Time magazine story about Kissinger and Golda Meir relative to the attempt of the former to facilitate an Israeli defeat in the 1973 war which was shortcircuited by Prime Minister Meir informing Henry the K that nuclear weapons would be used against the Aswan dam if ammunition was into resupplied forthwith. Dr. Kissinger learned a lesson from that episode, namely that the Government of Israel would not go quietly in the night. Profs. Walt and Mearsheimer should also learn that lesson.

Posted by SLC | October 1, 2007 2:35 PM

this has nothing to do with empowering "the Jews" and everything to do with empowering some Jews
Goldberg's claim that all Jews have the same interests and that they're represented by AIPAC sounds like something I've heard of before... If only I could remember the term for such a categorical grouping of "the Jews." I feel like I just recently read a word describing such a practice.

Posted by SP | October 1, 2007 2:37 PM

Fair enough. Nor, for that matter, is Charles Krauthammer (Canadian) but I think the point holds.

Absolutely, just doing my share of hive-minding.

Posted by Some dude | October 1, 2007 2:39 PM

they believe that the existence of the State of Israel is not in the best interest of US foreign policy

I'm fairly sure that is not even close to being an accurate rendering of their position.

Posted by Ryan | October 1, 2007 2:39 PM

Re Krauthammer -- he's lived in the US for decades and he sent his son to Harvard ... can't he qualify as American by now?

Posted by nbt | October 1, 2007 2:42 PM

Also if you don't think in a certain crazy right wing hawk way about U.S. foreign policy then it means you want the enemies to defeat America and kill her people and so you are an anti-American.

However, the USA used two nuclear weapons against Japan, so those Walt & Mearsheimer guys should learn that lesson.

Posted by El_Cid | October 1, 2007 2:43 PM

At Reason, http://reason.com/blog/show/122767.html, David Wiegel blows poor Goldberg out of the water by quoting long chunks of a piece Goldberg did on AIPAC for the New Yorker in 2005. Goldberg is, if anything, harsher than W&M.

Posted by Alan Vanneman | October 1, 2007 2:43 PM

I'm fairly sure that is not even close to being an accurate rendering of their position.

I think their position is somewhat similar: US support for Israel makes no sense. Drezner made the only useful, for me, comment on this entire issue when he noted that as realists, W&M believe that US support for Israel should never happen, and so need some mechanism for explaining the same. Thus, Israel lobby. Not self-evidently wrong, but perhaps more theory motivated (rather than anti-semitism motivated) than one would like.

I've not read the book, though.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 1, 2007 2:45 PM

SLC has totally misunderstood (rather, is being disingenuous about) Walt & Mearsheimer's position. They do not by any stretch of the imagination state the existence of the State of Israel is not in the best interests of the US. They say that there is clique of Israeli elite/security establishment actors (rallied around Sharon) who, exploiting the sympathies that the US elite, Protestant fundamentalists and US Jews have for Israel, built as a monument to those who perished in the Holocaust, are pushing expansionism, adverturism, rigidity and policies in that part of the world that are not in the best interests of the US or, at the end of the day, Israel itself.

Posted by Nour | October 1, 2007 2:47 PM

What about the empowerment of Woody Allen? Or Larry David?

I recently heard David is getting a divorce from his wife. This season is awesome, the bit about the environmental toilet paper was hilarious.

Posted by Peter K. | October 1, 2007 2:48 PM

I think their position is somewhat similar: US support for Israel makes no sense.

The latter is a roughly accurate rendering of their position, but I don't believe that is very similar at all to "they believe that the existence of the State of Israel is not in the best interest of US foreign policy", which is how SLC put it.

What W & M say about the existence of Israel is this:

There is a strong moral case for supporting Israel's continued existence, but that is not in jeopardy.

Posted by Ryan | October 1, 2007 2:51 PM

SLC is writing so far with reasonable politeness, which is desirable, but the idea that Walt and Mearsheimer want Israel to disappear is nonsense and has never in any way been intimated by either author. I suggest reading them at least a little.

The suggestion that Israel would have used or threatened to use a nuclear weapon in 1973 is complete garbage.

Posted by Jennifer | October 1, 2007 2:52 PM

SLC

"I have previously posted the Time magazine story about Kissinger and Golda Meir relative to the attempt of the former to facilitate an Israeli defeat in the 1973 war which was shortcircuited by Prime Minister Meir informing Henry the K that nuclear weapons would be used against the Aswan dam if ammunition was into resupplied forthwith."

This is absolutely garbage, and bordering on an insane comment but I assume only ignorance or stupidity.

Posted by Jennifer | October 1, 2007 3:01 PM

But the cool thing about the story about Meir threatening Kissinger with using a nuclear bomb is that the story was supposed to be a pro-Israel story. It was an "Israel threatened us if we didn't provide them with weapons, aren't they deserving of respect."

So what is interesting about it is not its truth or falsity, but rather the mind set that would tell that story in order to explain why discourse should be more pro-Israel.

Posted by Lon | October 1, 2007 3:02 PM

Poor Matt, constantly living in fear some fellow liberal might suspect he holds sympathy for Israel.

Posted by Ron | October 1, 2007 3:08 PM

"Dr. Kissinger learned a lesson from that episode, namely that the Government of Israel would not go quietly in the night."

I don't know if it's true that Kissinger wanted Israel to lose the war, but he certainly didn't want them to win it too decisively. Hence, he lied to the Israelis, and told them that if they didn't let the Egyptian Third Army group they had captured go, the Soviet Union would intervene militarily against Israel. So Israel let the Egyptians go, and to this day, the Egypt celebrates its 'victory' over Israel in the 1973 war. Had Israel held tens of thousands of prisoners after the war, it would have been difficult for the Egyptians to claim this.

Then again, had Egypt been so humiliated it's possible Sadat would have been overthrown before he had a chance to negotiate a peace treaty with Israel, so perhaps Kissinger was right.

Posted by Juan | October 1, 2007 3:11 PM

If the "Israel Lobby" is really concerned about the security of the State of Israel, would somebody explain to me why they don't propose that we "redeploy" our 160,000 troops out of Iraq and into Israel?

Why are we playing bank-shots all over the Middle East, intended to make Israel more secure on the third or fourth carrom? If defending Israel is a worthy American goal, why don't we do it directly? More narrowly, why doesn't the "Israel Lobby" advocate that we do it directly?

-- TP

Posted by Tony P. | October 1, 2007 3:15 PM

Re Jennifer

Ms. Jennifer, the story appeared in an issue of Time Magazine either in late 1973 or early 1974. The question as to the reliability of the story rests on he reliability of Time Magazine. If one believes that Time Magazine, circa 1973 was a reliable source, then one must have some confidence in the story. If one believes the converse, then a lack of confidence in the story is warranted.

Re Ryan

Profs. Walt and Mearsheimer are of the opinion that the existence of the State of Israel is not in question. Coming from the safety of Cambridge, Ma. and Chicago, Il. that's very fine. However, it's possible that the folks in charge of the IDF might be somewhat more sanguine about the issue, being as how they are on the firing line.

Re Nour

Mr. Nour, like all revisionists, neglects to inform us as to how the State of Israel came to occupy the West Bank, Gaza Srtip, and Golan Highths. This occupation occurred in 1967 when dictator Nasser of Egypt ordered UN peace keepers out of the Sinai Desert, advanced 120,000 troops to the Israeli border, and announced that it was his intention to remove the State of Israel from the map. Unfortunately for him, his forces and those of Jordan and Syria weren't up to the task and were totally defeated. The current occupation is the result of Arab aggression and will remain as an object lesson that aggression doesn't pay.

Posted by SLC | October 1, 2007 3:25 PM

. However, it's possible that the folks in charge of the IDF might be somewhat more sanguine about the issue, being as how they are on the firing line.

Right, but the question is why do we as Americans give a fuck? Or, perhaps, why should we as Americans give a fuck.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 1, 2007 3:45 PM

Both W & M and Juan Cole overestimate the influence of the neocons. They blame them for Iraq, but it was Bush's call. Also 9/11 helped it to happen, so they can blame Osama bin Laden.

