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JEWISH THOUGHT
ON AMERICA, ISRAEL, IRAQ, WAR , ANTI- SEMITISM THE FUTURE
OF AMERICA AND
OTHER SUBJECTS
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To reach a linked passage depress control and click on the desired passage description in this column
Ariel Sharon on
first day of Iraq war. Krautheimer on
going to war and the future if America withdraws from Iraq.
Senator
Joseph Lieberman on need for the war. William
Safire argues for the war in 2002. Jonathan Tobin,
executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent stated in March,
2003 that most Jews favor the war but are advised to keep quiet about it for
good reasons. Lawrence F.
Kaplan. Premature withdrawal from Iraq would be devastating to the cause of
Israel. More Kaplan, 7/8/03, popular Iraq war and war with Iran. (scapegating of jews) Leslie Susser of Jewish Telegraph Agency
describes capture of Saddam as a benefit to Israel Stephen Steinlight, retired National
Director of The American Jewish Committee, describes financial basis of Jewish
political power and the forthcoming gradual demise of this power. He describes the effect
of demographics and immigration on the future power of American
Jews. Mr Steinlight says jews are
concerned with rising Muslim presence from current immigration policies. He
further notes that with the consolidation of other immigrant blocs such as Asians
and Hispanics, Jews cannot expect to see America continue to
send 80% of it's foreign aid to Israel Mr. Steinlight brings his scholarly
dissertation to a close by observing that Jews should not be afraid to
"pursue their interests" in dealing with the rising Muslim
influence arising. Ron Kampeas, writing for the
Jewish Telegraphic Association in September, 2005, describes the
discomfiture of passionately anti Iraq war jews protesting the war beside
groups who accuse Israel of being the dog that wags the American tail and the
real cause of the war. Robert Kagan, in the Washington Post of 9/12/05 remarks
that a rading of professional journals now reveals that no more than 6 or 7
people ever supported going to war. He then quotes various persons who pushed
war then. New York Post,3/11/03. Anti war people are
politically psychotic RICHARD COHEN, Washington
Post, March 13, 2003. Offensive but not anti-semetic opposition to
the war Doran Behar and Karl Skorecki
of a Haifa medical center discover that four women are the ancestors of
40% of living Ashkenazim. Cool’
anti-Semitism By Caroline B. Glick Jan. 23. 2006, Jewish
World Review. William Kristol and Lawrence Kaplan's book The War Over Iraq: Saddam's Tyranny and
America's Mission eloquently makes the case for war and
: "...the idea that Saddam Hussein is
the preeminent danger to world civilization." ISRAEL ECONOMY
UP IN 2004. Neal Sandler, in Jerusalem Amnon Barzilai, Haaretz. China and Israel
reestablishing weapons cooperation following resolution of Phalcon episode Mathew
E. Berger, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 23, 2003. Jewish groups
discuss keeping their support of the war quiet. . ISRAEL FEARS U.S. RESOLVE IN IRAQ.Lislie
Susser, Jewish Telegraph Agency, 4/15/04 |
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Charles Krauthammer, published every week in every important American newspaper, has supported regime change in Iraq from the beginning and strongly criticises those who call for American withdrawal from Iraq on two main grounds: 1. America must continue to threaten and perhaps attack middle eastern governments that are hostile to the United States and Israel; 2. If America withdraws from Iraq it will become a base for more deadly attacks in the future and a magnet for those who hate America and Israel. He said, on January 24, 2003, before the
March 20 invasion: "The window of legitimacy having
closed, delay has no upside. There will be no talking our way out of the
opposition of France, Germany and the others. The only tonic for that
opposition will be an American victory that changes the landscape of the
region." He was talking about the upcoming March 20, 2003 invasion
of Iraq which engendered the adjacent March 20, 2003 message of
Ariel Sharon. Mr. Krauthammer's January 24, 2003 column
is the culmination of his remarks on numerous occasions. In his February 1,
2002 Jewish World Review column he stated: "But Iran is not a ready candidate for
the blunt instrument of American power, because it is in the grips of a
revolution from below. We can best accelerate that revolution by the power of
example and success: Overthrowing neighboring radical regimes shows
the fragility of dictatorship, challenges the mullahs' mandate from heaven
and thus encourages disaffected Iranians to rise. First, Afghanistan to the east.
