John Derbyshire has been giving the lunatic fringe fits at the NRO, and it has been a lot of fun to read. Start here, and scroll up for the latest responses.
This Derbyshire response is classic:
But suppose Iran were to attain her hegemonic ambition. This will hurt the U.S.A. … how? You say it would be putting “the economic health of the nation in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hands.” How would it do that? Because Iran would control ME oil and refuse to sell it to us? Oil markets don’t, and in fact couldn’t, work like that. World oil production will anyway soon begin to decline. Cheap oil is a thing of the past. “Let’s declare war against Iran so we can prolong the cheap-oil fantasy for a few more years” — not, in my opinion, a very inspiring slogan.
Read the whole back and forth. I took special pleasure watching Mark Levin, that great mind, left sputtering about his fears (they don’t match reality) and whining about Derbyshire’s tone.
Wilfred
Of course Iran is not a threat to the United States. It’s ‘hegemonic’ ambitions are, however, a threat to Israel, hence all this jerk off, fantasy eschatology about how MAD would not deter Iranians because they’re CRAZY MUSLIMS. The Bushco/Neocon policy has always been to make the world better for Israel, no matter how many Americans or Muslims had to die.
Derbyshire just said the Emperor had no clothes; other people have been saying the same.
Dug Jay
Finally, a post to bring forth all the usual anti-Semitic trolls….and here’s the first one, the ever epiphanous “Wilfred.”
Wilfred
Oh blow it out your ass. I don’t give a fuck about Israel and as an American I don’t have an obligation to. Your Anti-Semite rap is getting older by the minute and the hegemony of the Israel First/Daniel Pipes crowd is withering on its miserable vine.
Elvis Elvisberg
Thing is, Mark Levin is a pretty run-of-the-mill movement conservative, isn’t he? And they still run a branch or two of the government.
So Derbyshire is giving fits to the lunatic mainstream.
Zifnab
If you honestly believe that in their hearts-of-hearts, the neo-cons just have a hard-on for Isreal… bridge, $50.
The Bush family is heavily invested in Saudi oil drilling and US weapons manufacturing. The Cheney family is heavily invested in military contractors and civilian oil exploration. The Hussien family was sitting on a giant stock of oil that the US wasn’t allowed to directly purchase. And Ackmydinnyjad is a scary brown midget sitting on another giant wad of oil.
So, if you observe the Bush Admin policy on energy, you’ll notice him giving a giant middle finger to solar, a big steaming crap on gas efficient vehicles in California (EPA SAYS NO!), a gentle head-pat on “clean” coal, a big bear hug to oil subsidies, and 8″ of wood to the Hummer.
He also happens to like invading oil-rich Mid-East nations.
But yeah, his heart is really in it for Isreal.
Dug Jay
Way to go, Wilfred! You came through like the trooper we all know you to be. The audience awaits your further discourse on the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
demimondian
BS, Wilfred. You’re blaming the EEE-VIL J000Z for what is, essentially, an economic issue. Oil is a strategic resource for the United States, and the defense of the continuity of the ME oil supply has been a stated central pillar of US foreign policy since the Carter presidency.
It’s only in your overheated imagination that this has anything to do with Israeli interests.
demimondian
I gotta say that Elvis is right, though — Derb (for whom I have no admiration at all) is giving the center of the right wing fits by talking sense to them.
Do toxic levels of schadenfreude feel like a sugar rush? Or is that just my morning doughnut talking to me?
Ted
Anyone who thinks Israeli national security has nothing to do with neocon warmongering on Iran is seriously deluded/retarded. I mean, jayzus, the most prominent neocons will openly give Israeli security as their chief concern when it comes to why IRAN HAS TO BE BOMBED NOW!
But I’m probably an anti-Semite for saying so..
Wilfred
Ok. That’s why when I scrolled up as Cole suggested I found the following comment by Noah Pollak:
And this comment, not to mention the entire output of PNAC has nothing, I repeat, nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, to do with Israel or its lobby in the United States. Wow.
Jake
How the fuck does someone this brain-dead operate a computer? I’m serious. If Levin has someone type for him how does that person translate the squeals and burblings into comprehensible sentences?
HOW??
demimondian
Oooh! PNAC! Oooh! Boogah-boogah! Scary Yarmulke-wearing folk! Fear! Code brown(-shirt)!!11eleventy-one. EE-VUL J00Z!
Wilfred, if it weren’t for the Shoah, you’d be as pathetic as the fRight wing fearmongers you so faithfully emulate.
Rudi
Why is the likes of Levin, May and Ponnuru are given a voice on cable and Faux News when Derby tells us the emperor has no clothes. I want to rip my eyes out every time I see Cliff May on any cable show.
Ted
That’s my favorite part of that stream of thought. Because we all know that the US faltered and died back in the ’60s due to the constant threat of THOUSANDS of nuclear warheads aimed and ready to fire at a moment’s notice at every useful target in the country.
Israel has at least an estimated 250 nuclear weapons, and the most advanced means of delivering them in the world. Its deterrent capability is unquestionable. And at the prospect of a nearby hostile neighbor acquiring 1 or a few, they react as if their deterrent will be gone, their lives will be over, and their country destroyed.
I don’t want to see a nuclear Iran anymore than anyone else. But we didn’t exactly do much to stop Pakistan, or India for that matter. And we might not be able to prevent a nuclear Iran without a major war and hundreds of thousands dead. Which would be about the same number of people killed by an Iranian nuclear attack, at which point Iran, as a country, would cease to exist.
