This is a guest post by Adam Levick
Even before the birth of the modern state of Israel, Jews have stood accused of not possessing sufficient loyalty to the nations where they reside. Its contemporary manifestation however almost always centers around the notion of dual loyalty - a charge that Jews are more loyal to Israel than their own nation. Often, such charges of dual loyalty are infused with a narrative imputing enormous power to Jewish communities which typically represent a tiny fraction of the overall population. Such a synthesis of disloyalty on one hand and exaggerated power on the other allows the accuser to charge the Jewish community of working to undermine their nation - often alleging that such Jews are dangerous aliens who represent nothing short of a Fifth Column.
One of the earliest examples of this fusion of “Excessive” Jewish Power with Dual Loyalty was the suspicion in parts of medieval Christian Europe that Jews were in league with some Muslim powers. The charge of dual loyalty could be seen in the Dreyfus Affair through the Nazi’s rise to power - and, indeed, this notion in large measure underlay the failure of European emancipation. Closer to home, in the 1920s Henry Ford published The International Jew: The World’s Problem where it was asserted, along with other calumnies, that Jews were pushing the United States towards war for financial reasons and to achieve world domination.
While, after WWII, manifestations of this charge often remained on the fringes of American society, Paul Findley, a former Republican U.S. Congressman whose 1985 They Dare to Speak Out, an attack on the “Israel lobby,” became a best-seller. In it, Findley maintained that many American Jews utilized “tactics which stifle dissent in their own communities and throughout America” to benefit Israel.
More recently, academics considered to be foreign policy “realists”, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, wrote of the “stranglehold” which the Israel “Lobby” exercises over Congress; of the “manipulation of the media”; and of a “Lobby” working hard to “squelch debate”. They argued that the 2003 Iraq war wouldn’t have been possible without the influence of the Israel lobby.
While Paleoconservative commentators, not surprisingly, have championed this narrative - Pat Buchanan wrote in 2008 that “Israel and its Fifth Column in [Washington , DC] seek to stampede us into war with Iran” - some Liberal columnists have engaged in similar rhetoric. For instance, Joe Klein asserted on Time Magazine’s ”Swampland” blog that Jewish neoconservatives “plumped” for the war in Iraq and is now doing the same for “an even more foolish assault on Iran” with the goal of making the world “safe for Israel.” In the ensuing controversy, many progressive bloggers jumped to Klein’s defense.
The anti-Semitic nature of such charges have been codified by both the U.S. State Department and the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia - the former defining as anti-Semitic: “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.”
The only unfortunate by product of Leon Wieseltier’s spot-on essay in The New Republic regarding blogger Andrew Sullivan’s increasing hostility towards Israel and Jews is that such a critique, and the buzz it caused in the blogosphere, was that, by focusing on a pundit whose commentary merely suggests an anti-Semitic bias, it allows equally influential liberal bloggers, such as Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com, who often explicitly advance such anti-Semitic tropes such as excessive Jewish control and dual loyalty, to escape such public scrutiny. (My JCPA essay documenting such commentary is here)
Greenwald’s use of this classically anti-Semitic narratives regarding Jewish power can be seen most clearly when he warned darkly, in March 2009, of the Jewish lobby’s “stranglehold” on U.S. policy, and the lobby’s assault on the First Amendment.
Greenwald has even descended to tropes more typical of classic right-wing anti-Semitism. For instance, in 2007, in a passage which again employs tropes about Jewish power and dual loyalty - while also warning of the corrosive effects of Jewish money - said, “Large and extremely influential Jewish donor groups are the ones agitating for a U.S. war against Iran, and that is the case because those groups are devoted to promoting Israel’s interests.”
Greenwald, at times, engages in vitriolic and outright demonizing rhetoric to describe the “true” motivations of well-known Jewish supporters of Israel - imputing in them an almost savage lust for war. Greenwald has written, “It is difficult to find someone with a more psychopathic indifference to the slaughter of innocent people in pursuit of shadowy, unstated political goals than Charles Krauthammer.” Greenwald has also characterized Senator Joe Lieberman as “bloodthirsty”.