Next, Iraq to the west. Which brings us to Iraq. Iraq is what this
speech was about. If there was a serious internal debate within the
administration over what to do about Iraq, that debate is over. The speech
was just short of a declaration of war. It thus addressed the central war question
today: After Afghanistan, where do we go from here? Stage Two, now in
progress, is the reaching for low-hanging fruit: searching for terrorists in
the Philippines, Bosnia, Somalia; pressuring former bad guys like Yemen (or
Sudan?) to repent. But this is all prologue. Stage Three is
overthrowing Saddam Hussein. That will require time and planning, during
which Stage Two goes forward and gets the headlines. But between this year's
State of the Union and next year's, the battle with Iraq will have been
joined." Mr. Krauthammer has an unmatched record for
predicting events that involve Israel. He has recently turned to the anti war
movement rising in the United States with his September 30, 2005 column in
Jewish World Review where he had this to say: "Maureen Dowd
of the New York Times claims that Sheehan's "moral authority" on
the war is "absolute." This is obtuse. Sheehan's diatribes against
George Bush -- "lying bastard"; "filth-spewer and
warmonger"; "biggest terrorist in the world" -- have no more
moral standing than Joseph Kennedy's vilification of Franklin Roosevelt. And
if Sheehan speaks with absolute moral authority, then so does Diane Ibbotson
-- and the other mothers who have lost sons in Iraq yet continue to support
the mission their sons died for and bitterly oppose Sheehan for discrediting
it. The antiwar
movement has found itself ill served by endowing absolute moral authority on
a political radical who demanded that American troops leave not just Iraq but
"occupied New Orleans." Who blames Israel for her son's death. Who
complained that the news media went "100 percent rita" -- "a
little wind and a little rain" -- rather than covering other things in
the world, meaning her. Most tellingly,
Sheehan demands withdrawal not just from Iraq but also from Afghanistan, a
war that is not only just by every possible measure but also remarkably
successful. The mainstream opposition view of Iraq is that, while deposing
the murderous Saddam Hussein was a moral and even worthy cause, the
enterprise was misconceived and/or bungled, too ambitious and unwinnable, and
therefore not worth expending more American lives. That is not Sheehan's
view. Like the hard left in the Vietnam War, she declares the mission itself
corrupt and evil: The good guys are the "freedom fighters" -- the
very ones who, besides killing thousands of Iraqi innocents, killed her son,
too. You don't build a
mass movement on that. Nor on antiwar rallies like the one last weekend in
Washington, organized and run by a front group for the Workers World Party.
The WWP is descended from Cold War Stalinists who found other communists
insufficiently rigorous for refusing to support the Soviet invasion of
Hungary. Thus a rally ostensibly against war is run by a group that
supported the Soviet invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan,
the massacre in Tiananmen Square, and a litany of the very worst mass
murderers of our time, including Slobodan Milosevic, Hussein and Kim Jong Il.
You don't seize the moral high ground in America with fellow travelers such
as these. For all the
Vietnam nostalgia at the Washington march, things are different today. In
Vietnam it could never be plausibly argued that Ho Chi Minh was training
commandos to bring down skyscrapers in New York. Today, however, Americans
know that this is precisely what our jihadist enemies have pledged to do. Moreover, Vietnam
offered a seeming middle way between immediate withdrawal on the one hand and
staying the course on the other: negotiations, which in the end did take
place. Today there is no one to negotiate with, no middle ground, not even an
apparent plausible compromise. The only choices are to succeed in
establishing a self-sufficient, democratic Iraq or to call an abject retreat
that not only gives Iraq over to the tender mercies of people who specialize
in blowing up innocents but also makes it a base of operations for worldwide
jihad. The very fact that
Cindy Sheehan and her WWP comrades are so enthusiastic for the latter outcome
tells you how difficult it will be to turn widespread discontent about the
war into a mainstream antiwar movement." Charles
Krautheimer has has been prescient so far and he predicts that an American
withdrawal from Iraq will make it a base of worldwide jihad operations. He
predicted that we would go to war with Iraq and predicted the time within a
couple of months. Mr.