Rudi
Derby also is smacking down Billo, I give you the post in its entirety.
More wisdom – Billo’s an idiot
Wilfred
Quick, somebody tell that anti-Semite Noah Pollak that this has nothing to do with Israel.
You people are funny, really. You just don’t get the fact that your tactic of calling anyone who questions Israel an anti-Semite is losing its sting and its power, although you can still get Daniel Pipes up there to ask:
And nobody blinked.
myiq2xu
Why is it okay for us to worry about our strategic interests but a terrible thing when Iran does the same thing?
When we talk about Middle East oil, what we really mean is “how dare those Sand(N-words) try to mess with OUR oil!”
Gee, if they cut-off THEIR oil, we’ll either have to buy it somewhere else or use less.
Eventually we’ll have to use less anyway because it is a finite resource and it’s running out.
ThymeZone
Word up. Of course, Dug Jay is a spooftroll just looking for an angle, so don’t let him bag you quite so quickly, Wil.
As for Israel? Fuck Israel and the horse it rode in on. It’s a state born in terrorism and bellicosity. And fuck the US power structure that has kissed Israel’s ass all these years. Once we slay the GOP beast, the next thing we really need to do in this country is shed the albatross of unexamined, sacrosanct support for Israel, and develop a middle east policy that works for the interests of the United States.
Rudi
TZ – Don’t count on Clagina stopping the Israelis gravy train. We give them the most in foreign aid and we have a trade imbalance with them also. Why can’t Israel stand on it’s own?
Rick Massimo
Or France? Or Poland? Or Russia? Or Germany or Sweden or Venezuela or …
Rick Massimo
By the way: John Derbyshire making sense? I might have to go back to bed.
IanY77
Derb’s reply to Cliff May’s assertion that the jihadists are worse than the USSR:
And that is why I’m a self loathing Democrat. It took a goddamn right winger to say something that every Dem candidate should be saying: “Yes, they’re bad, yes, we have to fight them, but we fought the Soviets without illegal wiretaps, and extraordinary renditions, and torture, and …”
This country is a perfect storm of an evil governing party, an utterly worthless and pathetic “opposition”, an idiotic media, and a politically disengaged general public.
Zifnab
Yeah, I know. Crazy, right? Sometimes people do things entirely for financial gain.
Israel is the scam here, Wilfred. They’re a convenient excuse to be in the Middle East. If you don’t want to bomb Iran or invade Iraq or blow up half of Lebanon, it must be because you are anti-Semitic, say the PNAC crowd, never mind what actual Israels believe.
But why does PNAC push these policies? Because they’re in the arms of the guys who sell Israel and Iran guns and bombs, then turn around and milk the surrounding regions for oil. That’s why PNAC exists – to justify endless war and landscape rape. Not because anyone just can’t get over how much they enjoy the Holy Land.
TheFountainHead
I’m afraid to wade into this, having no intimate knowledge of the PNAC or even the current powers in Israel at the moment, but it seems to me that we’re putting more into keeping Israel the way Israel likes it, than we are getting out of the deal. There are real grievances and prejudices here, but in the long term I don’t think an Israeli state is something that makes any sense for anyone, particularly the Israelis.
Zifnab
Um… read up on the 50s. We totally did all of those things.
IanY77
Got links on that, esp torture?
Wilfred
Watch it, TZ, you might get a Pipes fitting:
Are you now, or have you ever been, an Arab? An Eyerainian? A Muslim?
Davebo
Actually, Israel makes their own guns and bombs (and a lot of ours as well) and now the US not only gives them 3 billion a year, it no longer requires them to spend it on US arms.
So no, that’s not the motivation.
Davebo
And people, can we stop with the whole “blame it on the joos!” idoicy?
Israel is a country, like Brazil or the US.
When the US is blamed for something stupid in the foreign policy realm, we don’t say “It’s those damn evangelicals”.
Svensker
Yeah, it’s amazing, isn’t it? Derb is completely making sense. Only half of one eyeball fell out while perusing the Corner.
Dreggas
Word to your mother (since you used word up). Israel for years has hidden behind its identity as a “Jewish State” in order to deflect any criticism of its policies as anti-semitic which is plain horse shit. I remember when everyone was all pissed at the french (in fact I believe it was Chirac) for calling Israel a shitty little country. Well guess what folks, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that our undying, non-critical support for Israel is one of the biggest albatross’ we have around our necks and it’s just one of many.
It has nothing to do with “Evil jews” it has everything to do with the manipulation of opinion and use of your religion and persecution complex as a shield to continue with policies that cause more problems that they solve.
Unbelievable that people reflexively go for the anti-semite card when the writing is on the wall plain as day, then again maybe it isn’t all things considered.
TheFountainHead
Actually, that’s exactly who I blame it on. Unless it’s Global Warming. Can’t really finger the Jesus-Boys for that.
Wilfred
You fucking Marxist. Just kidding.
I often use the economic determinist argument myself, and wind up getting called a Marxist anti-Semite. You left out one factor, however, viz. the emergence of the Christian Right who are the political enablers of the economics you describe. The average, well-meaning Christian Homelander would cringe at the thought that he voted for Mammon. But tell him he voted for Zion and he’ll come in his pants.
Whatever the determining factor, it’s necessary to de-mystify the propaganda roar that convinces evangelicals they’re doing God’s work. that roar comes from Aipac, not Lockheed, even if the interests of both served.
