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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Sounds of silence

Sounds of silence

by DougJ|  May 17, 20105:05 pm| 49 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Good News For Conservatives

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Presumably, the attacks will come, but I’m very surprised that there has been no mention yet at The New Republic or The Weekly Standard of Peter Beinart’s excellent, brutal anti-AIPAC/TNR/Weekly Standard piece from the New York Review of Books.

Beinart is a former TNR editor, as well as a big Iraq War pimp, so perhaps that inoculates him from the full 5,000-word Wieseltier treatment, but it’s been over 24 hours and no one has called him a self-hating appeaser of Islamofascism yet. What gives?

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49Comments

  1. 1.

    arguingwithsignposts

    May 17, 2010 at 5:15 pm

    but it’s been over 24 hours and no one has called him a self-hating appeaser of Islamofascism yet. What gives?

    I’m thinking they’re still working off the weekend.

  2. 2.

    The Moar You Know

    May 17, 2010 at 5:18 pm

    Money quote:

    If the leaders of groups like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations do not change course, they will wake up one day to find a younger, Orthodox-dominated, Zionist leadership whose naked hostility to Arabs and Palestinians scares even them, and a mass of secular American Jews who range from apathetic to appalled.

    As for this:

    it’s been over 24 hours and no one has called him a self-hating appeaser of Islamofascism yet. What gives?

    They won’t bother. Why? Three word answer: Mossad hit squad. Israel is not going to tolerate truthtelling like this.

  3. 3.

    valdivia

    May 17, 2010 at 5:19 pm

    The jewish holiday of shavuot is keeping them busy? Goldberg at The Atlantic was uncomfortable because it came from the NYRB but he basically agrees….

    BTW Tablet magazine has a good interview with Beinart worth reading.

  4. 4.

    freelancer

    May 17, 2010 at 5:22 pm

    Truth to power always has a backlash.

  5. 5.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    May 17, 2010 at 5:24 pm

    Still indulging in a marathon hate-wank over photos of the new Miss U.S.A.

    “Take that, you dirty – What is it mom? I’m busy!”

  6. 6.

    MRK

    May 17, 2010 at 5:24 pm

    Maybe they’re hoping it disappears. You may trigger a backlash just by continuing to write about it.

  7. 7.

    Loneoak

    May 17, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    OT, but following up on the thread below about the raid in Detroit that killed a 7-year-old girl. This local blog really brings home the consequences of our increasingly militarized police.

  8. 8.

    balconesfault

    May 17, 2010 at 5:28 pm

    This was the quote I liked:

    Most of the (Jewish) students, in other words, were liberals, broadly defined. They had imbibed some of the defining values of American Jewish political culture: a belief in open debate, a skepticism about military force, a commitment to human rights. And in their innocence, they did not realize that they were supposed to shed those values when it came to Israel. The only kind of Zionism they found attractive was a Zionism that recognized Palestinians as deserving of dignity and capable of peace, and they were quite willing to condemn an Israeli government that did not share those beliefs. Luntz did not grasp the irony. The only kind of Zionism they found attractive was the kind that the American Jewish establishment has been working against for most of their lives.

  9. 9.

    wrb

    May 17, 2010 at 5:34 pm

    And when it comes to the West Bank, Netanyahu’s own record is in its way even more extreme than his protégé’s. In his 1993 book, A Place among the Nations, Netanyahu not only rejects the idea of a Palestinian state, he denies that there is such a thing as a Palestinian. In fact, he repeatedly equates the Palestinian bid for statehood with Nazism. An Israel that withdraws from the West Bank, he has declared, would be a “ghetto-state” with “Auschwitz borders.” And the effort “to gouge Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] out of Israel” resembles Hitler’s bid to wrench the German-speaking “Sudeten district” from Czechoslovakia in 1938. It is unfair, Netanyahu insists, to ask Israel to concede more territory since it has already made vast, gut-wrenching concessions. What kind of concessions? It has abandoned its claim to Jordan, which by rights should be part of the Jewish state.