Krauthammer may be again in the prediction business with his January 3, 2003
column where he said: http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com
| "When the secretary of state goes on
five Sunday morning talk shows to deny that something is a crisis, it is a
crisis. The administration has been downplaying the gravity of North Korea's
nuclear breakout, and for good reason. For now, there is little the
administration can do. No point, therefore, in advertising our helplessness.
" Mr. Krauthammer went on to point out that: " there is no overestimating the
seriousness of the problem. If we did not have so many of our military assets
tied up in the Persian Gulf, we would today have carriers off the coast of
Korea and be mobilizing reinforcements for our garrison there." He then accuses North Korea of being on its
way to selling nuclear weapons to all comers. He says that North Korea, once
they reactivate their plutonium plant, will be months away from a nuclear
device. He points out that the United States has
few cards to play in this game. We cannot bluff that we are able to fight two
wars at once. Korea knows that we cannot. He goes on to explain that
America's entanglement in Iraq provides the opportunity for North Korea to
"brazenly go nuclear.". AMERICA
SHOULD PROVIDE JAPAN WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS Mr.
Krauthammer says the way to handle the situation is to point out to
North Korea and it's sponsor, China, that North Korea is vulnerable to a
withdrawal of the foreign food and aid which keeps it from collapsing and to
a blockade of it's very few ports. China, which supplies a major fraction of
North Korea's energy needs should threaten to withdraw that support. In the
absence of Chinese cooperation he says the United States should
encourage Japan to develop a nuclear bomb and should show a willingness
to supply Japan with interim nuclear armaments.
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THE
CASE FOR TOPPLING SADDAM Mr. Netanyahu is a leading member of
Likud, the party leading Israel during the run up to the war, has been a
cabinet minister and is a strong contender for Prime Minister if Likud
is dominant after the election. Mr. Netanyahu's position can be reduced to
these points: "I do not mean to suggest that there
are not legitimate questions about a potential operation against Iraq.
Indeed, there are. But the question of whether removing the Saddam
regime is itself legitimate is not one of them. Equally immaterial is the
argument that America cannot oust Saddam without prior approval of the international
community." He further pursued his call for action by
noting: "The dangers posed by a nuclear-armed
Saddam were understood by my country two decades ago, well before Sept. 11. In
1981, Prime Minister Menachem Begin dispatched the Israeli air force on a
predawn raid that destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. Though at
the time Israel was condemned by all the world's governments, history has
rendered a far kinder judgment on that act of unquestionable foresight and
courage." Mr. Netanyahu went on: "Two decades ago it was possible to
thwart Saddam's nuclear ambitions by bombing a single installation. Today
nothing less than dismantling his regime will do. For Saddam's nuclear
program has changed. He no longer needs one large reactor to produce the
deadly material necessary for atomic bombs. He can produce it in centrifuges
the size of washing machines that can be hidden throughout the country -- and
Iraq is a very big country. Even free and unfettered inspections will not
uncover these portable manufacturing sites of mass death." "Though I am today a private citizen,
I believe I speak for the overwhelming majority of Israelis in supporting a
pre-emptive strike against Saddam's regime. We support this American action
even though we stand on the front-lines, while others criticize it as they
sit comfortably on the sidelines. But we know that their sense of comfort is
an illusion. For if action is not taken now, we will all be threatened by a
much greater peril." "If a preemptive action will be
supported by free countries and the U.N., all the better. but if such support
is not forthcoming, then the U.S. must be prepared to act without it. This
will require courage and I see it abundantly present in President Bush's bold
leadership and in the millions of Americans who have rallied behind
him." USA WAR IS FOR FREEDOM, LIBERTY AND
DEMOCRACY Ariel Sharon,
Israeli prime minister on March 20, 2003, the day the war began.