TenguPhule
Yes Wilfred, Pro-suicide bomber and child murder.
You don’t give a shit about Israel, fine.
I don’t give a shit about your Pals.
Difference is, I feel its wrong when the Israelis do stupid shit like drop bombs in residential areas.
Whereas you support ‘anything’ the Palistinians do because it’s ‘justified by Israeli oppression’.
The Grandest Panjandrum
Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then.
Reading the “thread” was like reading a comment thread over at Red State without the trailers and old pizza boxes strewn about.
TheFountainHead
Difference is, we don’t give the Palestinians blank checks, tanks, guns, weapons, and ammo for committing such atrocities. I mean, either give them both the same guns, ammo, and cash, and let ’em blow themselves to Hell and back, or give neither of them anything.
Rudi
Davebo – It isn’t blaming Israel, it’s a matter of foreign aid and economics. Since Camp David we have bribed Egypt and Israel to play nice. But we continue to let Israel suckle at the aid teet, when she can stand on her own. We have a trade deficit with Israel, while we give each of her citizens $14,360. Yet, with Egypt we run a trade surplus. Should we give aid to China or Saudi Arabia too? The trade numbers are from our own government.
chomsky
As always, the demis of the world make completely unfounded assertions.
Nearly 30 f’ing years ago, this same crackpots were screaming about the Ayatollahs taking over Iran and what was going to happen to us. ZERO ECONOMIC IMPACT.
OBL could be ruler of SA right now and he’d still have 20 million mouths to feed.
And Dug Jay, I realize it’s spoof – but it really is an effort at rendering the anti-semite epitaph more and more meaningless every day. That isn’t serving the world. The demis of the world just can’t help themselves lying about the reality of their pet interest (which isn’t even about the Jewish race, or Israel, it’s about a bunch of whack-jobs who think they’re serving it). They can’t help themselves turning what was once meaningful into something we laugh at now. You can, so stop it, please.
Wilfred
And that’s why, as Americans, we have to talk about this openly. It isn’t American taxpayer money that pays for whatever Palestinians do. But it’s American money that pays for the cluster bombs that kill Lebanese children.
That is a moral question that must be asked of and answered by American politicians.
A lot of people don’t want that question asked.
The Other Steve
Wouldn’t it just be simpler if the Palestinians negotiated a peace treaty and then had their own country to govern?
Granted, it wouldn’t be as profitable for the people in charge, but it sure would cause less suffering.
Jay B.
Difference is, I feel its wrong when the Israelis do stupid shit like drop bombs in residential areas.
Well that must come as succor to the families of the dead people.
Whereas you support ‘anything’ the Palistinians do because it’s ‘justified by Israeli oppression’.
But other than the massive dedication to “feeling bad” when Israel drops bombs in residential neighborhoods, isn’t that exactly the same justification for WHY Israel drops bombs in residential neighborhoods? Doesn’t the Israeli government feel justified in its actions? And don’t you still support them?
In other words, Israel drops bombs (and builds walls and ghettos) as a response to suicide bombers — but since you feel just terrible about it — your moral support is somehow above Wilfred’s? The difference is barely a degree.
Israel and Palestine, as nations and people, have blood on their hands. The injustices that have visited them both are manifest. The answer to this, whatever else it may be, cannot be more bombings and mass murders, whoever ’caused it’.
The Other Steve
Derbyshire must be drinking the Ron Paul koolaid, for he’s starting to make sense. Can’t have that over at NRO.
srv
We built and paid for every JDAM in their inventory. And every other “indigenous” weapon system they developed. And they get those supply contracts as part of the whole welfare deal. Oh, and those “aid” programs. The Saudi’s pay for their planes, we forgive Israels “loans”.
Every F-35 Israel gets in the next decade will be bought and paid for by the US taxpayer. Lockheed loves this deal.
Zifnab
But the average, well-meaning Christian Homelander isn’t writing the policy. I agree that there are a bloc of US voters that get giant boners at the idea that they’re Saving Jews for Jesus by voting Republican. But these guys are just buying the swill they get sold.
demimondian
You know, that’s the big lie in all of this.
It *is* American money which pays for all that — by way of oil expenditures. The single best thing we could do to improve Israel’s chances at regional hegemony would be to adopt a rational energy policy. That would bankrupt the Saudis and most of the oil-patch, which would do the Palestinian resistance movements in almost immediately.
That’s why I term those who blame PNAC and Israel to be anti-semitic. Their arguments make no sense — if we were trying to support Israel, we’d behave quite differently from how we are behaving. The only justifications for our current behavior are short term economic benefits by virtue of avoiding the costs of a transition, as well as increased income to the wealthy.
So why focus on the EE-VIL J00Z? There’s only one explanation, and it’s ugly: anti-semitism.
srv
Where are all these Wall Street and Exxon executives screaming for us to bomb Iran? Anybody?
Wilfred
1) call anyone who questions Israel an anti-Semite, if that doesn’t work go on to
2) accuse the other person of being a baby-killing, genocidal anti-Semite. If that doesn’t work go
3) the United States is actually undermining Israel, not helping it. And anybody who says otherwise is a baby-killing, suicide bombing supporting anti-Semite.
I’m honestly fucking speechless. Since the departure of Trevino from the intertrons I don’t think I’ve seen anything as sillily stupid as this. Bravo.
myiq2xu
Implicit in the whole idea of the nation of Israel is the Judeo-Christian belief that God gave the land of Canaan to the Hebrew people after the were freed from bondage in Egypt.
