From:
The ‘Atlantic’ runs a rationale for war by a journalist embedded in the Israeli psychosis
(Mondoweiss) -- by Philip Weiss --
I finally read Jeffrey Goldberg's piece on the likely Israeli attack on Iran in The Atlantic, The Point of No Return, and I'm surprised. Surprised that Goldberg would put it out there, given his role in promoting the Iraq war on a dubious basis and his admission last year on Israeli TV that Zionists have an interest re Iran that conflicts with the American interest; surprised that the Atlantic would run it, given the piece's relentless ethnocentrism and emotional appeal to Jews and the Israel lobby on behalf of the Obama hawks; and finally, surprised that more journalists have not stepped up to attack this dangerous piece as a crude manifestation of the Israel lobby in our politics.
The first surprise is I suppose easily explained. Goldberg likes attention, and he's going to get it whatever it takes. This time he's basically carrying the water for the Israeli political and military establishment. He states that he doesn't quite believe their argument for war, but this is a mere clearing of the throat. The rest of the time he is carrying water. His strenuous efforts to dignify the piece as journalism-- he spent seven years studying the question and has interviewed scores of people in Israel and a couple of Americans too-- are belied by its crude character. It is Jerry Springer at Yad Vashem. He is holding the microphone up to Israelis to describe their fears of Iran getting the bomb.
The amount of Holocaust talk in the piece is endless and staggering. Auschwitz and annihilation are repeated over and over, Ahmadinejad is identified often as someone who wants to eliminate the Jews. Hitler makes an appearance. Goldberg goes in for his customary ugga bugga about the Islamic world hating Jews, with the usual scholarly gloss. "[T]hrough the 17th and 18th centuries Shia clerics viewed Jews variously as 'the leprosy of creation' and 'the most unclean of the human race.'”...
The piece is essentially emotional, it is an expression of Jewish power. Goldberg loves Jewish power. He grew up studying the abandonment of the Jews during the Holocaust and thinking that the diaspora was dangerous for Jews, and this seems to have been the sum of his philosophical inquiry in life. As a young man he joined the Israeli army, and he still worships Israeli armor. The piece begins with a woody-producing scene of "roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft" heading east to Iran.
At a couple of points in the article Goldberg makes clear that such an attack would not necessarily be in the U.S. interest, that it would cause havoc for U.S. military forces, but this is mere lip service. I suspect the editors asked him for a To-be-sure paragraph or two, and he supplied it. The four corners of this piece are inside the Jewish psyche. Almost everyone quoted in the piece is Jewish. You may think that I am injecting religion-- I always do-- but Goldberg is as concerned with Jewish power as I am and he himself injects it when he says of his meeting with Rahm Emanuel, that Emanuel is "decidedly non-goyishe."
Why is he bringing religion into it, and in an offensive manner, aimed at signalling to non-Yiddish speakers that this is not their business? Because he is writing for Jewish readers.
And Jewish readers are powerful. The Obama administration holds a policymakers' meeting with Goldberg because it is trying to demonstrate that it is taking a hawkish line on Iran-- obviously because of its fears for midterms/reelection-- and the most revealing moment in the piece is when Goldberg talks with Lester Crown, the Chicago billionaire, about his fears re Iran and disappointment with the Obama approach.
As if we ought to care about Israel lobbyist billionaires when we are making policy in the Middle East? As I say, this is Goldberg's world...MORE...LINK
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JEFFEREY GOLDBERG WITHOUT THE MAKEUP?
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