W & M and Juan Cole overemphasize Israel as one of al Qaeda's complaints. A just two-state solution is desirable on its on terms.
Osama bin Laden praises Chomsky, but does he agree with Chomsky that the Bosnian Muslims should have been left to their fate?

Posted by Peter K. | October 1, 2007 4:01 PM

"Or, perhaps, why should we as Americans give a fuck."

Perhaps we shouldn't, and we should phase out aid to Israel and its neighbors. But the corollary of that is that we shouldn't give a fuck about any nagging border issues between Israel and its neighbors and leave them to solve their disputes on their own, or not.

Posted by Juan | October 1, 2007 4:01 PM

But the corollary of that is that we shouldn't give a fuck about any nagging border issues between Israel and its neighbors and leave them to solve their disputes on their own, or not.

Absent some indication that rolling over on Israel would help our interests somehow, I mostly agree. Actually, I think I might be against rolling over on Israel even then. Depends what was on offer, I guess.

But--I haven't read the book--would W&M be opposed to letting Israel run riot as long as Israel was firmly and fully decoupled from the US? I wouldn't have thought so.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 1, 2007 4:09 PM

"At Reason, http://reason.com/blog/show/122767.html, David Wiegel blows poor Goldberg out of the water by quoting long chunks of a piece Goldberg did on AIPAC for the New Yorker in 2005. Goldberg is, if anything, harsher than W&M."

It's important to note both that Goldberg criticizes AIPAC and its influence in the current article and that that is not germane to the non-straw discussion - the real argument is about whether M/W's work is balanced, well-sourced, and reasonable. One can criticize the farm lobby without claiming that John Edwards hates poor farmers in Africa.

Posted by rilkefan | October 1, 2007 4:16 PM

TP,
Israel would not gain any benefit from having 160,000 American troops on their soil since they are not in threat of being overrun by foreign countries.

The main threat to them is some other country developing the capacity and willingness to harm them despite the overwhelming response that Israel could give. That is why they place so much emphasis on having no neighbors with nuclear weapons.

The problem with this approach is that they are more likely to be hurt by lower tech rockets that are easy to manufacture and move and is likely to be in the hands of terrorists long before nuclear weapons would. And the policy of keeping the region too destabilized to produce nuclear weapons is at the same time the policy of keeping the terrorist threat alive long enough that terrorists will get weapons to do real damage to Israel.

But while clearly I think this destabilizing policy is wrongheader, it is not irrational in the way you suggest. It does identify a threat as the primary one to Israel and addresses that threat. My objection is that I think it misidentifies the main threat.

Posted by Lon | October 1, 2007 4:23 PM

Osama bin Laden praises Chomsky, but does he agree with Chomsky that the Bosnian Muslims should have been left to their fate?

Posted by Peter K.

Osama bin Laden sort of praised Chomsky, but it was a damning by faint praise. His praise was to the extent that 'here was one of your best scholars warning you about the perils of the Iraq attack,' but even his words fail because you are trying to use human law versus God's law of the Qur'aan.

So, remember, the reason bin Laden quoted Chomsky was to show that, ha ha, even your best scholars are useless and naught will help until you choose Islam etc. etc. etc.

Posted by El Cid | October 1, 2007 4:29 PM

I read the whole piece and I have to think that Matt did not. The author is not a fan of AIPAC or the Israeli right wing.

Posted by Dave | October 1, 2007 4:38 PM

"Profs. Walt and Mearsheimer are of the opinion that the existence of the State of Israel is not in question. Coming from the safety of Cambridge, Ma. and Chicago, Il. that's very fine. However, it's possible that the folks in charge of the IDF might be somewhat more sanguine about the issue, being as how they are on the firing line."

Israel has one of the strongest militaries in the world. They have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East. Who can really defeat the Israelis? The Egyptians? They have never really come close to winning a battle in Israel proper. The Saudis? They were terrified of the Iraqi military that we destroyed twice in under a month? The Iranians? They couldn't even bit the Iraqis. Hamas and Hezbollah can win in the sense of not being destroyed, but they could never win on the streets of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, which is where a fight that would truly threaten the existence of Israel would be fought.

There are some rather uses of framing and language in M & W, such as calling AIPAC and its allies "The Israel Lobby," which sounds like a cabal and is easily caritcaturized as being anti-Semitic. With that said, the visceral reactions a lot of people have to their anti-AIPAC argument is rather odd. AIPAC is to American Jews what Al Sharpton, or better yet Louis Farrakhan, is to African-Americans. Is an argument against Elijah Mohammed an attack on the enfranchisement of African-Americans? Of course not. An entire side of this argument is being defined by people who can only offer up misdirection.

Posted by Reality Man | October 1, 2007 4:43 PM

"would W&M be opposed to letting Israel run riot as long as Israel was firmly and fully decoupled from the US? I wouldn't have thought so."

Not if said running negatively influenced the US, which it presumably would. I'd guess that even an Israel that behaved like the reasonable people here wish it did would be a negative influence by that measure, because the fundamentalists would still be angry about Israel's existence.

Posted by rilkefan | October 1, 2007 4:49 PM

This season is awesome

Correct

the bit about the environmental toilet paper was hilarious

Almost everything in last night's episode, including this bit, was really weak.

Poor Matt, constantly living in fear some fellow liberal might suspect he holds sympathy for Israel.

Or, in a less needlessly vituperative (not to mention wrong) fashion, Matt thinks that, on the margin, U.S. policy could be improved if it stopped supporting the most militaristic impulses of the Israeli government and questions why U.S. aid-per-capita to Israel is so much higher than it is for other Democratic allies of ours.

Posted by washerdreyer | October 1, 2007 4:56 PM

Not if said running negatively influenced the US, which it presumably would.

Right, I should have been more explicit. By "fully and firmly," I meant that the rest of the world no longer thought we had any responsibility for the conduct or sustenance of Israel. (Gawd knows how this would happen. Maybe we don't veto shit anymore in the UN, or whatever.) I think W&M wouldn't care much at all about what Israel did in that case. We've certainly been OK with much worse governments, and my understanding is that the realists are fine with that.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 1, 2007 5:12 PM

Just another example of the distinguishing characteristic of the Zionist - intellectual dishonesty.

Big surprise.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 1, 2007 5:19 PM

SLC: "Dr. Kissinger learned a lesson from that episode, namely that the Government of Israel would not go quietly in the night. Profs. Walt and Mearsheimer should also learn that lesson."

Maybe you should.

Because the minute those nukes fly, Israel will "go into the night" - and not quietly either. Tel Aviv will glow for some years.

The rest of the world is not going to allow Israel to use nukes in the ME. They may (stupidly) allow Israel to have them. But they won't allow Israel to use them.

And even if they do, the rest of the ME won't. No matter how many nukes Israel has, a couple hundred million Arabs and Persians will put paid to Israel if Israel EVER nukes an Arab city.

As long as Israel is just killing Palestinians (and the occasional Lebanese) most of the Arab world won't care. That much is true. Start killing Arabs in general - and Israel is gone.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 1, 2007 5:24 PM

Memo to Matt - you can oppose current Israeli policies in the West Bank, current American policies with respect to Israel and certain tactics employed by AIPAC - and still find W&M's work to be shoddy scholarship that trades in anti-Semitic tropes.

W&M's book is not - however much Matt and MJ Rosenberg and every other mainstream progressive critic of Israeli policy want to be - about curbing AIPAC in order to facilitate a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian crisis. It is argument that holds American Jews as responsible for 9/11 (indirectly by inspiring Islamist anti-Americanism) and Iraq (directly through the Jewish neocons in the Bush administration).

Matt & MJ and sensible progressives certaintly don't want to get behind these propositions. (There is a yawning chasm between what M&W do -placing the Lobby at the center of the causes of the Iraq war and the sanitized, Yglesized version - that the support for the war of some pro-Israel American Jews made it marginally more likely that we went to war in Iraq.)

Matt rarely engages in intellectual dishonesty, but on this topic, time and time again he changes the debate to the one he wants to have by dismissing the central problems with W&M's argument as trivial.

Posted by mhp | October 1, 2007 5:28 PM

So, tell me oh fellow Jew, should Israel exist? What good is Israel in the world? Tell me where you are in these, since you refer to an "inter-Jewish debate" on foreign policy.