But that land was not vacant, so the Hebrews had to kill or drive out the people who lived there. This was justified because the Canaanites were idolators.
The Hebrews fought over the land for the next several centuries with varying degrees of success until 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed the nation of Israel and dispersed the Jews (the Diaspora.) Many (but not all) Jews adhered to the concept of Zionism, which held that eventually Israel would eventually be restored as a Jewish nation.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, the region was eventually conquered by the Islamic Empire, which considered Jerusalem to be one of its holiest cities.
It is notable that during the Crusades, the Christians of Europe (Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) did not attempt to reform Israel as a Jewish homeland.
Zionism was not part of Christian belief until fairly recently, when some Protestant religious leaders interpreted certain Biblical scriptures to be prophecies of the restoration of Israel as part of the events signaling the end of days (the appearance of the Antichrist, Armageddon and the return of Jesus.)
But it was not until after WWII and the horror of the Holocaust that widespread support for the restoration of Israel allowed it to become a reality.
But, once again, the land was not vacant. The land, then known as Palestine, was occupied by the Palestinians. These people had to be killed or driven out in order for Israel to exist.
For some strange reason, the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab states objected to this, and anyone who agrees with them is now considered to be anti-Semitic, even though the Palestinians are also a Semitic people.
60 years later, here we are.
demimondian
Wilfred, you are busy looking to blame Israel for actions which are not in its self-evident interest — that’s awfully damning evidence of your bigotry.
demimondian
By the way, kids, today’s lesson in sophistry is offered by Wilfred. When caught in a net of progressively sharper arguments, his response?
That’s the classic form of the Argumentum ad Hominem. Can’t respond to the main thrust? Call your opponent names.
Wilfred
In cloud-cukooland, maybe. But here on earth we think differently.
But wait, maybe you’re right. That explains how the Japanese could not have bombed Pearl Harbor or al-Qaida was not responsible for 9/11, since it worked against their own interests so bad, them losing Afghanistan and all and getting water-barded in Gitmo. Yeah, it’s all becoming clearer now.
myiq2xu
That’s the Ron White School of Debate.
Lesley
Been lurking, and would like to pose a question. Before I pose it, however, let me get this out of the way. I think many Israeli actions are deplorable and that America should cease giving them foreign aid.
Now on to the question. What do people think the primary neocon motivation is for helping Israel:
1. Their perception of Israel’s best interest, regardless of what they perceive to be their own best interest or America’s best interest. Admittedly, these might coincide at times, but the question is about primary motivation.
2. Their perception of their own best interest, regardless of what they perceive to be Israel’s best interest or America’s best interest. Again, these might coincide at times, etc.
3. Their perception of America’s best interest, regardless of what they perceive to be their own best interest or Israel’s best interest. Yet again, these might coincide at times, etc.
Personally, I think it’s #2, although I also think that at least some of them rationalize this by believing their own best interest is the same as America’s best interest.
horatius
John,
Is the National Review paying you behind the scenes? Why the fuck would I be interested in anything that John fucking Derbyshire had to say?
I know. I know. It’s just educating oneself to this phonomenon of the Fascist’s shrinking tent, where even John Derbyshire can be potentially kicked out, but we knew that already.
D. Mason
From reading this thread you and dugj seem to be the only ones talking about evil jews. If you keep floating such anti-semite language people might start to think you’re some kind of bigot… oh wait.
Dug is of course a spoof but you, well, the fact that your argument ignores the substance of the debate about our Israel centered middle eastern policy and goes immediately to inaccurate and hyperbolic mockery speaks volumes about the quality of your ability to discuss. Being greedy oil/gun profiteers and being attack dogs for Israel are not mutually exclusive(think of a mobster who protects his outside money launderer), the fact that you pretend they are betrays a level of dishonesty reminiscent of darrell. The fact that many jews in Israel are starting to get sick of their governments foreign policy firmly rebuffs any claims of antisemitism when criticizing Israeli foreign policy, but I guess in your mind they’re antisemitic too right?
Israel serves as an (possibly)unwitting proxy for crooked politicians like dick cheney to use U.S. taxpayer money to boost revenues for his company, is a handy excuse for politicians in bed with the oil companies to push their true constituencies interests and serves as a local provocateur that keeps the Muslim extremists riled up and looking especially crazy. It’s a nation with a policy of victimhood that degrades it’s own people and keeps them in ghettos while spending billions of foreign aid not to build up the nation but to tear down its already impoverished neighbors. What exactly has the Israeli government done to earn your support?
Jay B.
It is American money which pays for all that—by way of oil expenditures. The single best thing we could do to improve Israel’s chances at regional hegemony would be to adopt a rational energy policy. That would bankrupt the Saudis and most of the oil-patch, which would do the Palestinian resistance movements in almost immediately.
That’s why I term those who blame PNAC and Israel to be anti-semitic.
Now you’re conflating Israel with PNAC. Their interests may overlap, but the Israeli people and the PNACers can have wildly divergent interests. One can objectively blame, or criticize the Israeli government’s actions, as indeed many Israeli citizens do, because they disagree with them. How this makes you anti-Semite is an exercise in absurdity.
Onto PNAC. How can you ignore their leadership? How can you ignore their own words? Their organization doesn’t want “peace” in any measure. If you’ve ever read any of their beliefs? PNAC’s own statement of principles calls for American hegemony and “democratic principles” through increased militarism and moral clarity. That so many of them are also currently in power in the Bush Administration would lead one to believe that they have a hand in implementing their vision through administration policy.