    What the fuck?

    There is any point in continued alliance?

    The article sure makes it sound hopeless… beyond hopeless, something that is going to end very badly.

    Time to disengage and treat them politely yet distantly as we do other weird nations, like Paraguay.

    I fear very bad harm to this nation from continued entanglement with such madness.

  10. 10.

    balconesfault

    May 17, 2010 at 5:35 pm

    @Loneoak:

    OT, but following up on the thread below about the raid in Detroit that killed a 7-year-old girl. This local blog really brings home the consequences of our increasingly militarized police.

    A tragedy … but I suspect police have always reacted with a lot of force when going after a bad guy who shot someone else … and if the police come through your front door looking for a gunman and you intercept and wrestle with them, bad things are likely to happen.

    If this were simply a drug raid, or chasing down a tax evader, or something, I’d agree it represented a dangerous militarization. As it was, it was police going after a guy who had shot another guy in cold blood. It is a tragedy … and yeah, tragedies suck.

  11. 11.

    David in NY

    May 17, 2010 at 5:36 pm

    Silence indeed. This post is generating comments at less than a third the rate of DougJ’s last, and not all those are substantively on topic. Sluggish late in the day here in the East, or does the topic just depress everyone or what?

    I was sort of wondering where all the furor about Beinart was myself, but my guess is that the usual suspects just don’t know how to handle it. The all purpose “self-hating Jew” just doesn’t seem right, especially since you’ll be insulting the very people you need to attract.

  12. 12.

    balconesfault

    May 17, 2010 at 5:36 pm

    @wrb:

    The article sure makes it sound hopeless… beyond hopeless, something that is going to end very badly.

    Isn’t that what all the pre-Millenial dispensationalist “Left Behind” fetishists are all pulling for?

  13. 13.

    MattR

    May 17, 2010 at 5:41 pm

    @balconesfault: The police are now saying that the young girl’s grandmother may have bumped into the police officer who fired the gun, rather than confronted him in any way.

    It would also be nice if the police could figure out which of the two units in the duplex the bad guy actually lived in. As a condo dweller, it is actually a bit terrifying that the police can get a warrant to do a no-knock entry on my unit as part of a search for someone who lives elsewhere in the building.

  14. 14.

    wrb

    May 17, 2010 at 5:46 pm

    @balconesfault:

    Isn’t that what all the pre-Millenial dispensationalist “Left Behind” fetishists are all pulling for?

    The crazies are encouraging each other.

    Scary shit.

  15. 15.

    DougJ

    May 17, 2010 at 5:46 pm

    @David in NY:

    There were some site problems for a bit is part of it, perhaps. But, yeah, this is one depressing topic.

  16. 16.

    hilzoy fangirl

    May 17, 2010 at 5:49 pm

    Larison has already found a winner, I think.

  17. 17.

    JGabriel

    May 17, 2010 at 5:49 pm

    David in NY:

    … does the topic just depress everyone or what?

    It does me. The competing rights of both Jews and Palestinians to a homeland there, the mutual animosity, and the desire for constant, murderous, escalation at the extremes of both sides often seems perennially irresolvable.

    .

  18. 18.

    Martin

    May 17, 2010 at 5:53 pm

    @MattR: You must not know about Cory Maye.

  19. 19.

    JimPortlandOR

    May 17, 2010 at 5:54 pm

    The post-Beinart silence is just a Monday snag on the partyline. Tonight’s distribution of the talking points will get things back to normal (normal being ear-destroying volume levels of accusations of Hitler-think).

    South Africa thought its racist programs were safe, until they weren’t.

    But Israel need not worry about EU or US intervention until Israel is ejecting Palestinians into Jordan, Syria, Lebnon and the the Mediterranian or mass starvation is occcuring. It will take another holocaust-in-the-making with Israeli’s tending the ovens before change will come.

  20. 20.

    DougJ

    May 17, 2010 at 6:00 pm

    @hilzoy fangirl:

    That’s a very good one, but it’s from American Spectator. They were probably yakking about Obama’s birth certificate last week.