Posted by An Apikores | October 1, 2007 5:32 PM

"The current occupation is the result of Arab aggression and will remain as an object lesson that aggression doesn't pay."

The current state of Hizballah is the result of Israeli aggression and the defeat of Israel last year - and the upcoming defeat of Israel by Hizballah and Syria in the next war - will remain as an object lesson that aggression doesn't pay.

The current state of Hamas is the result of Israeli occupation and the various rockets landing on Israel and the occasional bus being blown up with all its passengers will remain as an object lesson that occupation doesn't pay.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 1, 2007 5:32 PM

Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein went to a shooting range on Yom Kippur and shot clay pigeons with Megan McArdle.

There are many Jews who oppose AIPAC's politics and who are also either more or less observant or are personally committed to the shared values of one or another aspect of the Jewish community. Eric Alterman is one. Meyerson and Rosenberg and Marshall, yes. You and Matt, no.

Posted by Bloix | October 1, 2007 5:34 PM

"The main threat to them is some other country developing the capacity and willingness to harm them despite the overwhelming response that Israel could give. That is why they place so much emphasis on having no neighbors with nuclear weapons."

Actually there is no such threat. You are correct that Israel's policy is to destabilize and thus dominate the ME. But the motivation is not to prevent nuclear weapons - or even to prevent being overrun by terrorists - it's simply the Zionist mindset.

Israel is so far ahead on the nuclear weapons front - as well as on the conventional military front - that it would be virtually impossible for the Arab countries - even spending massive amounts of their oil money, which they've show little inclination to do - to catch up in the area of military force. It could theoretically be done, but is highly unlikely.

The real problem for Israel with regard to Iranian nukes is that the possession of nukes by countries near them would prevent Israel for pursuing a policy of regime change and destabilization.

Because any country with a nuke would never do a first strike against Israel, given Israel's second-strike capability. BUT if such a country were going to be destroyed or overthrown anyway, they might well see it as worth it to destroy Israel - because Israel, despite its second-strike capability, cannot absorb a first strike.

Therefore the possession of a nuke ruins Israel's primary foreign policy - destabilization and domination of the ME.

It has nothing to do with Israel's perception of its survivability - although Israel in fact really has more to fear from simple demographics and birthrates than it does military attack.

Israel COULD be destroyed by the Arab world militarily - or more precisely, by terrorism - IF the Arab terrorist groups were smart enough to realize that a stolen Israel nuclear weapon would be the end of Israel.

Forget about Iran giving terrorists nukes or having one stolen - won't happen. Anybody who wants a nuke - hey, Israel is Wal-Mart! Military security is an oxymoron in any country, so it wouldn't be impossible to steal one in Israel. Dick Marcinko proved that in the US by penetrating US Navy nuclear weapons lockers and planting IEDS on nuclear submarines at Groton with his Red Cell SEAL team.

And such a weapon wouldn't even have to be used. Once the world learned that an Israeli nuke had gone missing, it would demand the unilateral nuclear disarmament of Israel - and could buttress that demand by an economic blockade that Israel simply couldn't survive.

Once Israel has no nukes, it could conceivably be defeated militarily by the united Arab world - if the Arab world ever could be united, which is doubtful. But it would still take decades and a lot of oil money and military training to bring the Arab armies up to parity with Israel's.

The main advantage of such a threat, however, would be that Israel would be forced to deal with the Palestinian issue on terms more favorable to the Palestinians.

The end result might well be a peaceful settlement of the issue.

Which, however, would then subject Israel to the reality of the Arab birthrates vs Israeli emigration.

Either way, Israel clearly has no future as a Zionist state.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 1, 2007 5:45 PM

nice Alasdair MacIntyre reference, MY. He is probably the best neo-Aristotelian conservative out there, and I really do find his work compelling. First Marc Bloch, now MacIntyre -- at this rate, perhaps we will be treated to some kind of Gramsci allusion next. Seriously, good show, old sport.

Posted by Ben Cronin | October 1, 2007 5:51 PM

I just finished reading Goldberg's Prisoners book. He is a resolute centrist on issues involving Israel.

I must say that after living in three Arab countries for almost ten years and speaking/reading Arabic at a high level, I was very much a Walt/Mearsheimer sort of foreign policy thinker. I was interviewed twice by Paul Findlay for They Dare to Speak Out.

Subsequently, I worked for Denis Neill who will be featured in the upcoming movie "Charlie Wilson's War." [I was in George Criles book, but not by name.] For Denis, I worked the Pakistan beat, but also worked on the Jordan account. I saw plenty of AIPAC & know about their boundary-crossings from advocacy into violating certain legal parameters. So I was still an avid non-fan of Israel.

Then I was hired by Amoco [BIG OIL!] as an Entry-Strategy Analyst and among many other areas in the Middle East, was invited to Israel, where I had a three-hour tete-a-tete with Shimon Peres, who was Foreign Minister at the time.

Long story short.... the Middle East is such a complete concatenation of bad governments and worse policies that Israel actually is at the top of the heap over there, despite its numerous infractions of international law, legal and moral guidelines, and occasionally foreign policy common sense.

It's a bad neighborhood over there and I was often told by Israeli officials [including the head of Shin Beth who drove me back to my hotel in Tel Aviv] that Iran was Israel's biggest enemy and that Iraq was small change. Goldberg is accurate when he mentions that point.

I could go on, but the bottom line is that De Toqueville was right when he predicted that the US would never be able to maintain a coherent foreign policy with so many domestic constituencies to satisfy. And that was before the Irish, Jews, Italians, and post-1848 Germans had even arrived in the USA!

Posted by daveinboca | October 1, 2007 5:54 PM

SomeCallMeTim, had a reply but it was getting a bit too counterfactual for me to follow my argument. Summary, I think we're damned regardless, but I support a fair two-state solution in part because it would help the US.

Posted by rilkefan | October 1, 2007 5:59 PM

it's simply the Zionist mindset. - Richard Steven Hack

What the hell is this supposed to mean? Any actual Zionist has no interest in destabilizing the Middle East. Even if one is a religious Jewish nationalist of the sort that wants to annex the West Bank and kick the Muslims off the Temple Mount, being a Zionist you still, by the definition of "Zionism" want there to be a Jewish State just like any other group of people has a state (in this right-wing narrative, which is not without historical support, Jordan is the state for the Palestinian people). As such, you'd certainly prefer a stable mid-east where Israel is the Jewish State, Jordan is the Palestinian State, Syria is the Syrian state, etc, etc.

Now there are people who "support" Israel that have an interest in an unstable ME as it'll (in their view) bring on Armeggeddon ... the so-called Christian Zionists. Anybody with a lick of sense realizes that their ideology has nothing to do with Zionism per se. Unfortunately, for various reasons, many supporters of Israel take whatever support they can get and figure they are using Christian Zionists as tools. However, the influence of Christian Zionism is very pernicious and certainly affects Israeli policy.

But to the extent it does seem that Israeli policy is to promote a destabilized ME, it has nothing to do with Zionism per se and everything to do with the Christian right ... that and many in Israel who have internalized certain stereotypes and think that because they are Jews, they are so smart and thus don't bother to actually be smart and thus come up with dumb policies and ideas that are destablizing even if that's not the intent.

Posted by DAS | October 1, 2007 5:59 PM

BUT if such a country were going to be destroyed or overthrown anyway, they might well see it as worth it to destroy Israel - because Israel, despite its second-strike capability, cannot absorb a first strike. - Richard Steven Hack

This is why I didn't get the "if you support Israel, you'll support the war against Iraq" argument. Assuming Iraq had WMDs (and people wiser than me realized it didn't ... I was placing even odds as to whether or not it had them) -- once Saddam Hussein realized his future was shaky, why wouldn't he just unleash all his weapons against Israel? Even if the war would remove an "enemy of Israel"(TM), it wouldn't matter if there was no Israel left, would it?

Posted by DAS | October 1, 2007 6:04 PM

Re Richard Steven Hack

"As long as Israel is just killing Palestinians (and the occasional Lebanese) most of the Arab world won't care."