How criticizing the Bush foreign policy (which is very consistent with PNAC’s, seeing how they are basically the same crowd) is anti-Semitic, makes your claims completely ignorant.
I also love the irony of your whine about ad hominem attacks on you after implying that those who dare to criticize PNAC’s commitment to militarism or the Bush Administration’s mix of oil-and-Likud-based policies are Anti-Semitic.
Look, you joke, oilmen and the PNAC crowd run the foreign policy of the Bush Administration. If you can’t see how their objectives overlap (and may not even be “rational” in the sense you’ve magically created), you probably shouldn’t really be in the discussion, never mind making idiotic accusations of anti-Semitism because I think Joe Lieberman’s a fucking asshole.
TheFountainHead
Are you for serious???
First of all, a sound energy plan, while good, doesn’t “bankrupt” the Saudis or anyone else. There are vast untapped markets for oil consumers in the world, which as a result of the price dropping because of reduced American consumption, could afford to purchase at the rate we do, and will. Second of all, the idea that Palestinian resistance groups would simply go away if funding became in issue is idiotic. These are groups with very strong convictions, religious or otherwise, and I don’t think they’re in it for the money! Short of glassing Tehran, how could our policy be more in line with Israel’s interests??
AkaDad
It takes a lot of chutzpah to say that after calling someone an anti-semite.
D. Mason
THAT makes you an anti-semite!!!!111eleven
/demimondian
Rudi
srv says:
I believe the Israelis tank was developed at the same time as the US M1A1 tank. They probably had help from the US and UK, but for the most part it’s their own doing.
Iran can’t reverse engineer sniper rifles or jet fighters. Israel can make glorified shotguns to counter RPG’s and NBC asks why the US doesn’t buy said system. Israel is our grown child and can support herself, her enemies let their fighters dry rot in the desert and can’t even use what works.
This from Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies backs up Derby’s claim in regards to Egypt. And Egypt is a patron of second rate US armaments.
http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/menl121004.html
Andrew
Um, yes we do.
It’s obviously not as much or of the same kind as we give to Israel, but we have given them hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, and weapons and training, to the Palestinians.
So, like, try not to say things that are so obviously wrong.
Lesley
What Jay B said. How is blaming PNAC anti-semitic? They aren’t Israel, and there’s nothing that says their interests are the same or have to be the same. Members of PNAC hold positions of power in the Bush administration, so how is it even likely that they aren’t influencing our Middle Eastern policy?
horatius
Um, yes we do.
Just like we give them clusterbombs to drop in Israeli neighbourhood, and lots of nuclear weapons.
Doug H.
Why does it have to be one or another? The lovely thing about sabre-rattling Iran is that it brings everybody – the oilmen, the arms merchants, the Likudniks, the neo-cons, and the Scared Of Islamofascists – all under the same umbrella.
myiq2xu
Recognizing Israel’s right to exist (which I do) is not the same as giving them carte blanche to do as they please, nor does it require us to pay for their defense.
I find it ironic that many of the Christian neocons support Israel because the are hoping to bring about Armageddon and the End Of Days, which will include the destruction of Israel. As part of that belief, they think that the Jews will either convert ot Christianity or be sent to Hell for eternity.
With friends like that . . .
Dreggas
Because Cristicism of Israel + Israel being a “Jewish State” = ANTI-SEMITE!
It’s been that way for years and always will be, funny how it’s almost uniquely American too. We lambast anyone who speaks out against Israeli policy as being anti-semitic, this isn’t even completely perpetuated by the Israeli’s (most of which aren’t even Jewish as there are large numbers of Israeli Arabs* and christians). This phenomena and whole victim complex is perpetuated by people within the U.S., U.S. citizens who have some interest (benign or malevolent) in seeing Israel continue to exist, the majority of those interested are insterested for financial reasons or for religious ones, otherwise it’s just another country on the map.
libarbarian
“In 1879 German political agitator Wilhelm Marr used the phrase Judenhass (hatred of Jews) in his book “The Victory of Judaism over Germanicism. Observed from a non-religious perspective.” (“Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. Vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet.”) to make hatred of the Jews seem rational and sanctioned by scientific knowledge. In his next book, “The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism”, published in 1880, Marr developed his ideas further and coined the related German word Antisemitismus – antisemitism.”
The man who invented the term always meant it ONLY to apply to Jews. It DOES NOT and NEVER HAS mean dislike of “semitic speakers” .. ONLY JEWS!!!!!!
Sorry for the all-caps but I am NO F-ING SICK OF THIS TRIPE!!!!! The term “anti-semitic” and realted terms ONLY APPLIES TO JEWS AND HAS NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH OTHER “SEMITIC” SPEAKING PEOPLE!!!!
Playing dumb and obviously false language games doesn’t do squat for your credibility dude.
Kevin K.
Weird. I haven’t been to the Corner for months, but noticed this morning that Derb was doing a pretty good job at smacking around the dolts over there when I stopped in to see what they were saying about Bhutto. I never thought I’d enjoy reading Derb, but this smackdown of Cliff May was downright captivating.
May said:
Derb responded:
Ouch.
D. Mason
Unless of course he considered all semitic speaking cultures to be jewish, or are you suggesting that his viewpoint was free of ignorance?
lethargytartare
why?
TheFountainHead
I give you a stick. I give the other guy an M1-Abrams tank and all the technology and training to keep it running, as well as billions to build his own. How would you feel? What would you do with your stick?