(communicated by Mr. Sharon's media adviser): Good Afternoon. Several hours ago US and
allied military forces began their attack against the Iraqi tyrant, Saddam
Hussein. The goal of this attack is the overthrow of a despot who
possesses weapons of mass destruction. ...The State of Israel is not taking
part in this war but we well understand the dangers of regimes such as that
of Saddam Hussein. We well understand the dangers posed by tyrants who use
terror and possess weapons of mass destruction. We recognize the threat posed
by local, regional and global terror. However we are not involved in this
war. " "I hope and believe that the
successful completion of the American campaign in Iraq and the
uprooting of the evil terrorist regime of Saddam Hussein will mark the
beginning of a new era, one that is better for our region and for the entire
world. " Senator
Joseph Lieberman, on November 29,
2005, published in the Wall Street Journal and other publications his view
that "Our Troops Must Stay". He said we can have a smaller military
presence in Iraq by 2007 and that we are embedding a core of American and
coalition troops in every Iraqi fighting unit "which makes each unit
more effective and acts as a multiplier of our forces." Senator
Lieberman supported the war and in 2002 sharply disagreed with Al Gore's
reservations about the war, saying "I'm grateful President Bush wants to
do this (in Iraq), and I don't question his motives" defending the
president against charges that his advocacy of going to war was rooted
in his desire to please political groups. WILLIAM SAFIRE, a long established editorial columnist, in his
October 7, 2002 column argued forcefully for war. He emphasized that the two
reasons for the war - 1. The destruction of Iraq's present and future
weapons of mass destruction and 2. " 'Regime change'_to overthrow
Saddam Hussein, liberate the Iraqi people and remove the threat of terrorism
against the U.S." were inseparable and must both be accomplished. Mr. Safire concluded this column with a
reiteration of his prior published report that the German minister of
defense had told the German cabinet that President Bush's motive in attacking
Iraq was to win support from the American Jewish lobby. He mentioned the
existence of three sources who were present at the cabinet meeting in
refutation of the defense minister's denial. JONATHAN TOBIN a widely respected columnist in the Jewish press had
much to say about the war in his March 28, 2003 Jewish World Review
article. He recounted how during the months and weeks
before the beginning of the war the "word coming from national American
Jewish organizations to their constituents was clear: Stay out of
it" He noted that few Jewish groups ignored
this directive and that keeping a low profile on the war became "something
of an obsession" in much or most of Jewish organizations. In fact a pro Bush administration rally on
March 23, 2003 by the Zionist Organization of America led to criticism
by Jewish leaders as "using bad judgment". Mr. Tobin explains this conduct on the
basis of fear. He notes that for all the "chest pounding pride that many
American Jews rightly exhibit about Jewish accomplishments and acceptance in
this country" they are afraid to talk about the war. He noted that many but not all American Jews
support President Bush's aims but are unwilling to talk about that publicly
because they fear anti-Semitism which is on the rise in anti war Europe. Many
European intellectuals despise President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon and
Americans. Robert Novak and Pat Buchanan base their opposition to the
Iraq war on the idea that the war is here more for the sake of
Israel than for the sake of the United States, citing the Jewish contingent
in the Bush administration. Mr. Tobin notes that the Anti Defamation
League was cautious in the beginning but now is supporting the war and
stating that "The need to stop Hussein is clear". Mr. Tobin states that Israel will suffer if
Saddam Hussein wins the war and that if the United States wins
more than just Israel will benefit. Mr. Tobin's final call to action is an
eloquent one: "American Jews, who have always played
a leadership role on important policy questions, cannot falter now. Contrary
to the opinion of the anti-war crowd, you don't have to be Jewish to oppose
terror and support democracy abroad. But it shouldn't stop you from speaking
out if you are. " LAWRENCE F.