Unfortunately, Mr. Hack is correct in this regard. The attached link shows how the Palestinians are being treated in Iraq by the Shiite militias. This report is by Amnesty International, hardly a Zionist front organization. Maybe a question should be directed to Mr. Abbas and Mr. Haniyeh as to why these people are not being given refuge by the PA, as Jews kicked out of Iraq in 1949 were given refuge in the fegeling State of Israel..

Posted by SLC | October 1, 2007 6:04 PM

Re Richard Steven Hack

"As long as Israel is just killing Palestinians (and the occasional Lebanese) most of the Arab world won't care."

Unfortunately, Mr. Hack is to some extent correct in this regard. The attached link shows how the Palestinians are being treated in Iraq by the Shiite militias. This report is by Amnesty International, hardly a Zionist front organization. Maybe a question should be directed to Mr. Abbas and Mr. Haniyeh as to why these people are not being given refuge by the PA, as Jews kicked out of Iraq in 1949 were given refuge in the fledgling State of Israel.

Posted by SLC | October 1, 2007 6:05 PM

Andrew Sullivan is dubious that Josh Marshall is Jewish. I've always assumed so, but maybe I'm being Robert Klein's dad. ("Harry Truman? Jewish.") Not that it matters, just curious.

Posted by Mike | October 1, 2007 6:21 PM

"t is argument that holds American Jews as responsible for 9/11 (indirectly by inspiring Islamist anti-Americanism) and Iraq (directly through the Jewish neocons in the Bush administration)."

Typical Zionist intellectual dishonesty. Nowhere do M&W hold those views.

Even if those views are in some sense correct. Definitely the Palestinian situation was involved in bin Laden's issues with the US which led to 9/11 (and we'll leave out the Mossad's connection with that whole incident - for now.) And definitely the Jewish neocons in the Bush administration did influence the US to go to war with Iraq - and now with Iran.

However, blowing that up to say that M&W "hold American Jews responsible" is just nonsense. They don't and explicitly say so.

As to "shoddy scholarship" - this hasn't been established by anybody who wasn't trading in accusing M&W of being "anti-Semites". There may have been some criticisms - valid or otherwise - of their initial article. But the book has so far been considered fairly good with plenty of scholarly footnotes.

Not to mention that the individuals criticizing M&W for scholarship have rarely had scholarly credentials themselves. They simply seize on the criticism from others.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 1, 2007 6:30 PM

So many stupid comments. Some argue about a book they never read. And some think Israel would let a foreign army in their country. Hilarious. But this is democracy - even the dumbest have something to say.

Posted by Jimmy John John | October 1, 2007 6:30 PM

Re Richard Steven Hack

"As long as Israel is just killing Palestinians (and the occasional Lebanese) most of the Arab world won't care."

Unfortunately, Mr. Hack is to some extent correct in this regard. The attached link shows how the Palestinians are being treated in Iraq by the Shiite militias. This report is by Amnesty International, hardly a Zionist front organization. Maybe a question should be directed to Mr. Abbas and Mr. Haniyeh as to why these people are not being given refuge by the PA, as Jews kicked out of Iraq in 1949 were given refuge in the fledgling State of Israel.

Sorry, forgot the link.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1191257205746&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Posted by SLC | October 1, 2007 6:42 PM

Re Richard Steven Hack

"The current state of Hizballah is the result of Israeli aggression and the defeat of Israel last year - and the upcoming defeat of Israel by Hizballah and Syria in the next war - will remain as an object lesson that aggression doesn't pay."

Well, Mr. Hack does provide some amusement for the readers of this blog with his moronic rants. As to the alleged Hizbollah "victory" in the summer of 2006, I will quote General Cornwallis after his "victory" at the battle of Guilford Court House, "Another such victory and we are undone."

Posted by SLC | October 1, 2007 6:53 PM

"As to the alleged Hizbollah "victory" in the summer of 2006"

Interestingly, Israel's stock market is up 35%+ since last year's war in Lebanon. Perhaps investors aren't as pessimistic about Israel's future prospects as Mr. Hack is.

Posted by Juan | October 1, 2007 7:36 PM

Trust me - Josh Marshall is Jewish - and a "crypto-Zionist" as well - which is of course the problem, not his being Jewish.

Being Jewish is not a problem for anybody. Being Zionist is.

"But to the extent it does seem that Israeli policy is to promote a destabilized ME, it has nothing to do with Zionism per se and everything to do with the Christian right ... that and many in Israel who have internalized certain stereotypes and think that because they are Jews, they are so smart and thus don't bother to actually be smart and thus come up with dumb policies and ideas that are destablizing even if that's not the intent."

Uh, nope. The bottom line for Zionism - and I'm not necessarily talking about the Zionism of the nineteenth century, I'm talking about now - is corruption and power. Just like neoconservatism is about corruption and power. Zionists are not neocons and neocons are not (usually) Zionists (although some are) - but the two are indistinguishable in the their intent.

The notion that Zionists want a stable ME so they can have a safe Israel for the world's Jews to be safe in is just a typical canard floated by the Zionists. It has nothing to do with reality.

First of all, because it's not possible to have a stable ME because the Arab nations are not that stable. Second, because it's not possible to have a stable ME when you're oppressing and occupying an Arab country, namely Palestine. Third, because it's not possible to have a stable ME when you're aggressively threatening and occasionally attacking your neighbors based on flimsy excuses - and then engaging in war crimes when you do.

This also answers the question about how Israel is the "best country" in a "bad area". So what? If Israel didn't exist, the Arabs could and probably would be attacking each other. So what again? We deal with the problem we have, not counterfactuals. Israel does exist and it's the primary source of our current problems in the ME (that and our insatiable greed for oil and power - which is the main problem.)

Seriously, can anyone imagine why the US shouldn't make friends with Iran and everybody else in the ME who actually HAVE oil - rather than some tiny country with a few million people who have NOTHING but some technology prowess and whose goal in life seems to be to piss off every Arab for three thousand miles?

It's ridiculous.

It's only explainable by corruption and power on the part of both the US and Israeli governments who are feeding on each other for their own ends and to the ultimate detriment of their own populations, let alone the rest of the ME.

The bottom line is this: Zionists don't give a damn about "Jews"! They care only about their own political power and their own bank accounts. The same is true of neocons. Neocons don't give a damn about "Americans" or "America" itself except as a symbol of their own power and wealth.

Of course, you can find Jews, such as MJ Rosenberg, who define themselves as "Zionists" in the classic sense - that of Jews who see a national homeland for Jews as a good thing (it's irrelevant, but we'll leave for the moment). The problem is that these guys aren't running Israel - as they will be happy to tell you. The "Zionists" who ARE running Israel are corrupt power seekers and war mongers and war criminals.

It's not accident that half the Israeli politicians in recent memory are being investigated by their own judiciary for corruption. It's no accident that most of the corrupt Russian oligarchs fled to Israel when Putin chased them out of Russia. It's no accident that Israel is the center of a Russian-Israeli Mafia that is spreading corruption around the world.

When I talk about "Zionists", I'm talking about these guys - not MJ Rosenberg, or Daniel Levy, or some other well-meaning but irrelevant individual who claims to be a "true Zionist".

The people who FOUNDED Israel in the 1940's were NOT "true Zionists" - the left wing types who believed in socialism and who thought they could buy enough land in Palestine and get along with the population. They were the guys who were determined to control the power in their new country - and they used any means including terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and war to do it.

And they still do.

And this is not something the US needs to be supporting.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 1, 2007 7:57 PM

SLC is the moronic one, as usual.

The consensus of most military analysts is that Israel got its head handed to it by Hizballah.

Any time you have a force ten times larger than the opposing force, and better equipped, and with air superiority up the wazoo, and you get casualties almost on a par with the opposing force, you have LOST - big time.

Hizballah didn't even need to expend most of their arsenal of rockets to do it - and the rockets were almost irrelevant in any event. It was the ground fighting and the use of effective anti-tank weapons adequate to take out the heavily armored Israel Merkava tanks that did the job.

And Hizballah now by all accounts has an arsenal even bigger than the one they had last year - and they are fortifying the Bekaa Valley for the expected Israeli follow up attack on Syria and Lebanon. They have even better anti-tank missiles according to some reports. They might even have some surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles.

