Letters to the Editor
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The Stopped Clock Theory Goes For Everybody
including you, Vikingjew. While much of what you said about Walt and Mearsheim's paper and Goldberg's variations was so much pained Zionist entitlement wailing and moaning (like, is there a tape somebody runs, or do people really think up the exact same words every time someone fails to fall all over themselves in praise of everything Israeli?), it is true and correct that it is to Israel's benefit to maybe take a time-out from the unsavory relationship with America's right-wing, neocon, Christian fundaMENTAList, eschatological lunatic posse. It's also true Israel likely can take care of itself in most ways; however, it would never have achieved that status without untold billions having been tossed its way by the US, along with Made In The USA weaponry to assassinate Palestinian resistance leaders and pretty much anyone else who rubs them the wrong way. It would also be good for the American soul if such an estrangement to take place, because this nation wasn't built on ill will and murder for anyone who will simply acknowlege Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior, and you know goddamned well that's the real, bottom line reason for this sort of insane dedication to maintaining your line in the sand. Oh sure, oil figures in too, because there's always mercenaries under the eaves.
The really big question is: will a Democratic seizure of the legislature this November make any real difference? No. This is one area where party makes no difference, because most American Jews are Democrats and most American Republicans (one's observer being an exception) are waiting for The Lord to come back and reclaim the holey land (and it sure is fulla holes by now) for the Xtians you are just dying to embrace in that great gettin' up mawnin', correct? And they feel the same way about you. To them you are just temporary squatters like the A-rabs who have been all but shoved into the sea. Sand niggers and Heebs. You know it and I know it too. I don't like it, but there it is, underneath the rock. They hate you as much as they hate those rag heads as they affectionately call them. Well I hate them. I am a Republican, by the way, so I have already committed a sort of sampanku here just by opening my yap. As I said early on, I don't care. I got nothing to lose but my honor, and Dubya and company have already sold that away seventy times seven.
The fact remains that the paper was a good one, it is largely factual, and Ms. Goldberg's concern over the fact that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were overlooked strikes me as somehow insanely naive and yet strangely idiotic. Don't you think? I mean, there it is, supposedly the whole entire basis of anti-semitism - a notion so roundly discredited and utterly without redeeming value that were it attached to any other group it would be a running joke in Leno's monologue. Oh. Wait. There is a fallback scapegoat. The Masons. WE actually control everything, all the money, all the power, all the politics, everything, from behind that curtain over there. And WE made up the Protocols story to divert attention from us. Never mind that a huge number of us are PRACTICING Jews, and there'd better not be an atheist Jew - a contradiction in terms, yet oh so common - attending lodge, because if he is he has lied in the First Degree and you know what we do to people who betray The Craft - it's the Protocols story all over again. So, Baphomet aside, I just gotta ask you one question: are you serious? And if so, do you have a nice ass? Like I said, I got nothing to lose.
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AIPAC Elephant
So basically, with the exception of a few insignificant errors and instances where M&W weren't sufficiently painstaking to distinguish "Israel Lobby" from "Jewish community" or some such, the M&W paper is pretty much SPOT ON, huh? Yeah, I agree.
(Pretty long-winded article to arrive at an obvious conclusion.)
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Dershowitz *was* wrong on this point!
Michelle Goldberg writes:
Walt and Mearsheimer also confuse critical issues about Israeli citizenship, which they say is "based on the principal of blood kinship." That's simply not true -- as Dershowitz writes, "In reality, a person of any ethnicity or religion can become an Israeli citizen. In fact, approximately a quarter of Israel's citizens are not Jewish, a higher percentage of minority citizenry than in nearly any other country ... The paper's authors confuse Israel's law of return -- which was designed to grant asylum to those who were victims of anti-Semitism, including non-Jewish relatives of Jews -- with its law of citizenship."
Having read much that Dershowitz has written about Israel, I have found that it is wise to treat what he says in Israel's support with great care. It is Dershowitz who is twisting reality to defend Israel here, while Walt and Mearsheimer are being accurate.
The principal way of acquiring Israeli citizenship is through the law of return. While I don't know the precise number of people who've received Israeli citizenship through other provisions of the citizenship law, I am certain that it is minuscule.
And Israel's law of return can fairly be described as being "based on the principle of blood kinship". It grants the status of a "returnee" (which translates essentially automatically into citizenship) to a Jew, or anyone who is married to a Jew, or the child or grandchild of a Jew.