So, like, try to make arguments that aren’t so obviously lame.
ThymeZone
Whatever. Finally, after all these years of that kind of verbal thuggery, the term is losing its power. It never really meant anything anyway, but it had tremendous rhetorical power.
The price you have pay, though, for that power is surrender of all intellectual integrity whatsoever.
Israel is a nation, we support or don’t support it as a nation, not as a racial container or a religion.
Israel, as a nation, does not deserve the unquestioned support of the United States, or any support at all that is not clearly and entirely in congruence with our true interests.
sglover
demimondian is way, way, way out of his league. I’ve seen some logic pretzels, but this clown has managed to bake a kind of broken syllogism souffle’:
Just astonishing. By this logic, you can never attribute a cause to ANY stupid or counterproductive action, because its very idiocy argues against any intent.
AIPAC’s own website boasts about its direct influence in steering American foreign policy. They do this on a daily basis. Few national-level American politicians dares criticise Israel in any meaningful way — NONE dare to actually pull the plug on the enormous largesse we give that country. To deny that Israel has disproportionate influence on American policy requires a doublethink mentality.
HyperIon
These are the rules:
1. if one criticizes the US, then one “hates America”, loves terrorists, and is probably a liberal.
2. if one criticizes Israel, then one is an anti-semite and reflects constantly on “EE-VIL J00Z”.
I didn’t make ’em and i think they are stupid but they ARE the rules.
Demi, why are you being an asshole on this matter?
myiq2xu
From Wikipedia:
The term Semite means a member of any of various ancient and modern peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs.
AND
In modern English the negative form of the adjective, anti-Semitic, is almost always used to mean “anti-Jewish” specifically.
We are both right. My comment was not part of my major point, I was just pointing out that it is ironic to call a person of semitic descent “anti-semitic.”
libarbarian
Of course he was ignorant, but that doesn’t change the fact that the term has, from the beginning, only meant anti-Jewish and that Arabs can goddamn well be “anti-semitic”.
HyperIon
Since we’ve wandered into the morass of US/Israel relations, here is something i would like to better understand. I have looked on the web for an explanation but found nothing that is really on target…
What is the deal with US/Israeli dual citizenship?
i often read allegations that Lieberman, Mukasey, chertoff, wolfie, Feith, and a host of neocons hold dual citizenship.
i’d like to know what this means in terms of (1) how one becomes eligible (2) voting rights (3) paying taxes (4) military service obligations (5) residency perks.
i’d also like to find out if the folks named above ARE dual citizens of the US and Israel. there seems to be much talk but not a lot of facts.
so….informed BJ commenters, what do you say?
D. Mason
Some would argue that even jews can be anti-semitic, that doesn’t make it fact.
sglover
I don’t know if, say, Lieberman has Israeli citizenship, but as a Jew, under Israeli law he can pretty much claim said citizenship at any time*. This is really pretty essential to the whole rationale for the state of Israel: It’s supposed to be the one place on earth where any and all Jews have a home.
Of course, things have changed a bit since 1948. Back then, Israel was taking in Holocaust survivors. Nowadays, it’s typically Russian gangsters who have a sudden yearning for Zion when when law enforcement starts closing in. And at least one American sociopath found religion in the same way.
* From the Israeli government:
Andrew
Again with the stupid. The U.S. never gave assistance to Israel on their nuclear program, though France and Britain did. In fact, U.S. policy was one of purposeful ignorance about the Israeli program.
What’s the point in making up stupid hyperbolic lies when there is plenty of factual material that may be used for legitimate criticism? You just come off as a childish ignoramus.
Andrew
FountainHead, I’m going to assume you missed my point entirely because you’re a fucking idiot, not that you’re a bad person.
As I made clear, you were factually wrong. We do give them assistance. And as I also made clear, it’s not the same level or type of assistance we give to Israel.
But you were still wrong. Hint: Being wrong doesn’t help your argument. It just makes you look stupid, like our friend horatius. Again, why lie when the truth is more than enough for the purposes of your argument?
Anyway, it’s good that you’re just an idiot and don’t know the facts, because otherwise I would have to say that you probably do hate Israel.
MNPundit
Did someone kick the Derb in the head?
fishbane
Not really on topic, but I hadn’t been to the Corner in a while. My favorite bit when when Jonah called himself a condom.
Andrew
And to think, that’s the smartest thing Jonah has done all year.
TheFountainHead
And you’re still missing the point entirely. Israel has engaged in what essentially amounts to terrorism at worst and bullying at best, and has done so with US money and blessing. Of course the US gives aid to a dozen or more Palestinian governments, who DON’T we give aid to these days?? But the two are on such different levels that it makes them idiotic to compare them to each other!!
Andrew
I’m not missing the point at all. You can make that argument without lying. Lying makes you look stupid. You just admitted that you lied earlier. Why did you lie?
(This reminds me of the greatest Onion blurb of all time.)
Well, now I’m leaning towards your being purposefully dishonest because you hate Israel and Jews.
libarbarian
LOL!!
I’m sorry but human psychology is not so simple as to make “hating oneself” an impossibility.
People can hate their own identity too, or have you forgotten those studies that showed Black girls in the South preferring white dolls to black ones?
Individual Jews can be “anti-semitic” and disavow, even hate, their own ethnicity. Whether that applies to any particular Jew is another question.
TheFountainHead
You could look at it as lying or you could look at it as me cutting to the chase: Israel is politically a petulant child given whatever it wants while Palestine is given some bread and water now and then just to keep it kickin’.