Asia Times had a multipart story about how Hizballah screwed Israel in the butt big time - even cracking Israeli's military codes (no doubt with the assistance of Syrian and Iranian intelligence analysts) so they could follow Israel's tactical movements on the battlefield.

Israel got a big surprise when Hizballah smacked one of Israel's ships with an anti-ship missile, too.

Hizballah is ready for Israel's next big move. As Colonel Pat Lang speculates, Israel will attack Syria, decisively defeat the conventional Syrian military, then cut left and attack Hizballah on its flank in the Bekaa Valley - for which Hizballah is preparing.

Israel will end up losing that one big time. Hizballah will conduct effective guerrilla war in Israel's front, while the remnants of the Syrian military conduct more or less effective guerrilla war in Israel's rear. The classic military mistake - a "two-front war".

And since this will be in coordination with a US attack on Iran, it's quite possible Israel will be hit by not only Syrian missiles, but Iranian missiles as well (not to any great effect, however, as the accuracy isn't there.)

In the end, bloodied and with a loss of another thousand or so troops, Israel will be forced back across the line yet again by Hibzallah and Syria.

And assuming he isn't somehow killed in the fighting or even if he is, Nasrallah will become the biggest hero in the ME since Saladin.

Neither the US nor Israel can defeat effective 4th Gen War fighters (assuming they ARE effective which is always iffy.)

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 1, 2007 8:10 PM

matt,

just wanted to say thanks for the courage to tell it like it is, as howard cosell used to say.
i know plenty of folks are getting much heartburn after reading this post.
bravo!
andrew sullivan is absolutely right to have named his award after you.
now, if only some of your good sense and courage would rub off on one of your extremely tall, female fellow atlantic bloggers...

Posted by frankie d | October 1, 2007 8:40 PM

SLC:

Ms. Jennifer, the story appeared in an issue of Time Magazine either in late 1973 or early 1974. The question as to the reliability of the story rests on he reliability of Time Magazine. If one believes that Time Magazine, circa 1973 was a reliable source, then one must have some confidence in the story. If one believes the converse, then a lack of confidence in the story is warranted.

SLC, still waiting for the exact reference. Still waiting; but there will be no reference because what you are alleging is insane garbage. How about not pretending and not printing insane garbage about nuclear threats?

Posted by Jennifer | October 1, 2007 8:43 PM

SLC

"I have previously posted the Time magazine story about Kissinger and Golda Meir relative to the attempt of the former to facilitate an Israeli defeat in the 1973 war which was shortcircuited by Prime Minister Meir informing Henry the K that nuclear weapons would be used against the Aswan dam if ammunition was into resupplied forthwith."

This is absolutely garbage, and bordering on an insane comment but I assume only ignorance or stupidity. Enough with the insane garbage, and this is absolute garbage that a decent person would not print. So, enough garbage.

Posted by Jennifer | October 1, 2007 8:46 PM

Remember, SLC, enough with the insane lying garbage, and the idea of a nuclear threat was insane lying garbage. There is no reference because the story is insane lying garbage. Enough. Can you understand when to stop printing such insane lying garbage?

Posted by Jennifer | October 1, 2007 8:51 PM

There is no threat of Israel being attacked with a nuclear weapon if the countries around it are rational enough to care more about the retaliation than whatever they get from the attack itself. It is not clear that this is true of religious zealots. Al qaeda, for example, would likely be willing to trade one area reduced to cinders for another if they thought in the long run it would advance their cause.

I don't know that any government has every been such that it was willing to commit suicide for the privilege of destroying another. That was clearly true of Hussein which is why he was the poster boy for deterrence. I think it is also true of the Mullahs in Iran who want to rule Iran much more than they want to destroy Israel.

But on the smaller scale Israel has seen that the Palestinians and Hezbollah are willing to take fairly large amounts of damage in order to inflict comparatively small damage on Israel. It is on that basis that Hezbollah can be said to have won the war last summer. So it is by no means absurd for Israel to be worried about countries that consider Israel illegitimate to have nuclear weapons. From a strategic point of view the question is where that worry lies on the scale of actually threats.

On the other hand, to present Israel like cartoon villains out of the Fantastic Four is as pointless as presenting the Palestinians as cartoon villains because they do not accept occupation in a peaceful spirit. Nothing is gained by this attempt to present the other side as cartoon villains other than to mark oneself as irrelevant to serious debate.

Israel's goals are not particularly mysterious. It wants stability in the territory it believes to be its own (roughly the 1967 lines plus some suburbs it has built on occupied territory) and it wants to keep happy a religious minority with political strength that claims religious territory based on the Torah. The former is a desire consistent with peace, the latter is not. But its subsidiary interests in the region are all reasonable enough (even when wrong) attempts to acheive those goals.

Given the lack of jews to inhabit an expansionist Israel, Israel is far less expansionist than the US was at a similar point of our history.

Posted by Lon | October 1, 2007 9:05 PM

Much of your commentary here, Lon, has been right on. I agree with much of it. However, here I think you're being entirely too forgiving.

"But on the smaller scale Israel has seen that the Palestinians and Hezbollah are willing to take fairly large amounts of damage in order to inflict comparatively small damage on Israel. It is on that basis that Hezbollah can be said to have won the war last summer."

Wrong. Hizballah took relatively little damage last year. Lebanon took a great deal of damage but there was nothing Hizballah could have done about that. Hizballah made it clear later that had they known that Israel was going to go berserk and try to destroy Lebanon that they would NOT have captured the two Israeli soldiers.

So that argument doesn't wash.

"So it is by no means absurd for Israel to be worried about countries that consider Israel illegitimate to have nuclear weapons. From a strategic point of view the question is where that worry lies on the scale of actually threats."

Exactly my point. There is no actual threat from any ME country, with or without nuclear weapons. Not as long as Israel has an effective nuclear second-strike capability. If Israel had no nukes and another country had nukes, your consideration might be appropriate. But the reality is, it isn't.

And if Israel did not have nukes, it is unlikely that any other country in the ME would try to get them - simply because nuking Israel would bring the US into the picture - and NO country in the ME will EVER match the US in nuclear weapons. So why would they bother? They would spend their oil money on conventional arms in an attempt to reach military parity with a non-nuclear Israel.

"On the other hand, to present Israel like cartoon villains out of the Fantastic Four is as pointless as presenting the Palestinians as cartoon villains because they do not accept occupation in a peaceful spirit. Nothing is gained by this attempt to present the other side as cartoon villains other than to mark oneself as irrelevant to serious debate."

Excuse me. The actions of the Zionist politicians in Israel stand on their own merits. The statements of the Zionist politicians in Israel stand on their own merits. There is nothing "cartoonish" about these statements and actions.

"Israel's goals are not particularly mysterious. It wants stability in the territory it believes to be its own (roughly the 1967 lines plus some suburbs it has built on occupied territory) and it wants to keep happy a religious minority with political strength that claims religious territory based on the Torah. The former is a desire consistent with peace, the latter is not."

Excuse me again. While the majority of Israelis would agree with the first part of your statement, there is ZERO evidence that this applies to the Zionist politicians who control Israel's government and foreign policy. Their statements and actions CLEARLY indicate a desire to destabilize the ME in an attempt to control it,

Their development of a nuclear arsenal far greater than needed to defend the country - especially with the superior conventional military force they already enjoy - clearly indicates a desire to use those nuclear weapons to give them a dominate geopolitical position in the ME.

The statements of the leading Zionists since the 1940's clearly indicate a desire to expand Israel's land holdings far beyond the lands currently in their possession. The clear intent at the very least is to expel the Palestinians COMPLETELY from the West Bank and Gaza. Their actions with regard to Lebanon and Syria indicate a clear desire to seize land and water access from neighboring nations.

How much further the Zionists intend to take "Eretz Israel" is unclear - but whether it is intended to be an actual physical expansion or merely hegemonic domination over the region, it is clear that Israeli Zionists intend to dominate.

"But its subsidiary interests in the region are all reasonable enough (even when wrong) attempts to acheive those goals."

