From The New Republic, here's a review of Mearsheimer & Walt's book The Israel Lobby. Jeffrey Goldberg's review, which begins by drawing an extremely long analogy between Osama bin Laden and the two college professors, is headlined:
The Israel Lobby is an Act of Intimidation.That's a joke, right? Somebody, please tell me that's a joke.
Goldberg writes:
"It represents the most sustained attack, the most mainstream attack, against the political enfranchisement of American Jews since the era of Father Coughlin."
I hear that 31 states have already voted to pass the 28th Amendment to take the vote away from Jews. It's practically a done deal. The only thing that can stop it are vast contributions to Jewish lobbies. Better get your checkbooks out now or the Cossacks will be riding through Shaker Heights.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
This isn't related to the post, but I thought Steve would enjoy this site by a NY feminist as obsessed with IQ as Steve on a) racial composition of the military and b) immigration in NY.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jenisfamous.com/2007/09/mideast-tour-white-people-and-total.html
ReplyDeleteThe Jewish community has no special power or influence. And to prove it, they'll smash anyone who says different.
ReplyDeleteBut if Podhoretz's portrayal of Jews' beliefs is correct, then the old parody, "Any criticism of Jews is a potential Auschwitz," turns out to be what the Jewish community has believed all along. What this means is that in the minds of Jews, any desire on the part of gentiles to maintain an all-gentile country club, or any statement by a Christian, no matter how mild and civilized, that shows any concern about any aspects of the cultural and political influence of secular Jews in American life, is an expression of anti-Jewish bigotry that could easily lead to mass extermination, and therefore it must be ruthlessly suppressed.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={B088749A-C286-48BD-AE6F-0D515394D5A0}
Even Richard Dawkins is being accused of anti-semitism. Which, for him, must make a nice change.
ReplyDeleteOf course the Israeli Lobby is an act of intimidation. That's why it exists (intimidation is implicit in lobbying groups and The IL is the lobbying group to end all lobbying groups)!
ReplyDeleteThis was a funny line from Goldberg's article:
ReplyDelete"But since many people in the West are queasy about attaching the label of anti-Semitism to almost anybody..."
Gee, I barely even knew the term anti-semite existed, until Goldberg mentioned it.
Shorter version:
ReplyDeleteIt is an odious tradition, and I do not see how any thoughtful or decent individual would wish to belong to it. (I say thoughtful because the theory has no analytical value, and decent because the theory has harmful consequences.) But the tradition has now found a couple of unexpected new tribunes. The Judeocentric understanding of America's foreign policy is now the special province of two ostensibly reputable scholars, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University. 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.
In the article, the word "lobby" was ominously capitalized, Robert Ludlum style, as "the Lobby," to connote the perfect grip of pro-Israel activists upon Washington. In their new book, which builds on (and worsens) that earlier work, Mearsheimer and Walt lower-case the word "lobby," as a small tribute, I suppose, to the reality-based community. They have also excised some of the rougher language of their original blast. They have corrected some, though not all, of their errors of fact. But otherwise the book remains true to the malignant and dishonest spirit of the article. It represents the most sustained attack, the most mainstream attack, against the political enfranchisement of American Jews since the era of Father Coughlin.
The rest of the article is entirely devoted to Osama bin Laden with guest appearances by Pat Buchanan, Mel Gibson, David Duke, Louis Farrakhan.
It represents the most sustained attack, the most mainstream attack, against the political enfranchisement of American Jews since the era of Father Coughlin.
If Father Coughlin's completely inconsequential campaign against the Jews is the best he could come up with, then what is this idiot worried about? Is Goldberg seriously suggesting that criticizing groups that lobby for the interests of a foreign nation is the same as attacking the right of American Jews to vote?
Danie Levy has a good review of the book here.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the most ironic line in the entire article appears on page four:
ReplyDeleteYes, bin Laden has Jews on the brain. But he also obsesses about much else.
Yes, Goldberg has bin Laden on the brain. But he also obsesses about much else; namely, other anti-semites.
