Thursday, December 24, 2009

Have Zionist left-liberals now scalped the bulk of the U.S. Left on behalf of the Israel lobby and its agenda?

Progressive radio show in NY serves up neocon moonshine about Islam
(Mondoweiss) -- by Philip Weiss --

Three years ago, London Review of Books editor Mary-Kay Wilmers offered a sage insight: "It seems that the American left also is claimed by the Israel lobby." I didn’t fully get it at the time. She was a leftish Jew, but she had glimpsed the extent to which American leftwing Jewish intellectual life shares the Zionist concerns of neoconservatives: as American Jews, we are guardians of the Jewish state, and it is threatened with extinction, and we must see to it that American power is deployed against Israel’s enemies.

This is the best framework in which to look at Brian Lehrer’s interview on WNYC public radio New York two days ago with Frank Gaffney, a leading neocon. Lehrer is progressive and thoughtful and has one of the best radio shows in the country. His politics are New York Jewish libleft: he would never platform a guest opposing abortion rights or opposing gay rights (without fierce opposition). But for 20 minutes or so he gave unchecked access to a neoconservative offering anti-Islamic views.

Gaffney said that by means of jihad and "stealth jihad," Islamists are trying to impose Sharia law around the world, including in the U.S. The Fort Hood massacre is a sign of this. These radical Islamists want to defeat the west, and they operate in a lot of "godforsaken" countries, including Yemen and the Sudan.

And Lehrer thanked Gaffney for these statements.

The strongest counterpoint he offered was when he quoted Jerrold Nadler, the NY congressman who is a good anti-war congressman except when it comes to Israel/Palestine. Lehrer said that Nadler might agree with your "premise" about who the enemy is, Mr. Gaffney, but he would oppose your means. Some demurral.

Lehrer pushed Gaffney to say why the U.S. needed a giant nuclear arsenal, and Gaffney said, for peacemaking, and then specifically cited Hillary’s threat during the 2008 campaign to "obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel. So the neocons’ Israel-centrism came into the conversation, without any commentary or demurral from Lehrer.

The issue here isn’t merely Gaffney/the neocons’ incredible survival in the public space in spite of the Iraq war disaster they pushed (which is about money). It is progressives’ collusion in that survival. During the Iraq buildup, many progressives became neoliberals; and Lehrer’s acceptance of Gaffney’s nutty statements about taking on Islam everywhere demonstrates the continuing passivity of the left when it comes to these feverish ideas.

How is this evidence that the left is claimed by the Israel lobby? Because at the core of Gaffney’s ideas are the claims that Israel is a democracy and that Arab/Muslim anger toward Israel has nothing to do with its policies/occupation but with its very existence. And at the core of Lehrer’s passivity with respect to neocon nostrums is (this is surmise but as a fellow media Jew I’m confident of it): a Jewish identification with the needs of the state and a reluctance to criticize it publicly...MORE...LINK
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Chris Moore comments:

It just goes to show how Judeofascism colonizes and co-opts nearly everything it touches on behalf of its own interests and agenda.

Also, I have to question how "liberal" Diaspora Jewry has ever really been. I don't doubt that it prescribes liberalism, "tolerance" (for Jews, primarily) and open borders for the countries in which it dwells in the Diaspora out of its own narrow self-interests, (while prescribing the opposite of those policies for Israel), and Weiss cites traditional liberal Jewish-American support for abortion and homosexual rights as proof of its liberalism, for example, but I doubt the majority of American Jews would be very supportive of the abortion of the unwanted product of a coupling between two Jews (on the other hand, many would likely advocate for the abortion of a wanted product of a Jew/Gentile coupling out of racialism, which might explain a component of their support for abortion); and how supportive of homosexual marriage between two Jews would Jewry be? Homosexual marriage between Gentiles, though, it's all for, because that leads to fewer enemy Gentile pests down the line, and is another means of softening-up Gentile society in order to make it less resistant to Judeofascism and its goal of co-opting Gentile resources in pursuit of its own interests and agenda.

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