This past week, Greenwald engaged in similar dual-loyalty rhetoric against Jewish-American Congressman, Gary Ackerman, in a post entitled, “What Motivates Iran Hawk Ackerman?” Any one familiar with Greenwald would instantly understand that he’s not merely asking a question. Nor is he attempting to rationally refute Ackerman’s argument in favor of harsh sanctions against Iran - a nation designated by the U.S. State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984 - in order to prevent their acquisition of nuclear weapons. Rather, Greenwald engages in an ad hominem attack on the Jewish congressman who, he notes, issued his remarks in favor of tough sanctions in front of “an Israeli and American flag”.
Greenwald coolly notes that it is “it’s simply impossible to deny that this highly influential American Congressman, devoted to pushing the U.S. to war with Iran, is driven, at least in substantial part, by his fervent devotion to Israel.”
That Greenwald, a former Constitutional lawyer and Civil Rights litigator, could simply be ignorant of the lethal history of this facile narrative about Jewish power he so frequently engages in is certainly possible. But, one thing is certain. Sixty-five years after the Holocaust, with Jews representing roughly 2% of the American population, it is horribly dispiriting that the charge that organized Jewry is too powerful and is pushing the United States to war - a community which, in this view, represents nothing short of (using Robert Wistrich’s phrase) “an organic obstacle to peace and progress” - is once again becoming fashionable.
Wieseltier, in his New Republic essay, describes Sullivan as belonging “to the party of Mearsheimer and the clique of Walt…to the herd of fearless dissidents who proclaim in all seriousness, without in any way being haunted by the history of such an idea, that Jews control Washington.” It is clear that this clique increasingly includes those who take cover behind a progressive veneer.
the myth about Jewish power all over the world is a famous trick of anti-semits to provocate hatred against jews, in a real way our power is much more limited))
bullshit
Greenwald’s use of this classically anti-Semitic narratives regarding Jewish power can be seen most clearly when he warned darkly, in March 2009, of the Jewish lobby’s “stranglehold” on U.S. policy, and the lobby’s assault on the First Amendment…. Greenwald has even descended to tropes more typical of classic right-wing anti-Semitism. For instance, in 2007, in a passage which again employs tropes about Jewish power and dual loyalty - while also warning of the corrosive effects of Jewish money.
This would be very disturbing if Greenwald had in fact written about “Jewish power” or “the Jewish lobby” or “Jewish money.” But in fact he never has. The word “Jewish” in all these cases is Cohen’s, not Greenwald’s, which makes Cohen’s accusation essentially libelous. Greenwald doesn’t talk about “Jews,” he talks of neoconservatives, some Jewish, who constantly support their causes by claiming that any opposition to it would endanger Israel, and who treat all notices of this strategy as evidence of anti-Semitism.
Greenwald also notes, consistently, that most Jews in fact disagree with many such causes (like going to war against both Iraq and Iran). Ask yourself if that is the way an anti-Semite operates.
I have no love for Benjamim Netanyahu. In fact, right now it’s hard to overstate how aggravated I am with him. There is no question that his poor performance as Prime Minister has placed the US and many of Israel’s allies in tough positions.
However, the reporting and discussion of this recent incident and the incredibly inappropriate comments of some American political and military leaders, raises the very real specter of an upcoming scapegoating of the American (and European) Jewish communities. A scapegoating unlike anything we have seen for years in this country.
We all knew that Osama Bin Laden proudly asserted that US support of Israel was his justification for the 9/11 attacks. But, until now, the US government didn’t afford that terrorist’s rationale any legitimacy. Now we are being told by respected political and military leaders that actions of the State of Israel are putting American soldiers at risk in their deployments in the Iraq and Afganistan. Furthermore, Israel’s political opponents have vehemently asserted for many years that the neo-cons (backed by the American Jewish community) have been blindly and firmly controlling all US policy in the Middle East.
