Letters to the Editor
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@C.O. JONES, since you like orwell, who himself was not partial to jews
perhaps you'd like to know what he himself thought about it,
http://www.george-orwell.org/AntiSemitism_In_Britian/0.html -
"Jewish Power"
The criticism of the fact that a small minority of Jews seem to dictate what is seen as "Jewish policy" is extremely valid. How frauds like Joe Lieberman are considered "Jewish opinion," when vast majorities of American Jews oppose the war, vote democratic, etc., is a great key to how our broken media shapes narrative.
Why isn't Russ Feingold's opposition to the war "Jewish" opinion?
Barbara Boxer? Chuck Schumer? Carl Levin? Barney Frank? Soon to be senator Al Franken?
What I think Glenn misses is that those on the left who criticize wingnut radicals who defend Israel and happen to be Jewish differently than wingnut radicals who are not Jewish, is where there are legitimate slippages into historical anti-Semitism, conscious or not.
The notion of covert Jewish power working to manipulate America into a war for Israel is complete and utter bullshit.
If you took every Jewish Neo-Con out of the equation, the Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfield foolishness would still have taken place.
This was a war of stupidity based on arrogance, infallibility and notions of manifest destiny writ global.
To ascribe it to "Jewish influence" is where things get ugly on the left.
Glenn is correct to observe that wingnuts use Anti-Semitism as a shield from legitimate criticism.
But he is incorrect to downplay the very real presence on the left of Jewish conspiracy theories, vis a vis the great "Leo Strauss" (this century's Marx-is-a-Jew, I suppose) on down.
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ghj
When questioning Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians becomes equated with being anti-semitic, everyone loses. The current Middle East situation is a mess, but it is impossible to investigate possible ways out of the mess when one side can kill all discussion by accusations of anti-semitism.
When Jimmy Carter recently met with Hamas, I read a number of comments, (one I believe came from some arm of the Israeli government), which in effect stated that by meeting with Hamas, Carter had shown that he was not an unbiased party and had discredited himself as an honest broker. Yet if Carter didn't meet Hamas, because Israel objected, would that not also demonstrate an even more extreme bias? A comparable analogy would be if Jimmy Carter refused to meet with the Israeli government because the Palestinians don't recognize its legitimacy.
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@linus bern
do you believe that ex-presidents ought to meet with organizations against the expressed wishes of the present american government?
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David Sugarman...
...do you believe that ex-presidents ought to meet with organizations against the expressed wishes of the present american government?
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@Retired Military patriot
Yours is a reasonable question.
I think the main reason for the relative ineffectiveness of Jewish dissent is that the dissenters (e. g. Josh Marshall, Sy Hersh) don't make an issue of their Jewishness, as do the poobahs of AIPAC. So we are dissenters and critics on the general grounds of (what we perceive) as logic, ethics, practicality, what-have-you, rather than positions rooted in identity. Thata a number of the most deranged neocons (say F. Kagan, Feith, Perle, Kristol) are Jewish is neither here nor there, at least to me. Jews have been disputing (and fighting) Jews since before there were Jews as such (check out the Book of Kings, for example it's ironic that the name "Israel" for a state refers to the Northern KIngdom which split off from the South --- or Judah --- after Solomon's death and was utterly destroyed by the Assyrians whose geographical base was in what is now Iraq). And to at least understand a "momser" (a Yiddish expletive) like Joe Lieberman (D. - Likud), I think you have to acknowledge that he --- like me --- came of age when the Holocaust was a raw, bleeding wound to which the State of Israel promised relief, and that his course has been driven by that perception ever since.
In the Talmudic fashion, I'll add an answer to your question with a question: Who else has managed to be effective in challenging the misguided (that's being generous!) policies of this administration? And we are responsible as American citizens only for our own idiocies. You should also be aware that most Israelis (at least those that I have known, which is several dozen) tend to regard American Jews with some degree of disdain --- even though, and perhaps because -- it was American Jewish financial support that made Israel's early existence even possible. Thus it's not very likely that the opinions of American Jews could have influence on Israeli policy.
Finally, I have to say that it is my intuition, based on a long history, that the destruction of Israel as a political entity with the inevitable large-scale death and uprooting of its Jewish population would have severe negative effects on the rest of the world's Jews. I'm too old to expect much in that way personally, but I do have a year-old granddaughter, and in the way of human beings, I care about her future passionately. That is another dimension to why I care about what my country does.
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@hikkerguy
And how does this answer the question? That Jews control the Federal Reserve? (Is this a modern addendum to "The Protocols of Zion"?)
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so liberals who place the wellbeing of Iraqis above all else in this election are not guilty of divided loyalities
Interesting. Very interesting. Your handwringing is christlike, mine is treason. I await the next installment of Glenn Greenwalds "Those fucking Jews and all the things they deviously do to screw up America" part 213.
Good think Gary Kamiya now only writes about pinetrees, we wouldn't want anyone to steal the thunder.
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RE: jprfrog
"And how does this answer the question? That Jews control the Federal Reserve? (Is this a modern addendum to "The Protocols of Zion"?)"
To paraphrase the question as I recall it was "Why when the people want peace do their politicians take actions to prevent peace?"
I believe the owners of the Fed have the intent of asserting their fractional reserve banking system on the oil producing countries of the Middle East and the belligerence we see from Isreal and the bellicosity from the USA is in preparation for military action initially against Iran. I'm not sure but maybe Jews do own the Fed, it would explain the US governments unquestioning allegiance to Isreal.