Go ahead and lean any which way you want. I don’t hate Jews, I don’t even hate the concept of an Israeli state, but I’m certainly not going to sit here and defend my character for my opinions on a matter of politics and foreign relations. I do think it’s pretty smarmy, however, whenever I hear someone being called out as “anti-semitic” because they disagree with actions of an Israeli government that is perhaps the most ethnically bigoted as any in recent history.
Stoic
I think this is always apropos…
Smedley Butler on Interventionism
Andrew
I’m going to look at it as lying.
ThymeZone
I have no dog in your fight (as to who is lying about what, or isn’t) ….. but this blurb describes my position exactly. To a tee.
ThymeZone
To be more clear, I have no dog in that fight because I haven’t followed the thread closely enough to know that argument’s merits …. and I am too lazy to go back and read it to find out.
But within the bounds of my quoted blurb, as I said, I agree 100%.
D. Mason
libarbarian, maybe you didn’t read any of what I linked or maybe you need to change your perspective a bit to get my meaning. I never suggested that someone or even a group or culture can’t self-hate. Now I could have been suggesting that such self hate fails to justify the application of labels like anti-semitic and homophobic and could argue that angle. What I was actually saying though is that having actual Jews in Israel standing up against Israels foreign policy really slams the idea that anyone who opposes their foreign policy is anti-semitic. So sure, jews can be self-loathing too, it just seems odd to me to suggest that their self hatred would manifest in such a way that had them speaking against a policy that I also find abhorrent as a non-jewish, non-israeli person of average intelligence. Infact, casting a jew disliking israeli policy as an anti-semite is not very different to me from suggesting an american who speaks out against Bush is a traitor/america hater/non patriot.
Also, I’m just asking this out of curiosity and I hope you answer. Do you agree with the position that, for a jew, hating the Iraeli government and/or it’s policies makes you anti-semitic?
HyperIon
thanks for responding to my post. the right of return, i understand. but is that the same as having dual citizenship? it’s one thing to decide to immigrate to another country but all the guys i mentioned above as perhaps dual citizens have not emigrated from the US..they are still here!
Andrew
no.
And Lieberman is not an Israeli citizen, as far as I have ever seen reported.
D-Chance.
If this is the same nasal-y loudmouth jerk that hosts that crappy early evening radio talk show, then, no. He isn’t. About as far rightwing neocon Jew as you can possibly get, outside of MAYBE David Horowitz. He makes Hannity and Limbaugh sound damn near sane by comparison.
D-Chance.
BTW, the Derb is in full “troll” mode… he’d best be careful, lest his co-Cornerites do a Dreher on him.
libarbarian
I understand why you would ask but the answer is, and not just for jews, a solid “NO!”. Anti-Semites can criticize Israeli policy but criticism of policy is NOT anti-semitic – esp. when offered by Israelis who are going to be the ones effected. It is also NOT anti-semitic to say “I dont want my tax dollars used to support a regime with whose policies I have serious moral disagreements”. Personally I think there are lots of people who are not anti-semitic but are prejudiced against Israel and Israelis for other reasons – like those who see them as a 1-D imperialist caricature, but that is another issue.
However, not every argument by an anti-semite is going to be anti-semitic itself and so there is more to this than just judging individual arguments in isolation. Sometimes the WAY or CONTEXT in which the criticism is offered does cause the appearance, which is sometimes accurate, that the critic is motivated by MORE than just opposition to a particular policy.
Try to compare the debate to our own on Illegal Immigration.
How do we recognize racists in our own debate on Illegal Immigration? Criticizing Illegal Immigration is not per se racist but we all know that there is a serious racist element in the debate and we have all seen critics who say things that do strike us as racist. Why? For a number of reasons including (1) exhibiting double standards – like when they say “Its the illegality I really oppose” but fail to object or even excuse other forms of illegality, and (2)exaggerating the situation, often using old-fashioned stereotypes – like “Hordes of Illegal Mexican gang members are coming here to rape our daughters and spread leprosy”, (3) objecting on grounds that have to do with the identity of the immigrants rather than the issue of immigration – like when people object to simply hearing spanish spoken in public. Stormfront might make a perfectly rational argument against illegal immigration, but we still know that their rational arguments are really just a cover for rank prejudice.
The same thing applies in this debate. I look at double-standards, the phrasing they use, the consistency of their arguments over time,etc. to judge if a person is truly objecting to particular policies or if they are just looking for whatever argument happens to work at the time.
Johnny Pez
His health insurer.
John S.
I find it crazy that this explanation even needs to be given.
I am a Jew who is very critical of Israeli policy, so obviously that doesn’t make me an anti-semite – though I have had the charge levied against me in the past. No, I am not a fabled self-loathing Jew. I’m just a guy who knows wrongdoing when he sees it and isn’t afraid to say so simply because the perpetrators happen to share the same ethnicity as me.
John S.
Nope, Lieberman is definitely not a dual citizen. I don’t think his wife is, either. Although both certainly would have the right of return – particularly Hadassah who is not only the child of holocaust survivors, but was born in a Czech refugee camp right after the war.
D. Mason
libarbarian thanks for your very thorough answer, your post about the origin of the term made me wonder what your feelings about its use are.
John S I also find it crazy that such a definition needs to be given, unfortunately it does need to be given. In some corners of the world(including this blog!) you cannot criticize Israel or her policies without becoming an object of scorn or worse.