I'm not sure what to make of this statement. Reasonable but wrong? I assume you mean in comparison to the "cartoonish" notion that Zionists are war criminals and power seekers? Based on the actual actions of the Israeli power structure, there is nothing "cartoonish" about it. And there is nothing "reasonable" about it, either.

"Given the lack of jews to inhabit an expansionist Israel, Israel is far less expansionist than the US was at a similar point of our history."

Irrelevant. As I said, Israel may not have the population to occupy an "Eretz Israel" "from the Tigris to the Euphrates", but geopolitically it is clearly the Zionist intent to dominate that region.

The problem is that whether you believe this is a "reasonable" effort to secure Israel from existential threats or whether it is merely a desire for power and wealth, the end result is the same. It is not achievable. It is disruptive and destabilizing to the security of the entire region. And it is not something the US should be supporting.

By the way, look up "Eretz Israel" in Wikipedia. Here are the "boundaries":

"Greater Israel (also Complete Land of Israel, Hebrew: ארץ ישראל השלמה‎, Eretz Yisrael Hashlemah[1][2]) is a term that denotes Biblical boundaries of the Land of Israel.

Though the borders of Greater Israel are not clearly defined, many devout Jews (and Christians alike) draw such definition from Biblical sources, namely the book of Genesis, which describes God's covenant with Abraham:

On that day, God made a covenant with Abram, saying: "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites; the Hittites, Perizites, Refaim; the Amorites, Canaanites, Gigashites and Yevusites." - Genesis 15:18-21

In the above context, Greater Israel would comprise, roughly, all of modern-day Israel as well as the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, Jordan, and Lebanon, much of Syria, Iraq, and Kuwait, as well as parts of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey."

Tell me again that Israel is not "expansionist".

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 1, 2007 10:03 PM

At 6:30PM a poster calling himself "Jimmy John John" suggested that the idea Israel "would let a foreign army in their country" is "Hilarious". I agree. But if Israel and her friends in the US do not want the US army to protect Israel by the direct and obvious strategy of "redeploying" there, then Israel and her friends in the US can shut up about the need for the US to get into a war with Iran because Ahmadinejad threatens to "wipe Israel off the map."

Lon at 9:05 makes what is for me a key point: religious zealots who view the Torah as a land deed are just as reprehensible as religious zealots who view the Koran as an earthly constitution. The two themes I have heard over the years about the "occupied territories" are: 1)Israel's 1967 borders are indefensible, and 2)God gave that land to the Jews. It would be easier to dismiss adherents of the latter view for what they are, namely the Jewish equivalent of the Taliban, if the adherents of the former view could be re-assured by direct Anerican help in defending those borders.

Of course, we would still have to deal with the American equivalent of the Taliban: Apocalypse fetishists on the Christian right. This monotheism crap is going to get us all in trouble one of these days.

-- TP

Posted by Tony P. | October 1, 2007 10:06 PM

Let me address the "cartoon" aspect a bit more.

If the Israeli Zionists were really a "cartoon" crowd, they would probably already have either launched nuclear attacks on some Arab countries or they would have used their nuclear power to try to directly order those countries to supply them with oil or whatever.

That is what a comic book villain would do. Although even my favorite comic villain, Doctor Doom, once had a story arc in which it was revealed that he had secretly placed nuclear weapons in many of the world's capitals. When a "fake Doctor Doom" took over his country, and was in danger of being deposed by the real Doctor Doom, the fake Doom triggered the nuclear weapons. This led the rest of the world to immediately attack Doom's country. The real Doctor Doom understood that even he could not withstand the retaliation of the entire world, despite his megalomania. So his concealed nuclear weapons were really nothing more than a last ditch "doomsday device" - much like any Iranian nuclear weapon would be. Even a "cartoon villain" understood the limits of conventional military power.

I describe this story arc to point out that one does not need to consider the Zionist rulers of Israel to be "cartoon" characters to realize that their ambitions are limited on a day-to-day basis. Israel cannot just up and dominate the ME openly. That would be behaving like a "cartoon character".

Instead, Israel behaves as it does - starting small wars near its borders, influencing larger wars through its proxy the US, interfering in the geopolitical affairs of the region for its own benefit such as dealing with the Kurds in Iraq to get a pipeline from Kirkuk to Haifa.

These are not the actions of a "cartoon villain". But even a "cartoon villain" has limitations. And even a "cartoon villain" has aspirations beyond those limitations. The question at hand is whether the actions of Israel are justified by those aspirations.

You assume those aspirations are at worst over-reactions to actual threats. I believe they are more than that. My belief is based on the statements and actions taken over the last fifty years by the people who rule Israel. Your belief is based on what? Their PUBLIC statements? The fact that they haven't already nuked most of the ME? That they haven't already genocidally killed most of the Palestinians?

I believe you give too little credit to the limitations the Zionists are operating under - and too little credit to their aspirations.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 1, 2007 10:24 PM

Andrew Sullivan is dubious that Josh Marshall is Jewish.

I thought that was some sort of attempt at humor.

Posted by er | October 1, 2007 10:38 PM

Richard Steven Hack:

I doubt Israel is going to walk into the same Hezbollah trap twice. All of Hezbollah's anti-tank weapons and bunkers are useless if Israel doesn't send tanks into Lebanon in response to Hezbollah's next provocation, so Israel won't. Instead, it is working on an anti-rocket system which will negate the threat of Hezbollah's rockets.

As for your claims that Israel wants to "destabilize" the Mideast, this is nonsense. As Israel has evolved from a marginal home for refugees to a high tech, first world country, increasingly, the business of Israel is business. Instability hurts business -- it hurts investment, and it hurts tourism. Warren Buffett didn't buy Iscar because he thought Israel would deliberately try to make the region more dangerous for his investment in Israel; similarly, Intel set up an R&D facility in Israel because they realize Israel seeks stability. And, for the most part, Israel has it.

Its borders are quiet, aside from the occasional rocket attack from Gaza, but if these continue, Israel can simply turn the lights out there, since Gaza imports its electricity from Israel. The Intifada has been defeated -- terrorist attacks are rare. The "business class revolutionaries" of Fatah been bought off with foreign aid.

The only existential threat Israel faces is the prospect of being nuked by radical Muslims, but this wouldn't be so great for Israel's neighbors either. It would be difficult to nuke Israel without killing plenty of Palestinians, and making Muslim holy places radioactive. It's possible Iranian nutters may do so anyway if they get nukes, but the possibility of Iranian nukes is also a threat to Israel's Sunni Arab neighbors.

Posted by Juan | October 1, 2007 11:55 PM

"But on the smaller scale Israel has seen that the Palestinians and Hezbollah are willing to take fairly large amounts of damage in order to inflict comparatively small damage on Israel. It is on that basis that Hezbollah can be said to have won the war last summer. So it is by no means absurd for Israel to be worried about countries that consider Israel illegitimate to have nuclear weapons. From a strategic point of view the question is where that worry lies on the scale of actually threats."

Except that Israel contains the city of Jerusalem, which is a holy place in Islam. I doubt radical Islamic zealots would be interested in making it glow green and kill all living things in it (even if they hate the people there, they would still be killing all the vegetation, etc. of a place they see as holy). I doubt that would get them into Paradise.

Posted by Reality Man | October 2, 2007 12:06 AM

Isn't it time to differentiate between "Expansionist Zionists" and "Zionists"? I have come to see that there's a huge difference between them. Consider Jeremiah (Jerry) Haber who definitely belongs to the latter group. He offers a somewhat unique perspective in the bloggosphere and it's such a treat reading his blog!

As for the W&M, has anyone read The Economist's take on the book? FWIW, I have some reservations with the piece myself, which I have posted here if anyone is interested.

Posted by FurGaia | October 2, 2007 1:27 AM

SLC

"I have previously posted the Time magazine story about Kissinger and Golda Meir relative to the attempt of the former to facilitate an Israeli defeat in the 1973 war which was shortcircuited by Prime Minister Meir informing Henry the K that nuclear weapons would be used against the Aswan dam if ammunition was into resupplied forthwith."

Still waiting for the exact reference to this garbage. There is however no reference to lies.

Posted by Jennifer | October 2, 2007 5:35 AM

Juan,

You write like a gangster - you write like a racist gangster which of course you are. Can you even think for a moment without spewing hatred? I doubt it.