First thing that came to mind when I saw the headline,"Act of Intimidation" was Groucho Marx's line,"Let us enjoy the sex act before Congress repeals it!" I think this guy is trying to go down the vile and ugly 'hate crimes' route that has been so succesful in Europe. You write something I dont like;I say I am not just offended,but I am(sob)hurt and intimidated. Its an act of "hate". Therefore you need to stop writing it,cuz you're attacking me. Just like if 6 lunkheads try to kick my skull in,they need to be--uhm,OK,bad example. But you get the idea! :) I noticed several jewish columnists responded to attacks on the Israeli Lobby the same way:"In a democracy,its perfectly OK to influence government. So shut up already." Almost like they were reading from an ADL handout. But of course thats ridiculous...right?? (Steve Huntley and Neil Steinberg at the Chi. Suntimes seem psychically attuned to Charlie Krauthammer--the Mad Psychiatrist!)
ReplyDeleteWhatever you do, don't talk about their disproportionate power, wealth and influence. The lobby can brag about, Adam Sandler can sing about it, but you're not even allowed to suggest that Jews may have more influence than, say, Jehovah's Witnesses. Or the Amish.
ReplyDeleteActive Duty Military Deaths presents some interesting statistics.
ReplyDeleteFor example, while the numbers are perhaps too small to draw conclusions from, black females make up a larger proportion of deaths than their share of the population.
Also, since Vietnam, black males seem to have died in proportion to their share of the population. Of course, I think white males have outdone their share of the population.
Hey Steve, LSU has -- drum roll -- rarest of rare birds, a white running back, Jacob Hester!
ReplyDeleteThink of all the genetic handicaps plucky Mr. Hester has had to overcome.
Maybe somebody ought to investigate his ancestry and see who's really up Jake's family tree.
:0]
manindarkhat,
ReplyDeleteThanks for that link. Auster is on the ball:
First of all, as crazy as it may sound, there is something that many American Jews fear in their heart of hearts even more than they fear Moslem anti-Semitism, and that is white Christian anti-Semitism.
Jacob hester mugshot:
ReplyDeletehttp://texas.rivals.com/viewprospect.asp?pr_key=15655
Fullback
Shreveport (LA) Evangel Christian
Ht: 5-foot-10
Wt: 234 lbs
Forty: 4.6 secs
Bench max: 315 pounds
Bench reps: 25
Squat max: 505 pounds
Vertical: 29 inches
GPA: 3.0
ACT: 17
Class: 2004 (High School)
///////////////////////////
Speaking of Israel, there's a lot of vagueness regarding the recent israeli airstrike in Syria. Soem accounts have it that IAF aricraft dropped dropped their munitions prematurely and turned back without hitting anything after Syria's Russian military radars lit up Israeli radar warning receivers.
I dunno about that, but some of the Internet reports about the Israelis having totally jammed and paralyzed Syrian radars seem exaggerated.
"Speaking of Israel, there's a lot of vagueness regarding the recent israeli airstrike in Syria. Soem accounts have it that IAF aricraft dropped dropped their munitions prematurely and turned back without hitting anything after Syria's Russian military radars lit up Israeli radar warning receivers.
ReplyDeleteI dunno about that, but some of the Internet reports about the Israelis having totally jammed and paralyzed Syrian radars seem exaggerated."
---------------------------------
That seems untrue, given consensus reporting by various outlets including Jane's Defense Weekly which usually gets these things right.
What is uniformly reported is that the entire Russian (brand new btw) Air Defense grid went down. Completely. Also all radio comms including cell phones.
What was alleged to have been dropped was refueling tanks (in Turkish territory no less).
Also, Rice confirmed that the US and Israel had discussed the site of interest in Syria, which had NK-Syrian joint ballistic missile and unspecified "nuclear" facilities (which could have been holding facilities or something else).
What was surprising was that the US had missed it and Israel spotted it. Rice insisted on Israel "notifying" Baby Assad of the site months before the raid. [Likely conclusion: State/Rice at least does not want any confrontation and is perfectly willing to let Israel be the "test case" for what happens when a dangerous enemy puts nukes/chem weapons into a ballistic missile nearby. Also that Rice/State have the power to pull this off.]