KAPLAN, a senior editor of
The New Republic, had his say on recent efforts to get America out of
Iraq when his December 23, 2005 Wall Street Journal article made these
points: Mr. Kaplan castigated a Jewish group
currently advocating American withdrawal from Iraq because they do not
recognize that the clear result of an American withdrawal would be "Iraq's
transformation into a den of terror." Mr. Kaplan emphasizes that Israeli
officials were lukewarm about the war from the beginning, and much more
concerned about Iran. Mr. Kaplan cites a recent Yeshiva
University poll revealing that two thirds of American Jews are against
the war on the way to reaching his apparent conclusion that an American
pullout from Iraq would be disastrous for Israel and that most American Jews
are and were against the war and want us out of Iraq. He
remarks that Reform Jewish leaders have put their cliches about social
equality and domestic spending above the interests of Judaism itself. Leslie
Susser writes regularly for
the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and on 12/18/2003 described Israeli jubilation
at Saddam's capture. He went on to describe this event as putting more
pressure on the Palestinians to seek an accommodation with Israel. The
Israeli stock market rose 3% that day and Israeli analysts noted that this
event could pressure Syria to seek a peace agreement and enhance Israel's
strategic position. If Saddam's capture leads to a significant reduction in
attacks on U.S. and allied forces and a more stable pro-American Iraqi regime
the benefits for Israel could be enormous Mr. Susser said. . Stephen
Steinlight, who
was for five years Director of National Affairs (domestic policy) at The
American Jewish Committee has written extensively on the challenge to
Jewish influence in America from the changing demographics and racial and
ethnic composition of the nation. As a Fellow of the Center for
Immigration Studies he published an October, 2001 article
describing the effect of immigrants on the Jewish power structure
in America both currently and predictably in the future. He goes into
the issue on several levels. "Posing the Sphinx Questions Far more potentially perilous, does it matter to Jews and for
American support for Israel when the Jewish State arguably faces existential
peril that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States? That undoubtedly at some point in the next 20 years
Muslims will outnumber Jews, and that Muslims with an "Islamic
agenda" are growing active politically through a widespread network of
national organizations? That this is occurring at a time when the religion of
Islam is being supplanted in many of the Islamic immigrant sending countries
by the totalitarian ideology of Islamism of which vehement anti-Semitism and
anti-Zionism form central tenets? Will our status suffer when the
Judeo-Christian cultural construct yields, first, to a Judeo-Christian-Muslim
one, and then to an even more expansive sense of national religious
identity?" He goes on later in the article to describe
the nuts and bolts of Jewish ascendency in the United States and the
manner in which immigrants will weaken America's Jews, and Israel, in these
terms: "Facing Up to the Gradual Demise of Jewish Political
Power Jewish voter participation also remains
legendary; it is among the highest in the nation. Incredible as it sounds, in
the recent presidential election more Jews voted in Los Angeles than Latinos.
But should the naturalization of resident aliens begin to move more quickly
in the next few years, a virtual certainty and it should then it is
only a matter of time before the electoral power of Latinos, as well as that
of others, overwhelms us. All of this notwithstanding, in the short
term, a number of factors will continue to play into our hands, even amid the
unprecedented wave of continuous immigration. The very scale of the current
immigration and its great diversity paradoxically constitutes at least a
temporary political asset. While we remain comparatively coherent as a voting
bloc, the new mostly non-European immigrants are fractured into a great many
distinct, often competing groups, many with no love for each other. This is
also true of the many new immigrants from rival sides in the ongoing Balkan
wars, as it is for the growing south Asian population from India, Pakistan,
and Bangladesh. They have miles and miles to go before they overcome
historical hatreds, put aside current enmities and forgive recent enormities,
especially Pakistani brutality in the nascent Bangladesh. Queens is no
melting pot! Currently struggling to find a foothold in
America, to learn English and to master an advanced technological and
pluralistic culture that is largely alien to them, they are predictably
preoccupied with issues of simple economic survival at the low end of the
spectrum. In terms of public affairs, they are, at most, presently competing
for neighborhood political dominance, government subsidies, and local
municipal services. Moreover, the widespread poverty of a high
percentage of recent immigrants, an especially strong characteristic of by
far the largest group, Mexican Americans, also makes bread and butter issues
a far greater priority than a multifaceted public affairs agenda into the
foreseeable future. No small consideration, it also arguably makes them a
greater drain on the economy than a benefit, a subject of unending dispute
between advocates of large-scale immigration and reduced immigration. While the Mexicans in particular have huge
numbers on their side we sometimes forget that the U.S.-Mexican border
is the longest in the world between a first-world and a third-world country
they have little in the way of the economic resources to give them
commensurate political clout. And communal wealth formation will be a long
time in coming, considering that most Mexican immigrants are peasant class.
Also, compared to previous generations of European immigrants, they have been
slow to naturalize, largely because so many have illegal status, thus
effectively barring themselves from becoming a force in electoral politics.
But the sleeping giant will surely awaken, and the sort of amnesty
contemplated by the Bush administration will make that happen all the sooner.