Posted by Jennifer | October 2, 2007 5:39 AM

"I doubt Israel is going to walk into the same Hezbollah trap twice. All of Hezbollah's anti-tank weapons and bunkers are useless if Israel doesn't send tanks into Lebanon in response to Hezbollah's next provocation, so Israel won't. Instead, it is working on an anti-rocket system which will negate the threat of Hezbollah's rockets."

Once again, Juan the military genius!

So Israel isn't ever going to enter Lebanon again? Is that what you're claiming? Because how do you propose Israel is going to deal with the "next Hizballah provocation" (which is bullshit in the first place - the only "provocations" taking place are Israeli war planes violating Lebanese and Syrian air space and Israel planning to attack Syria and Lebanon yet again) without sending ground troops into Lebanon. And ground troops need tanks.

Get a grip. You haven't a clue what you're talking about. Israel intends to eliminate Hizballah and the only way to do that is via a ground war - which will fail miserably as the one in 2006 did.

"The Intifada has been defeated -- terrorist attacks are rare."

Clueless. Utterly clueless.

Meanwhile, the conflict between Hamas and Fatah is building to a powderkeg. The Palestinians, especially in Gaza, are worse off then ever. And Juan thinks this is all going to mean the Palestinians just give up and now down to the Israelis.

Clueless.

"Israel seeks stability" - yes, FOR ISRAEL. And the assholes who run Israel seek to achieve this stability by destabilizing everyplace else in the ME. What part of that strategy can't you comprehend? The fact that it won't work is not relevant to the fact that it is the strategy being applied.

Meanwhile the racist Zionists continue to deliberately threaten the ME with their nuclear arsenal:

Poll: Most Israelis support using nukes
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1189411522274&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Here you see the TRUE "terrorists". Here you see the TRUE nature of Zionism:

"Israel also had the highest percentage in favor of the country using its "power and influence in a way that serves its own interests" - approximately 55% - as opposed to "coordinat[ing] with other countries to do what's best for the world as a whole."

"Nearly 72% also agreed that 'nuclear weapons place Israel in a unique position, so it is not in our interest to participate in treaties that would reduce or eliminate our purported nuclear arsenal.'"

THESE are the people who are the TRUE threats to the world in the ME. THESE are the people who need to be disarmed of nuclear weapons and brought back under the control of the IAEA and the UN.

THESE are the true war mongers and terrorists in the ME. Iran isn't even close to being this blatant about the intent to rule the ME with nuclear weapons.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 2, 2007 8:20 AM

Richard,

The fact that Israelis do not actually act like cartoon villains is hardly a defense of your treatment of them as if they did. Your reference to the Zionist rulers of Israel certainly seems to be out of the comic books.

Zionism was a European movement to create a jewish homeland around Jerusalem as a kind of sanctuary for jews after centuries of mistreatment in Europe. The idea of zionist rulers of Israel doesn't even make any sense. When you capitalize Zionist it just becomes cartoony.

The current leadership of Israel just pulled its settlements out of Gaza because it did not consider making Gaza jewish worth the cost of maintaining settlements.

Netanyahu had a delusional worldview, but it is the same delusional worldview shared by our neocons that if we can just convince the rest of the world we are tough enough and willing enough to kill people, they will all respect us and do what we want. Actually a very small percentage of the Israeli population, and of its politicians, are religious.

And the fact that you see something hard to comprehend about how something can be reasonable and yet wrong does not reflect well on your ability to understand a world more complicated than the one found in comic books.

Israel, despite being in the region, has generally done less meddling in the Middle East than the US has. It has meddled with its immediate neighbors to the degree that it has felt threatened by them. I think the response in Lebanon was overblown and self-defeating. But it is not proof of a plan to rule the region that Israel objects to having soldiers kidnapped or killed on its borders.

Like every country in the world Israel has the ability to see the world through a lens in which their interests are central, and everyone else plays a supporting role like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Stoppard's great take on Hamlet. And so they recognize the seriousness of violations of their own borders and safety while missing the degree to which their own actions are indefensible. But that is as true of the US as it is of Israel. It is certainly as true of all of the countries that Israel has as neighbors.

So what exactly is your evidence of Israels expansionist territories. Israel took a fair amount of territory after the '67 war in which it faced legitimate military threats. It has returned much of it since, has pulled back its footprint from other parts of it, and offers more as parts of deals. It invaded Lebanon when it was harboring the PLO, and pulled back because it wasn't willing to take the minimal causalties needed to hold its buffer zone. But there is some reason to think it plans to expand its territory even further even though that would require taking greater casualties. Nonsense.

It has also acted to prevent nuclear expansionism in the region. But that is to say that it has acted just like the US does in keeping its military advantage. I think we agree that this is a bad calculation on their part. The greatest threat to Israel is demographic, as I believe you note above. The greatest military threat to Israel is conventional weapons fired from medium distances with low tech weaponry that can be easily hid and moved. (I guess you did not agree to that above). The nuclear threat is a long shot because of the deterrence factor. But it is not nothing. That is why the US and Europe take it seriously as well.

Eventually we will all likely learn to live with a nuclear Iran (and then who knows who else) but it is not irrational for countries with regional interest to want to do what they can to forestall that happening. Nor is it proof of evil.

Posted by Lon | October 2, 2007 10:03 AM

There seems to be two critiques of the W&M article and book. The first rejects their entire thesis of an Israel Lobby with a "strangle-hold" (their language), or at least a deleterious influence, on American foreign policy--often by invoking some charge of anti-Semitism. This doesnt seem that helpful to me. But the second critique accepts the discomfort with AIPAC etc's power, and yet rejects W&M's treatment as sloppy, one-sided, and deeply biased AGAINST Israel, not agaisnt American lobbyists. This seems much more damming. W&M have written a deeply flawed, ideologically skewed polemic, within which contains the kernal of an important challenge to the American foreign policy establishment. The critics of the book who repudiate it for its tendentious rendering of the conflict in the ME--in which sources sympathetic to the Palestinians are cherry-picked, while those sympathetic to the Israelis are ignored--have every right to do so--this is the whole reason why it behooves writers to strain for some kind of balance and fairness in their work. Because in their absence, even legitimate points are easily dismissed.

Posted by Ben | October 2, 2007 11:11 AM

There seems to be two critiques of the W&M article and book. The first rejects their entire thesis of an Israel Lobby with a "strangle-hold" (their language), or at least a deleterious influence, on American foreign policy--often by invoking some charge of anti-Semitism. This doesnt seem that helpful to me. But the second critique accepts the discomfort with AIPAC etc's power, and yet rejects W&M's treatment as sloppy, one-sided, and deeply biased AGAINST Israel, not agaisnt American lobbyists. This seems much more damming. W&M have written a deeply flawed, ideologically skewed polemic, within which contains the kernal of an important challenge to the American foreign policy establishment. The critics of the book who repudiate it for its tendentious rendering of the conflict in the ME--in which sources sympathetic to the Palestinians are cherry-picked, while those sympathetic to the Israelis are ignored--have every right to do so--this is the whole reason why it behooves writers to strain for some kind of balance and fairness in their work. Because in their absence, even legitimate points are easily dismissed.

Posted by Ben | October 2, 2007 11:12 AM

I think Richard Steven Hack's posts demonstrate the problems of the internet and how one apparently anti-semitic, racist individual with an extremely biased point of view can dominate a political forum with his incessant rants.

I think that blogs such as these, in the interest of responsibilty and fairness, should limit comments by individuals so that any one person is not able to hijack the conversation. I am a strong believer in free speech, but that doesn't mean any one individual should be permitted to overwhelm a discussion.

Posted by Bill F | October 2, 2007 11:28 AM

Modern Zionism is a byproduct of the internal combustion engine.

Posted by Saul | October 2, 2007 11:36 AM

Richard Steven Hack, so excitable...