Regardless, the raid was a shock to Assad (and the Iranians who bought a similar brand-new Russian-made system). Because Israel was able to penetrate without warning and bringing the whole Air Defense system down. Either Israel has some fantastic new technology or has spies who penetrated various weak points in the Russian-made system (either in Russia or Syria or Iran). Either way this gives pause to both Iran and Syria and is likely to reduce aggressive acts by both marginally since there is more uncertainty about Israeli retaliation.
[Of course Hamas in Gaza/West Bank are not constrained at all.]
----------------------------
If you are a Jew concerned about Israel [some Jews are not, and would consider Israelis being wiped out somewhere between a good thing and indifferent, example: Noam Chomsky] then the argument that Walt and Mearsheimer put forward is very dangerous.
Walt, Mearshimer, (and Obama, Clinton, most Dems, Ron Paul, and the Paleo-cons like Buchanon) all argue the same thing:
If the US just "lets" Iran/Hezbollah kill another 5-6 million Jews, Muslims will be "happy" and leave America alone. This basically was the argument of Chamberlain in 1938 wrt Hitler and Czechoslovakia.
Pretty much the entire world wants to wipe out the 5 to 6 million Jews in Israel. It's very popular in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and of course all Muslim Countries. Europe and much of Leftist-Hard-Rightist America as well.
IRONICALLY those most opposed to simply letting Ahmadinejad "wipe Israel off the map" are Evangelical Conservatives, who consider Jews deserving of protection as part of a Christian mission, ordinary conservatives (like Fred, Rudy, Romney, and McCain), and neo-cons like Dick Cheney.
Do Jews concerned with relatives in Israel being "wiped off the map" have reason for concern? Yes.
The influence of lunatics like Ron Paul and the Paulnuts is limited. But the mainstream Democratic Party is overtly anti-semitic, and wants appeasement at any price.
[Anon above -- Father Coughlin was Hitler's paid pal, and did a lot of damage along with lefties like Woody Guthrie. Who in 1940 got an award from the DAR for his record urging Americans to "stay out of Mr. Roosevelt's war for the Jews." -- Coughlin and the Bund were dangerous because the sought to keep America out of the war until Hitler subdued Britain (like Israel an "unsinkable Aircraft carrier") and worked for the enemy of the US]
"The influence of lunatics like Ron Paul and the Paulnuts is limited."
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous Long-Winded Neocon:
I'm not a Ron Paul supporter. I think he falls back on unworkable libertarian platitudes on various issues. But describing him as a lunatic is comical.
Can we assume that if Paul pledged fealty to AIPAC & Tel Aviv that his "lunacy" would be cured?
Meanwhile Rudy-Judy is an egomaniacal, autocratic, cross-dressing homewrecker. But he's solid on Israel, so therefore he is... sane.
Anon 10/07/2007 4:27 PM said:
ReplyDeleteIf the US just "lets" Iran/Hezbollah kill another 5-6 million Jews, Muslims will be "happy" and leave America alone.
My, I am behind the times, I hadnt realised that Iran/Hezbollah had already killed 5-6 milliom jews.
This basically was the argument of Chamberlain in 1938 wrt Hitler and Czechoslovakia.
And again I learn something new! I had stupidly thought that Chamberlain was trying to maintain some sort of stability and peace in Europe, however ineffectually or misguidedly. But no, turns out it was all about the jews after all.
Pretty much the entire world wants to wipe out the 5 to 6 million Jews in Israel. It's very popular in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and of course all Muslim Countries. Europe and much of Leftist-Hard-Rightist America as well.
Do they? Again, thats news to me. Going back to Chamberlain, so how do you account for Britain going to war in 1939 then? Im glad you are so 'grateful' to us.
I should point out that Im a Brit.Im glad that my grandfathers survived the war albeit with some mental and physical scars which they carried for the rest of their peacetime lives. But what does that matter eh? Not when they formed part of this majority who want 5-6 million jews dead. So much so that they fought in the British forces for the majority of the war against the Nazis. Im glad you appreciate that.