And it is a giant. Advance Census data indicate that upwards of 8
percent of Mexico's population already resides in the United States, and the
growth of that community shows no sign of abating; the opposite is true. It
is simply astounding to contemplate the recent historical rise in Mexican
immigration. In 1970, there were fewer than 800,000 Mexican immigrants; 30
years later the number is approaching 9 million, a 10-fold increase in one
generation. For perhaps another generation, an
optimistic forecast, the Jewish community is thus in a position where it will
be able to divide and conquer and enter into selective coalitions that
support our agendas. But the day will surely come when an effective
Asian-American alliance will actually bring Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans,
Koreans, Vietnamese, and the rest closer together. And the enormously complex
and as yet significantly divided Latinos will also eventually achieve a more
effective political federation. The fact is that the term "Asian
American" has only recently come into common parlance among younger
Asians (it is still rejected by older folks), while "Latinos" or
"Hispanics" often do not think of themselves as part of a
multinational ethnic bloc but primarily as Mexicans, Cubans, or Puerto Ricans. Even with these caveats, an era of
astoundingly disproportionate Jewish legislative representation may
already have peaked. It is unlikely we will ever see many more U.S. Senates
with 10 Jewish members. And although had Al Gore been allowed by the Supreme
Court to assume office, a Jew would have been one heartbeat away from the
presidency, it may be we'll never get that close again. With the changes in view, how long do
we actually believe that nearly 80 percent of the entire foreign aid budget
of the United States will go to Israel? It is also true that Jewish economic
influence and power are disproportionately concentrated in Hollywood,
television, and in the news industry, theoretically a boon in terms of the
formation of favorable public images of Jews and sensitizing the American
people to issues of concern to Jews. But ethnic dominance in an industry does
not by itself mean that these centers of opinion and attitude formation in
the national culture are sources of Jewish political power. They are not
noticeably "Jewish" in the sense of advancing a Jewish agenda,
Jewish communal interests, or the cause of Israel. And television, the Jewish
industry par excellence, with its shallow values, grotesque materialism,
celebration of violence, utter superficiality, anti-intellectualism, and
sexploitation certainly does not advance anything that might be confused with
Jewish values. It is probably true, however, that the situation would be
worse in terms of the treatment of Jewish themes and issues in the media
without this presence. Supporting Immigration by
Reducing Its Scale Mr. Steinlight's wide ranging viewpoints
proceed to a discussion of modern ethnocentrism. "Immigration Policy and Identity Politics "The inability of government to begin
to cope with the scale of the problem (whether on the side of policing
borders or providing adequate social services) also strengthens the role of
the ethnic enclave in addressing it. And the resultant dependence on the
religious and cultural institutions within the ethnic communities for
sustenance often slows or blocks acculturation, and worse. Within those tight
ethnic enclaves, home country allegiances and social patterns endure, old
prejudices and hatreds are reinforced, and home-country politics continue to
inordinately shape, even control, the immigrant's worldview. In many cases,
ethnic communal support for new immigrants or patronage of their business
establishments are subject to the blessings of atavistic, unassimilated, and
anti-pluralistic communal and religious leadership that frequently has a
political agenda fundamentally at odds with American values." "This is certainly the case within the
Pakistani immigrant community. In many cases, the Old World political party
structures, replete with their targeted, self-serving meager handouts, remain
powerful." "Breaking these patterns of control
exerted by the sending country and promoting acculturation that honors the
immigrant's culture and origins but principally foregrounds and nurtures
American values can be achieved only by reducing the present overwhelming
scale of immigration that thwarts any effort to develop practicable solutions
to these problems." "As noted earlier, cheap air fares and
overseas telephone rates, and the internet permits the home country to exert
a strong continuing influence on immigrants that is substantially different
from what was the case with previous generations of newcomers. Many new
immigrants are and remain, in effect, primarily citizens of their home
countries and resident aliens in America, here merely to benefit from
American resources and return income to the home country before returning
themselves." "Trendy Postmodernism Skews the Debate" "Such thinkers not only have no problem with multiple
citizenship, but they see it as an ideal, the embodiment of a higher form of
global consciousness, the ultimate expression of New Age
cosmopolitanism." "The great masses of ordinary humanity
across the world have no such perspective: tragically for themselves and for
those who are often victimized by them, they continue to be driven by various
forms of tribalism, including the most violent and extreme sort. This is true
from lethal interethnic clashes in soccer arenas in every continent, and from
the mass killing fields of Africa, to the killing fields of the Balkans.