Dershowitz states that people "of any ethnicity or religion" can become Israeli citizens. This is simply a non-sequitur. Yes, they can, as long as they are married to or the descendants of a Jew. Dershowitz says that "approximately a quarter of Israel's citizens are not Jewish". That's true, but of those 25%, 20% are Palestinians who are descended from those who ended up in Israel at the conclusion of the 1948 war. Their being citizens says nothing about how citizenship is acquired. And the others are, as I noted above, married to or descendants of Jews.
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Freedom of Speech
I am still reading the Walt and Mearsheimer paper. I suggest that all who are interested google it and read it as well.
I shouldn't pronounce upon it until I'm done reading it, but a few preliminary thoughts: first, the authors say that our popular view of Israel as an underdog that must be supported or perish is faulty. I do believe Israel is vulnerable, and should be helped to protect itself. Israel does seem to have had a superior military and organizational capacity, but it cannot be overstated that they have liabilities as well: with only 7,000,000 people, it is only about 50 miles wide, perhaps 100 at its widest point. Set this against states like Iraq, which fired missiles on Israel in the Gulf War; Syria and Egypt, at times aggressors against Israel, with populations of millions just on Israel's borders; Iran, whose Hezbollah has exported terrorism to Lebanon; and Lebanon itself, which can take advantage of Israel's small size, to fire upon her. The truckbed-fired, shortrange Katyusha rockets have always been easily able to harry Israel; lately, the Qassam 1 and Qassam 2 rockets, very low-tech, have worried Israel as well, since even with their short range, they can easily lob a 12-pound payload into Israel's very midst (as mentioned, Israel is a thin country). I don't know how to defend against such rockets, or Saddam's Scud missiles, or against the missiles Iran may be developing (globalsecurity.org mentions that Iranian rocket scientists have been learning their trade from Russian facilities, in recent years), without American aircraft and missile defense systems.
Also, considering that whole populations of tens of millions of people (I don't believe that it's the entire Arab or Muslim world) have desired Israel's demise, I think it's completely honorable and sensible to be concerned to defend Israel. (None of the above should be read as endorsing the Iraq War, which I think was completely unnecessary, since sanctions had rendered Saddam's Iraq completely feeble by 2003, and since the Iraq War only opened up Iraq for Iranian provocateurs and terrorists to pour in; nor to justify any crazy ideas of starting a war against Iran.)
I have to ask reading this—where then, are the liberal and Progressive American and Israeli jews that are stepping up in an organized way to represent themselves and their ideas, and to combat their misrepresentation by hard-liners and zealots?
The liberal and progressive American and Israeli Jewish community are represented well by Tikkun magazine, in my opinion. (Being that this is such a contentious issue, we should expect that opinion, and every opinion, to be contested.)
As to the question of foreign aid, I also take issue with their characterization of the $3 billion per year in aid as "dwarfing" our aid to other countries. Directly relevant is our aid to Egypt, which amounts to $1.3 billion per year in military aid since 1979, according to the Christian Science Monitor. That's certainly more for Israel, but I wouldn't characterize it as "dwarfing" that aid to Egypt. Israel's birth coincided exactly with the beginning of the Cold War, in an area (North Africa and the Middle East) that all of its former European occupiers (Britain, France, Italy and Germany) had precipitately left, within a number of years that you could count on one hand. The US acted more on Egypt's behalf than on Israel's during the Suez Crisis of 1956, though for most of its history, we've firmly supported Israel. We aided both sides because we saw everything as a struggle with Soviet Russia. Middle East oil certainly played (and plays) its part.
However, it bothers me very much when such honorable support of Israel is repaid by anti-Islamic bigotry and arrogance, or worse, on Israel's part, or its advocates' part. The election of Ariel Sharon, facilitator of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, just after he provoked a second intifada by showing up at the Temple Mount, wasn't just a punch in the face to the Palestinians; it was a punch in the face to America as well. I'm supporting Israel so that they can survive, not so that anyone can lord it over the Palestinians and spite them, and certainly not so that the Palestinians can be mistreated. The article also brings up the fact that Israel has a funny way of repaying us for our loyalty to them. Though I hope our aid to Israel continues, I think that it should be carried on with an open, candid debate and the participation of the electorate. Those hoping to scream the authors into silence with knee-jerk charges of anti-Semitism should be ashamed of themselves.