  21. 21.

    Redshift

    May 17, 2010 at 6:08 pm

    @DougJ: I didn’t even see this post until after the two following ones appeared.

  22. 22.

    PeakVT

    May 17, 2010 at 6:09 pm

    If anyone wants to see some of the potential future leaders Beinart was talking about, take a gander at this video.

  23. 23.

    Douglas

    May 17, 2010 at 6:15 pm

    @hilzoy fangirl:

    And what a winner it is…

    “The problem, however, isn’t with leading Jewish organizations that defend Israel, but with liberalism. As sickening as it sounds, Jewish liberals see their fellow Jews as noble when they are victims being led helplessly into the gas chambers, but recoil at the thought of Jews who refuse to be victims, and actually take actions to defend themselves. ”

    Including obligatory holocaust reference, even.

  24. 24.

    sherifffruitfly

    May 17, 2010 at 6:16 pm

    Wonder how interesting it would be to compare with the teabagger fringe wagging the republican dog more and more.

  25. 25.

    Mark S.

    May 17, 2010 at 6:39 pm

    @wrb:

    It has abandoned its claim to Jordan, which by rights should be part of the Jewish state.

    There is really no point to negotiations as long as Bibi is prime minister. And if it is prerequisite that the Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist, shouldn’t Israel have to recognize the Palestinian right to exist?

  26. 26.

    CaseyL

    May 17, 2010 at 6:54 pm

    It’s not getting a lot of attention generally because not enough people read the NY Review of Books. Apparently, the article is starting to filter slowly into general view via comments on it – which is a pity, because people will respond to the comments, or the excerpts being commented on, and not to the article itself.

    Reading the article – and reading about the article – has felt like being vindicated in the worst possible way, to me. I gave up on Israel at some point in the last year or two, and only recently have really been able to face the fact that I did so.

    This is more painful than I can adequately express. I remember being in temple in 1967, sharing the joyous celebration of the liberation of Jerusalem. I was raised on the idea of Israel as a so. cia. list (ETA: Goddamn moderation)-liberal-secular state, and on the ethos that we Jews, who had suffered so much appalling atrocities, would never ever become oppressors ourselves.

    It took many decades for Israel to give up on that ideal, and even longer for me to give up on Israel. For my generation, giving up on Israel is like giving up on being Jewish: most of us are so non-observant, secular,and even atheistic that Zionism is one of the few ways we self-identify as Jews.

    But I can’t stomach what Israel has become. It’s not even the dispossession of the Palestinians per se – I’m not a fan of the Palestinians by any means – it’s about how Israel has embraced being cruel and brutal; about the endless humiliations and petty tyrannies it deals out; how power has corrupted Israel just like it corrupts anyone else.

    Giving up on Israel hurts like ripping out my own heart. Reading Beinart’s piece was darkly comforting, finding out I’m not alone.

  27. 27.

    jfxgillis

    May 17, 2010 at 7:03 pm

    Doug:

    By chance, I’ve been following your point very closely all day–I was intending to write something about right-winguttery preferring stupid to substance by comparing their responses to Terrorist Miss USA versus Beinhart’s essay.

    It’s amazing. The score by way of Memeorandum was like 25 to 1 last I checked.

  28. 28.

    DougJ

    May 17, 2010 at 7:12 pm

    @jfxgillis:

    It’s amazing. The score by way of Memeorandum was like 25 to 1 last I checked.

    Great point.

  29. 29.

    Sly

    May 17, 2010 at 7:31 pm

    They’re too busy looking at pictures of the recently crowned Miss Wahhabi-USA to to have their outrage stroked… er… stoked… by anything else.

  30. 30.

    salacious crumb

    May 17, 2010 at 7:37 pm

    AIPAC has special place reserved in hell for self hating Jews. they will try to discredit Peter by saying he supported the misguided Iraq war..just like they did to Goldstone. Of course AIPAC and its ilk will conveniently forget that they were the biggest cheerleaders of the Iraq war, juts like they conveniently forgot that Israel was the staunchest supporter of apartheid South Africa

  31. 31.