Ethnocentrism and has proven remarkably enduring into the new millennium;
those who counted it out, who thought humanity was ready for some higher
notion of fraternity, have been shown to have been utterly mistaken in their
predictions. Ethnocentrism is the undisputed world champion." "Jews and Identity
Politics For Jews, it is at best hypocritical, and,
worse, an example of an utter lack of self-awareness, not to recognize that
we are up to our necks in this problem. This has been especially true once we
were sufficiently accepted in the United States to feel confident enough to
go public with our own identity politics. But this newfound confidence
carries its own costs; people are observing us closely, and what they see in
our behavior is not always distinct from what we loudly decry in others. One
has to be amused, even amazed, when colleagues in the organized Jewish world
wring their hands about black nationalism, Afrocentrism, or with cultural
separatism in general � without considering Jewish behavioral parallels.
Where has our vaunted Jewish self-awareness flown? I'll confess it, at least: like thousands
of other typical Jewish kids of my generation, I was reared as a Jewish
nationalist, even a quasi-separatist. Every summer for two months for 10
formative years during my childhood and adolescence I attended Jewish summer
camp. There, each morning, I saluted a foreign flag, dressed in a uniform
reflecting its colors, sang a foreign national anthem, learned a foreign
language, learned foreign folk songs and dances, and was taught that Israel
was the true homeland. Emigration to Israel was considered the highest
virtue, and, like many other Jewish teens of my generation, I spent two
summers working in Israel on a collective farm while I contemplated that
possibility. More tacitly and subconsciously, I was taught the superiority of
my people to the gentiles who had oppressed us. We were taught to view
non-Jews as untrustworthy outsiders, people from whom sudden gusts of hatred
might be anticipated, people less sensitive, intelligent, and moral than
ourselves. We were also taught that the lesson of our dark history is that we
could rely on no one. I am of course simplifying a complex
process of ethnic and religious identity formation; there was also a powerful
counterbalancing universalistic moral component that inculcated a belief in
social justice for all people and a special identification with the struggle
for Negro civil rights. And it is no exaggeration to add that in some
respects, of course, a substantial subset of secular Jews were historically
Europe's cosmopolitans par excellence, particularly during the high noon of
bourgeois culture in Central Europe. That sense of commitment to
universalistic values and egalitarian ideals was and remains so strong that
in reliable survey research conducted over the years, Jews regularly identify
"belief in social justice" as the second most important factor in
their Jewish identity; it is trumped only by a "sense of
peoplehood." It also explains the long Jewish involvement in and
flirtation with Marxism. But it is fair to say that Jewish universalistic
tendencies and tribalism have always existed in an uneasy dialectic. We are
at once the most open of peoples and one second to none in intensity of
national feeling. Having made this important distinction, it must be admitted
that the essence of the process of my nationalist training was to inculcate
the belief that the primary division in the world was between "us"
and "them." Of course we also saluted the American and Canadian
flags and sang those anthems, usually with real feeling, but it was clear
where our primary loyalty was meant to reside. I am also familiar with the classic,
well-honed answer to this tension anytime this phenomenon is cited: Israel
and America are both democracies; they share values; they have common
strategic interests; loyalty to one cannot conceivably involve disloyalty to
the other, etc., etc. All of which begs huge questions, including an American
strategic agenda that extends far beyond Israel, and while it may be true in
practice most of the time, is by no means an absolute construct, devoid of
all sort of potential exceptions. I say all this merely to remind us that we
cannot pretend we are only part of the solution when we are also part of the
problem; we have no less difficult a balancing act between group loyalty and
a wider sense of belonging to America. That America has largely tolerated
this dual loyalty � we get a free pass, I suspect, largely over
Christian guilt about the Holocaust makes it no less a reality. At the very least, as the debate over
multinational identity rises, I hope the Jewish community will have the good
sense not to argue in favor of dual citizenship and other such
arrangements. I would also advocate that those who possess dual citizenship to
relinquish it in order not to cloud the issue and to serve the best interests
of the American Jewish community and of American national unity. The recent
case of the Israeli teenager who committed a murder in suburban Maryland (his
victim was a young Latino) and fled to Israel, where he was permitted to
remain despite attempts at extradition by U.S. prosecutors, with considerable