STEVEinSC
Hey Andrew. Are you Alan Dershowitz in mufti? I noticed by your posts that you are shrill, bullying, sneering and your comments are childish, so I was naturally reminded of another disagreeable Israel-firster. Just wondering.
TheFountainHead
Knock yourself out.
MNPundit
Yes of course. I’d forgotten he got his face mashed in by the real world recently.
horatius
You can suck my dick Andy.
Only someone who has his head so far up his ass can miss such a trivial point.
horatius
Like I said. Feel free to suck my dick at any time. No point in arguing with morons like you.
Robert Johnston
That about sums it up for Israel. It’s a country that never should have been established in the first place, but now, sixty years later, it’s far too late to dwell on that mistake and blame the current generation of Israelis for it. Israel has a right to exist and vigorously defend its borders now, even if it didn’t then.
On the other hand, the refusal to recognize that the establishment of Israel was a grossly immoral humanitarian disaster marks most Israelis and supporters of Israel as people incapable of having a serious discussion about what exactly the status quo is with the relationships among Israel, Palestinians, and the rest of the Middle East, much less capable of any realistic efforts to solve the problems inherent therein. If Israel isn’t going to be serious about acknowledging and solving its own problems, I don’t see why we should be basing our Middle East policy around encouraging its collective denial.
A pox on all houses.
Beej
Unless U.S. law has changed substantially in the last 15 years (not impossible, of course, but in this case I think highly unlikely) the U.S. does not recognize dual citizenship. If you want to be a U.S. citizen you must renounce your previous citizenship (if you are an immigrant). If you are born in the U.S., you are, most of the time, a citizen, or free to claim U.S. citizenship. Other countries do recognize dual citizenship. Therefore it is possible for another country to see one of their citizens as having dual citizenship in that country and in the U.S. The U.S. however, will not consider its citizen as also being a citizen of that other country, and if the person commits some act (such as voting in another nation’s elections) which is incompatible with U.S. citizenship, the person who does so may find themselves stripped of their U.S. citizenship, or, at the very least, told that they must renounce their citizenship in the other country and cease to act as a citizen of that country.
Andrew
So, you were factually wrong, and I’m the moron because I called you on it?
(Are you trying to give jeff goldstein a run for his money? You’re going to have to step it up beyond mere dick sucking. A few slaps and maybe a dog fingering are the bare minimum.)
Yes, that’s it exactly.
Dear Baby Jesus, the retard is strong in this thread. I agree that there are serious problems with our aid and policies wrt Israel. I also happen to think that people don’t need to fabricate bullshit like the U.S. giving them nuclear weapons. I’m the moron?
Anne Laurie
Wouldn’t it just be simpler if the Palestinians negotiated a peace treaty and then had their own country to govern?
Granted, it wouldn’t be as profitable for the people in charge, but it sure would cause less suffering.
Hell, I know Blue Staters who feel the same way!
MNPundit
QFT, they probably just yoinked the documents via their US spy network. Though I did amuse myself with the Mossad-Killed-Kennedy-because-he-was-going-to-cut-aid-to-them theory for about 5 minutes. Ah hyphens, God bless ’em.
The Liberty thing is pretty damn suspicious though.
Chuck Butcher
Beej,
One caveat, yes the US simply ignores dual citizenship up to a point, a (for ex.) American/Frenchman who commits a crime in France will find his access to US help very limited since we recognize other government’s right to deal with their citizens in legal matters. The US will not recognize a French intervention for the same individual for a crime committed in the US, in that regard the US simply ignores the other citizenship. The US will, rightfully, fight tooth and nail any such assertion of privilege.
Some people are real proud of their dual citizenship, they are idiots, they lose on both ends, legally.
Andrew
They had most of the technical expertise already, and they had plenty of assistance from the Brits and French. They probably didn’t steal much information from the U.S., but they did steal material!
A lot of the technical expertise was accumulated the old fashioned way: the Israelis sent grad students to study in the U.S., some with Fermi.
Innocent Bystander
Seems like our ME foreign policy has 1 objective and 1 long term result-
Objective-
(1) Enrich Big Oil and the MIC
Result-
A complete marginalization of all moderates in every country in the region and empowerment of the radicals who profit politically and economically from a ME in perpetual crisis.
It’s like an endless feedback loop now.
Darkness
The Iranian scaremongering is ridiculous and fortunately due to the press and opposition rolling over like puppies to get their belly rubbed on the last round of Iraq, they are asking decent questions this time around. But come on, some facts:
1. Iran heavily subsidizes gas to its citizens
2. Iran’s electric power plants run on gasoline (not coal, gas)
3. The population of Iran is exploding, putting enormous demands on 1 and 2 and costing the gov a fortune
4. Efforts to even minorly increase the price of gas have been met with riots in Iran
5. It takes more nuclear material to make a bomb than to power a nuke electric power plant (sorry on a slow airport connection and cannot get a cite at the mo)
6. Ahmadinejad has at least as much to fear from internal strife than from external foes (now that Saddam is gone, esp)
7. Iran is post-peak of oil production
8. A paranoid leader would use the first nuclear material produced to do what? store it up for years while the country loses megabucks propping up an insane system of power and gas only to waste it on a bomb that would only risk getting the country turned into a sheet of glass (essentially martyring EVERYONE), or use it to generate electricity, thereby relieving the pressure on both a AND b and keeping said leaders in power longer.
STEVEinSC
res ipsa loquitur
horatius
Get off the thread and the retard vanishes
This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.