    Dave

    May 17, 2010 at 7:59 pm

    But I can’t stomach what Israel has become. It’s not even the dispossession of the Palestinians per se – I’m not a fan of the Palestinians by any means – it’s about how Israel has embraced being cruel and brutal; about the endless humiliations and petty tyrannies it deals out; how power has corrupted Israel just like it corrupts anyone else.

    Modern liberal narcissism in a nutshell. Jews should just stop defending themselves and die just to make liberals feel good about themselves.

    Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it only took a dozen or so posts for the following quote to be demonstrated to be true.

    “The problem, however, isn’t with leading Jewish organizations that defend Israel, but with liberalism. As sickening as it sounds, Jewish liberals see their fellow Jews as noble when they are victims being led helplessly into the gas chambers, but recoil at the thought of Jews who refuse to be victims, and actually take actions to defend themselves. ”

    DougJ et al have got progressively more insane, to the point where open anti-semitism is pretty much de rigeur here from both posters and commenters.

    For thousands of years, people like DougJ were justifying their hatred of the Jews because “they didn’t have a state like other people”. Now that the Jews finally have a state of their own, Dougj justifies his hatred of Jews because they have a state like other people.

  32. 32.

    Ed Marshall

    May 17, 2010 at 8:09 pm

    @Dave:

    Go pound sand up your ass.

  33. 33.

    wrb

    May 17, 2010 at 8:20 pm

    @Dave:

    Oh my.

    And the years of grinding occupation and destruction of Palestinian homes is purely self defense to such misunderstood and innocent WATBs.

    The spin chamber that came out of must be one of the really cool ones with the blinking LEDs and the hissing hydraulic latches.

  34. 34.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    May 17, 2010 at 8:23 pm

    Hard to know how this will all work itself out. As the article points out Israeli politics is becoming increasingly extreme and U.S. governmental support is still near 100% reflexively pro-Israel. Beinart writes of AIPAC-types waking up one morning to discover that the country they love is being run by crazed jihadists; I’m more concerned with whether Congress ever figures this out. Will unconditional support continue even after an overt ethnic-cleanser becomes PM? At that point it’s not just a problem for Palestinians and liberal Jews but for the entire world.

  35. 35.

    Joel

    May 17, 2010 at 8:28 pm

    @Dave:

    ‘ve only read through Beinart’s essay quickly (though not so quickly that I haven’t already exchanged a couple of e-mails with him about it) and I think it is in many ways analytically valid, if unsympathetic to some of the existential challenges faced by Israelis.

    Who said it? I’ll give you one guess. You can even google it.

  36. 36.

    Mark S.

    May 17, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    @Dave:

    Support everything Israel does, or . . . Holocaust?

    Seriously, shut the fuck up.

  37. 37.

    David in NY

    May 17, 2010 at 8:39 pm

    @Dave:

    Well, blame people for bad things that other people used to believe. That’s convincing as all get out.

  38. 38.

    LD50

    May 17, 2010 at 8:44 pm

    @Dave: You forgot to call Doug a Nazi. I trust you’ll rectify this with your next post?

  39. 39.

    VidaLoca

    May 17, 2010 at 8:45 pm

    Wow. Well, lose a douchebag toad like Beinart, who have you got?

    @Dave:
    Oh. right.

  40. 40.

    David in NY

    May 17, 2010 at 8:53 pm

    I just don’t think people like Dave really want peace. What exactly they want, I don’t know. Actually I’d be interested to hear (if Dave could turn off the apologia for everything Israel does and throw off the mantle of victimhood for a moment) what future Dave sees as desirable and acceptable for Palestinians and Israelis? Does he think only the Israelis have the right to a state? Does he think the West Bank should be cleansed of Palestinians?

    Does Dave want peace, and how does he envision it? That might be a question worth having the answer to.