congressional support, must never be repeated. That incident inflicted
serious damage on Israel's good name, and it shapes the public's perception
of Jews as people in a special category with additional rights who have a
safe haven where they can escape the reach of American justice." He distills the call for action of his long
article into a few sentences at the end: "The experience of the immigrant under
present circumstances is often disastrous and American social cohesion and
notions of economic justice are seriously challenged. We should bring the
numbers down to more manageable levels, do far more to integrate immigrants into
mainstream American life, and inculcate the values of American civil society
in immigrant communities. As
Jews we also have special concerns regarding the rising Muslim presence,
particularly the ascent of Islamism, and we should be unashamed in pursuing
our interests." [Hit Counter] Israel and China are showing a wish to put the Phalcon incident behind them. (That was the Israeli sale to China of Phalcon radar jets with technology superior to that of the US and Taiwan. Israel canceled the sale after the US Congress imposed a financial penalty on Israel. Israel then paid $350 million to China to back out of the deal. ) Mr. Barzilai reports that an Israeli military group recently toured Chinese army bases and that Israel-China agreement on compensation terms for the Phalcon episode has permitted the resumption of defense ties between China and Israel. As soon as compensation payments to China are completed Israel will send the Russian Ilyushin plane from which the Phalcon-type high tech warning system was removed back to China. The Israeli military delegation including the Israeli Defense Force's chief medical officer and Israel's chief scientist for the technology planning division was in China for five days, as guests of the Chinese army. Israeli security sources described the purpose of the visit as to examine possible areas of cooperation in the future, possibly in the sphere of arms development. A group of Chinese army officers had visited Israel a few weeks earlier. These were the first of their kind since Israel canceled the Phalcon warning system sale which the US believed could tip the strategic balance between China and Taiwan. Israeli government sources stressed that the visits reflected a desire on China and Israel's sides to put the Phalcon controvery to rest and to develop defense ties in the future. Israeli arms sales to china began in the 80s, amid great secrecy. Foreign reports put the sales over $4 billion over those years. Israeli tank cannon, night vision equipment and a number of aeronautical subsystems were sold to the Chinese. One foreign report, denied by Israel was that the Chinese bought a prototype of the Israeli Lavi fighter plane, a project that was also stopped by America on the ground it would be cheaper for Israel to buy advanced American planes. With diplomatic relations dating from 1992, China showed interest in Israeli military technology but was more interested in acquiring know how than buying weapons systems. LESLIE SUSSER, 4/15/2004, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Analysis. ISRAEL FEARS U.S. RESOLVE IN IRAQ. In view of the stiff Sunni and Shiite resistance to American occupation of Iraq Israel's defense establishment worries that an American withdrawal could have devastating consequences to the battle against weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. In addition, Israel would be one of the big losers says Mr. Susser. Israelis fear that a loss ofd American deterrence could encourage Iran's nuclear ambitions and stiffen Syrian and Palestinian attitudes toward Israel. ISRAEL HOPED FOR SIGNIFICANT GAINS FROM THE WAR. Israel's military planners hoped for several significant gains from America's attach on Iraq: 1. The threat of hundreds of Iraqi tanks to Israel. 2. A domino effect on Syria and Palestine softening their attitudes toward Israel. 3. Iran rethinking it's nuclear plans. 4. Libya likewise rethinking it's nuclear plans. 5. Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations would exercise restraint. The Israeli intelligence analysts fear that if American deterrence in the region is weakened then the above will be reversed. In addition there is discussion of a possible Iranian intervention in Southern Iraq on behalf of the Shiites there if Iraq degenerates into a Sunni-Shiite war after American withdrawal. This could lead to a radical Shiite regime in Iraq, like the one in Iran.
If this happens then Israel would have to reconsider the huge cuts in it's tank forces that it planned after Saddam's forces collapsed. Loss of American prestige in the area would also impact the attitudes of pro America regimes in Jordan and Egypt and weaken the effect of American guarantees to Israel. Mr. Susser's analysis ends with the remark that most members of the Israeli government, defense establishment and intelligence community want America to maintain a military presence in Iraq in order to create a Western-leaning regime there and a more stable Middle-East.
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