Not long ago I first heard that jews actually fought against the British in Palestine - during WW2, not just post 1945. Unfricking believable!
So my ancestors 'had' to fight the nazis to save your ancestors who felt no obligation not to pursue their own selfish ends. Why didnt your ancestors 'have' to fight the nazis? Id love to hear your argument there. And lets not mention USS LIberty shall we.
You mention McCain as a conservative (and a righteous gentile I presume) what a shame he destroyed his presidential hopes /irony. Well primarily he wanted open borders for the US. So I take it we can see Israeli politicians arguing the same for Israel anytime now and you cheering them on. Sauce for the goose and all that.
lunatics like Ron Paul
Indeed, how dare Paul think he might represent Americans and pay attention to the constitution. Doesnt he know whats really important.
Woody Guthrie. Who in 1940 got an award from the DAR for his record urging Americans to "stay out of Mr. Roosevelt's war for the Jews."
Now that is an odd thing for you to say. Your comment regarding Chamberlain and 1938 makes clear your belief that the war and its run-up were all about the jews and not other geo-political concerns. Woody Guthrie says the same thing and you get upset. Either it was or it wasnt, be consistent old chap.
Israel is an unsinkable aircraft carrier is it. Can we get a handle on just when its going to be used then. Its been 60 years now and Im not aware of any significant sorties launched by US or allied air forces from this base - only Israeli ones. Those runways not quite ready yet? Perhaps, a few last minute touches to the paint on the hangers, a glitch in the lighting system. Once thats done, oh yes, that aircraft carrier will be a sight for sore eyes, anytime now eh?
ReplyDeleteThe UK otoh has been used consistently since 1942 as a US forward base.
This is about what you can expect from the formerly liberal New Republic. The pro-war, anti arab rants were the reason I stopped my subscription.
ReplyDeletethe mainstream Democratic Party is overtly anti-semitic
ReplyDeleteThat is certainly the finest nugget of idiocy I've read today. Jews vote 75% in favor of Democrats, so I guess they must be pretty stupid to give such strong support to a party that hates them.
I haven't read the book, only the paper, but this reaction is obviously so hyperbolic as to be, well, sad really.
ReplyDelete(It should be said I didn't find many of the actual arguments in the paper *that* convincing, even though I agree with the overall conclusion that the US should be more hands-off in the Middle East / Israel.)
If AIPAC keeps financing US congressmen, senators and vice presidents to invade Iraq and Iran, then the real danger to the organization will come from those anti-semites in the Mossad, who will start whacking billionaire US Jews in self defense.
ReplyDeleteThe long-winded paranoid neocon strikes again!
ReplyDeleteWhat is uniformly reported
ReplyDeleteYou say “uniformly.” Maybe several news venues got the same press release, and that’s what is uniform.
is that the entire Russian (brand new btw) Air Defense grid went down. Completely. Also all radio comms including cell phones.
Very hard to believe, for technical reasons, unless the Israelis had guys on the ground to cut some land lines.
What was alleged to have been dropped was refueling tanks (in Turkish territory no less).
That’s suspicious too, for two reasons: (a) doesn’t seem likely that the F-15’s and -16’s would need external fuel, considering that they took off from an airfield in Turkey, and (b) dropping fuel tanks inside Turkey would have been premature, unless there was some emergency.
It sounds like a propaganda job – the notional friends of Israel boasting about Israel’s military prowess and intelligence cleverness – boasting a bit too much.
The Israeli Air Force has some ordnance damage assessment videos lensed from on board their aircraft, don’t they? Why doesn’t the IAF share some of that video with the rest of the world, to show what the IAF accomplished?
If the IAF really did a big job, why not share some video showing their good results?
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteThe long-winded paranoid neocon strikes again!
Yep, and he reveals himself to be a crazy Philip-Roth-style Jew. The non-Jews--Nazis--are everywhere! EVERYWHERE!