    My fear is that the leaders of Israel do not want peace on any terms that can be acceptable to their neighbors or to the rest of the world, ever. Thus, no peace. I’d like to be proven wrong.

  41. 41.

    Delia

    May 17, 2010 at 8:54 pm

    @Dave:

    I’m trying to decide if you’re an AIPAC spoof or the real thing. In any case you’re really over the top, which sort of negates the “treat Israel like an ordinary state just like any other” philosophy. That would be something I could really get behind.

  42. 42.

    liberal

    May 17, 2010 at 9:09 pm

    @Dave:

    Now that the Jews finally have a state of their own, Dougj justifies his hatred of Jews because they have a state like other people.

    That’s cool. Can we pare back aid to Israel to the per capita level that states of other peoples get from the US?

  43. 43.

    liberal

    May 17, 2010 at 9:12 pm

    @CaseyL:

    …it’s about how Israel has embraced being cruel and brutal; about the endless humiliations and petty tyrannies it deals out; how power has corrupted Israel just like it corrupts anyone else.

    Well, there’s one upside: it proves to the anti-Semites that Jews really are like everyone else.

  44. 44.

    DougJ

    May 17, 2010 at 9:19 pm

    @Dave:

    open anti-semitism is pretty much de rigeur here from both posters and commenters.

    A fair number of the commenters here are Jewish. At least have the common courtesy to call them “self-hating” rather than “anti-Semitic”.

  45. 45.

    LosGatosCA

    May 17, 2010 at 9:23 pm

    The delay is because they are writing up the 100,000 word fatwa.

    That takes longer for Peretz and Wieseletier.

  46. 46.

    Joey Maloney

    May 18, 2010 at 12:21 am

    People like Dave want the Palestinians to disappear, like magic. Since there is no magic, they’re willing to settle for closing their eyes and pretending it’s magic. Of course to do that they have to ignore the sounds of heavy machinery and gunfire. But they’re perfectly willing to do that. When has the extreme right anywhere ever shrunk from self-delusion?

    I am typing this from Israel right now and let me tell you, it’s not only liberal American Jews who are giving up on the country. A large proportion of the secular people I’ve met, especially the younger ones, are consumed by the quest for a second passport. Everyone can see where this is heading, no one can see how to stop it, and no one sane wants to be caught without an escape hatch when the balloon finally goes up.

    To be precise, and this is important, they are giving up on the State of Israel and its awful, corrupt political system and its election rules that always give the balance of power to the most right-wing ultra-O racist splinter parties. They haven’t given up on Eretz Yisrael, they just don’t know how to defeat the former to achieve a just peace in the latter.

    Chag sameach shavuot, motherfuckers.

  47. 47.

    David Schraub

    May 18, 2010 at 12:51 am

    TNR’s Jon Chait has his reply up. He says the essay is “a call to arms to the American Jewish leadership that needs to be heeded”, and applauds Beinart because “somebody needs to grab the American Jewish leadership by the lapels and shake some sense into it.” He registers some objections too, of course, but all in all the first TNR reaction out of the gate to the Beinart piece is definitively a positive one.

  48. 48.

    Dave

    May 18, 2010 at 7:09 am

    lol, I love the fact that people think I’m some sort of AIPAC Teabagger. As admins will be able to tell you, I’m not even American (nor Israeli), nor would I ever vote for the current Republican Party in a thousand lifetimes. In fact, I’m probably more “progressive” than the lot of you put together.

    As for the so-called “Palestinians”, they already have a state. Its called Jordan. And its a damn sight more than they deserve really after starting five attempted wars of genocide in the last 70 years. If it had been any other country in the world, the West Bank would have been a car park by now.

  49. 49.

    Theron

    May 18, 2010 at 12:03 pm

    Occupation changes both the occupier and the occupied. To maintain an occupation, you must do certain things. Do these things enough, and it changes you.

    Nothing about what Beinart describes could be unexpected by anyone who has ever met (and understood) a human being.

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