"So Israel isn't ever going to enter Lebanon again? Is that what you're claiming? Because how do you propose Israel is going to deal with the "next Hizballah provocation""

For whatever reason -- the presence of UN troops, restraint by their masters in Iran, or the beating they took during their great victory over Israel last year -- Hezbollah has refrained from further provocations on Israel's northern border for over a year. So Israel has nothing to respond to militarily in Lebanon, and it can focus on its booming high-tech economy while Hezbollah digs more holes in the ground and scares Arab investors away from once-cosmopolitan Lebanon. At the same time, Israel is working on a technological solution to the rocket threat from both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Should it be attacked again by Hezbollah, Israel may be forced to retaliate in Lebanon, but don't get your hopes up expecting the same Israeli response as last year. The country has had over a year to learn from its mistakes and plan accordingly.

"Meanwhile, the conflict between Hamas and Fatah is building to a powderkeg."

What powder keg? After Hamas ushered a few Fatah functionaries out of the windows of some high-rises in Gaza, the rest of the CIA-trained and -equipped Fatah forces slinked away; they didn't even bother to take Arafat's Nobel Prize with them. In any case, how would a conflict between Hamas and Fatah be a big problem for Israel?

"The Palestinians, especially in Gaza, are worse off then ever."

The Palestinians in the West Bank, administered by Fatah which is smart enough to at least say it's willing to coexist with Israel, have recently received a flood of international largess. The Palestinians in Gaza, administered by Hamas which is not as smart, are free to enjoy their victory over the Zionist settlers with a sense of ideological purity unsullied by charity from infidel countries.

"The Intifada has been defeated -- terrorist attacks are rare."

"Clueless. Utterly clueless."

How so? Israel went from near-daily Palestinian suicide bombing attacks to... how many so far this year? One?

""Israel seeks stability" - yes, FOR ISRAEL. And the assholes who run Israel seek to achieve this stability by destabilizing everyplace else in the ME. What part of that strategy can't you comprehend? "

I can't comprehend the part where it makes absolutely no sense (except in your fevered imagination). Put aside your emotions for a moment and try to think about this logically. How would it be in Israel's interest to destabilize "everyplace else" in the region? Israel's proximate threats come from its least stable neighbors -- Lebanon and Gaza. On the other hand, its borders with its stable neighbors Egypt and Jordan -- and even Syria -- are much more peaceful. Why would it be in Israel's interest to destabilize these countries run by rational, secular autocrats? Would Israel be better off with the Muslim Brotherhood running Egypt, or the Palestinian majority running Jordan? Of course not.

Posted by Juan | October 2, 2007 12:07 PM

Ben,

I think you have it exactly right. But the one other relevant data point is that if one were to picture someone who was the flip side of W & M, that is someone who cherry picked sources sympathetic to Israelis and ignored sources sympathetic to Palestinians, you would have what passes for the middle in discourse on the situation in Israel as one gets it in the US.

So while I would prefer to see people who give a balanced account of the situation there, it is not difficult to find people providing those sources sympathetic to the Israeli side. So while W & M are poor sources for your only take on the situation, they may not be bad additions to the sources which are available to most people and slant so far in the other direction.

Posted by Lon | October 2, 2007 12:09 PM

Get a grip. You haven't a clue what you're talking about. Israel intends to eliminate Hizballah and the only way to do that is via a ground war - which will fail miserably as the one in 2006 did.

Um ... if the miserable failure of such an invasion is already guaranteed then it can't be true that "the only way to do that [eliminate Hezbollah] is via a ground war".

There are a lot of stereotypes about Jews, but being gibbering idiots is not one of them.

Posted by r4d20 | October 2, 2007 12:30 PM

Richard Steven Hack must be out fixing someone's computer now.

Posted by Harry | October 2, 2007 1:52 PM

Richard Steven Hack suggested:

"The consensus of most military analysts is that Israel got its head handed to it by Hizballah.'

Huh? Which Military Analysts are they? Provide us with a list.

Israeli boots once again on "sacred Arab soil" and you suggest that the defenders WON? At least 4 times the MILITARY casualties suffered by Hizbollah vs. the IDF. Another devastating Arab
victory?

Then he posted:

"It was the ground fighting and the use of effective anti-tank weapons adequate to take out the heavily armored Israel Merkava tanks that did the job."

So tell us exactly how many Merkava tanks were taken out by Hizbollah? Would you cite for us the number determined by 'most military analysts'? It should be easy for you to find. Take the open source estimate before the war and subtract from it the open source estimate after the war. That should give you the number of Merkava's totally destroyed by Hizbollah anti-tank weapons.

Posted by LordActon | October 2, 2007 8:57 PM

LordActon,

This isn't entirely useful:

"Take the open source estimate before the war and subtract from it the open source estimate after the war. That should give you the number of Merkava's totally destroyed by Hizbollah anti-tank weapons."

An anti-tank weapon need not "totally" destroy a tank for it to kill crew members inside the tank and take the tank out of the battle. I don't have the actual numbers, but I doubt many Israelis would deny that they suffered higher tank casualties than they expected by walking into Hezbollah's well-conceived anti-tank ambushes. According to some sources, Israel had an invasion plan on the books that could have decisively defeated Hezbollah with fewer Israeli casualties -- it would have involved bypassing most of the Hezbollah positions, moving deeper into Lebanon, and then clearing the Hezbollah positions from the rear. There has been criticism within Israel that this approach was shelved in favor of the more half-assed semi-invasion.

In any case, it's true that Hezbollah suffered heavy casualties. It's also true that it was better for Israel, in the long run, to learn about its various vulnerabilities in such a war with relatively little at stake, so it will be prepared for the next war which may be more critical.

Posted by Juan | October 3, 2007 1:28 PM

- Genesis 15:18-21
In the above context, Greater Israel would comprise, roughly, all of modern-day Israel as well as the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, Jordan, and Lebanon, much of Syria, Iraq, and Kuwait, as well as parts of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey."

And to think Theodore Herzl was content with placing a Jewish state in Uganda, anywhere to keep the Jews in Russia from becoming revolutionaries. He was never in favor of Jews actually moving there.

"A state based on religion rather than the will of all of its inhabitants was at the end of the 19th century not only a medieval notion but also a very eccentric idea, one Herzl concocted in the rarified environment of cafes where ideas were produced with scant regard for reality."

From: Israel: Mythologizing a 20th Century Accident
by Gabriel Kolko
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/kolko.php?articleid=11058

Posted by Max | October 3, 2007 11:32 PM

"The consensus of most military analysts is that Israel got its head handed to it by Hizballah.'
Huh? Which Military Analysts are they? Provide us with a list.

Start with the Israeli Winograd Commission:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=191250

IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz was forced to resign in disgrace:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/854171.html
After the painful experience of the Second Lebanon War, we cannot trust the present leadership to prepare adequately for these dangers. It is time for a change at the top.

Barak, who is now defense minister, called for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's resignation over his management of the war.

Still need more reading?
"Halutz wanted to "shock and awe" the Hezbollah and their allies with Israeli power – all within a few days. . . .Instead, he revealed Israel's vulnerability based, in large part, on the fact the enemy was far better prepared, motivated, and equipped." . . .There are many reasons the Israelis lost the war in Lebanon, but there is general agreement within Israel that the war ended in disaster and the deterrent value of the once unbeatable, super-armed IDF gravely diminished in the entire Arab world for the first time since 1947.

From Israel's Last Chance by pre-eminent American Jewish war historian Gabriel Kolko
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/kolko_israel_last_chance.htm

Posted by Max | October 3, 2007 11:58 PM

More LordActon from Kolko's article on the Second Lebanon war:

"Israel lost the war in the first three days," an American military expert concluded, expressing a consensus shared by many US Air Force analysts. "If you have that kind of surprise and you have that kind of firepower you had better win. Otherwise, you're in for the long haul."

The problem, though, was not merely a new Arab prowess, though changes in their morale and fighting organizations should not be minimized. Halutz's drastic reorganization of the IDF since early 2005, one that was supposed to attain the promises of all its American-supplied equipment, "caused," in General Sapir's words, "a terrible distortion." The IDF was an organizational mess, demoralized as never before, and on January 17, 2007 Halutz resigned, the first head of the IDF to voluntarily step down because of his leadership in war. Had he not resigned he would have been fired. His successor quickly annulled his reorganization of the IDF, which is now sorely disorganized. The American way of warfare had failed.

Posted by Max | October 4, 2007 12:04 AM