Remember, friends: The absolute imperative of all beings in the world is to work for the success of Jews in Israel. All else be damned. If you don't accept this imperative, then you're a Nazi genocidalist and should be killed.
Watch out! Osama is behind that tree, American goyim!
(Yes, you can tell I'm sick of "The LWPN" [long-winded paranoid neocon].)
On the basis of the stats presented by the Active Military Duty Deaths link, one would think that the proportion of blacks in the US armed forces is greater than that in the general population.
ReplyDeleteIs there another statistic that the US military has failed to provide, like, say, the actual participation rate. That might have some bearing on stats relating to IQ and death rate that came out of an Australian study.
Chutzpah-of-the-week award goes to:
ReplyDeleteBut it was in 1996 that Mr Wurmser first shot to notoriety when he was one of the authors of a document entitled "Clean Break" produced for Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israel's prime minister.
Its authors, who also included Richard Perle, a leading light in neoconservatism, Mr Feith, and Mr Wurmser's wife Meyrav, advocated pre-emptive strikes against Iran and Syria and the abandonment of traditional "land for peace" negotiations with Palestinians.
"It was one-stop shopping for a conspiracy theorist," said Mr Wurmser.
"They see it as a blueprint hatched in Israel to finagle the US into a strategic campaign on Israel's behalf."
In fact, he insists, "the very spirit of the document is the inverse" in that it urges Israel to act in the interests of the West.
Link
The thing I have to admit about Dawkins is that he succeeded in realizing every British nerd's dream, and marrying a Doctor Who companion. Can't beat that!
ReplyDeleteLook, here's the deal. Gentiles are out to get Jews. Always have been, always will be. They may act nice (like Americans try to) but you can never forget what they have done for 2000-3000 years. And you can never really trust them, for anti-Semitism is like a mental virus that, once in their cultural "bloodstream", is utterly ineradicable. It just lies dormant for a while -- sometimes short, sometimes long.
ReplyDeleteOk, that's the Reform, Conservative and Morthodox line.
The Orthodox and Haredi dogma is that God sent the gentiles to punish the Jews for their failure to follow halacha. They believe that the Holocaust was God's will, and the Jews brought it on themselves
(This [ahem] slight difference in perspective also explains why many, many secular Israeli and Haredi Jews hate each other with a passion.)
And as Mike illustrates above, we now know why Jews are so reluctant to live in European dominated countries, rarely venturing ourside Israel.
ReplyDeleteAnd you can never really trust them, for anti-Semitism is like a mental virus that, once in their cultural "bloodstream", is utterly ineradicable.
ReplyDeleteI'm no fan of anti-Semitism, nor do I consider myself anti-Semitic, and I tend to think that we should probably be more delicate when discussing the issue so we don't come off seounding that way.
But I find it hard, difficult, impossible to believe that the phenomenon of anti-Semitism - one that has circled the globe, and existed in every nation where there have been Jews (and in some where there weren't) - is entirely the fault of non-Jews.
The fact is Jews bear some portion of the blame for distrust of Jews. I don't know what the percentage is, but it's certainly more than 10% though less than 100%.
"Woody Guthrie. Who in 1940 got an award from the DAR for his record urging Americans to "stay out of Mr. Roosevelt's war for the Jews."
ReplyDeleteWhich record was this? I'm pretty familiar with Guthrie's life and music, and I know he was an isolationist up until Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, but I don't ever recall him explicitly Jew-baiting like that. For all his faults, I don't think Woody ever had a bone of prejudice in his body. Indeed, his second wife, Marjorie Mazia (who was born as Marjorie Greenblatt) was Jewish. That means his most well-known son, Arlo Guthrie, is half-Jewish. Woody even collaborated with his mother-in-law, Aliza Greenblatt, to write a few Yiddish folk songs "http://www.woodyguthrie.org/merchandise/klezmatics.htm"
So I'd really appreciate it if you told me where and when Woody Guthrie ever called WWII a "war for the Jews," because the actions of the rest of his incredible life are totally inconsistent with him making a statement like that.