Given the American habit of solving problems through the assignment of blame, I have to wonder how long it will be before it becomes mainstream for American politicians to place the blame for America’s involvement in the unpopular wars in Afganistan and Iraq on the Jews. It has been tough for many people to understand these new phenomena: terrorism, Al Qaida, Taliban, Sunni, Shia, Saddam, Chemical Ali, weapons of mass destruction, etc…why, it’s enough to make one’s mind spin…..But, on the other hand there are always the Jews, a villain people are already familiar with!
These are scary times indeed. When I hear the question framed as whether the electorate is willing to allow our policy towards Israel to place American lives at risk, I am pretty certain I know the answer. Americans are no more willing to die for the Jews (if the argument is framed this way) then they were to die for the black people of Rwanda or Darfur.
Scary winds are a blowing.
I think I understand the argument about Glen Greenwald. His quoted criticisms of Charles Krauthammer and Joe Lieberman are anti-semitic, despite the fact that Greenwald never so much as mentions their Judaism.
So criticizing the politics of a person who is Jewish is an act of anti-semitism.
Well done!
Dear Mr. Levick,
I have read your post here and your JCPA essay on Greenwald.
You are so wrong it’s not even funny. Greenwald is particular to avoid any slander or insult of the Jewish people as a whole. He specifically directs his invective towards some people (not all Jewish people, note) in favor of Israel’s violent, racist policies.
You, on the other hand, seem to conclude that if someone says, “AIPAC, ADL and associated lobbying groups in favor of Israel accuse people who disagree with them of being anti-semitic” they have made an anti-semitic statement. And not only do you conclude it’s anti-semitic to say, you slyly indicate that by taking that position Greenwald is being a Nazi when you write how he discounts “the lethal history of this facile narrative about Jewish power.”
Now, first off, this is clearly rubbish because Greenwald is basically a pacifist.
Moreover, in America, people declare all the time that lobbies for particular groups have too much power, whether they’re talking about the lobbies of health insurers, petroleum companies, farm companies, Wall Street firms, military contractors, or various racial, religious and ethnic minorities, including the pro-Israel lobby. That does not mean they think the communities that employ such lobbies deserve to be wiped out. If I decry the influence big pharma has on health care reform, or the influence AIPAC has on our foreign policy, I am not saying in either case that their constituencies deserve to be discriminated against, but that is how you take Greenwald’s comments.
The amusing thing is that I, and many people like me (including Greenwald) are really for Israel, not against it. It’s just that we believe that it is acting against itself when, for example, it responds to the death of a few dozen citizens by killing hundreds of innocent Gazans. Or when it refuses to let just about anything into Gaza and thus forces those who live there to live in grinding poverty. Proponents of such policies argue that Hamas and Hizbollah deserve harsh treatment, but kids born in Gaza don’t choose to be born there, and are innocent of the rocket-firing crimes of their elders. Yet they suffer for them all the same, and they suffer much more than Israel does from the provocations that supposedly lead to its warmaking and infliction of suffering. And this kind of action destroys Israel’s legitimacy. When once everyone would have agreed that the Jewish refugees deserved a state post WWII, now people only see that Israelis forced themselves into an already occupied land, that they have done and continue to do violence to those they displaced, and that they corrode their moral legitimacy with each such action.
The fact is that it is not anti-semitic to state that Israel acts incorrectly: Israel is a country, not its people, and disliking Israel the country under Netanyahu is no different then disliking America under Bush - it doesn’t mean you hate the citizens therein. If there is to be a state in the area now known as Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, it needs to be a single, pluralistic state that does not privilege any religion or ethnicity. If the Jewish people insist on living in a “Jewish” state, then they need to find land that is not already occupied and move there, as their occupation of Israel already is in violation of numerous UN orders. Perhaps they can purchase some unoccupied land from Argentina, or Russia, or Canada. It won’t be their historical homeland, but it would be a land where they could live without repressing others. Don’t you think that would make for a better society than one where the leadership must justify cruel war-making on basically unarmed, innocent opposition?
Sincerely,
This is bizarre. First of all Glenn Greenwald is Jewish. It doesn’t seem that you know that. Not that Jews can’t be anti-semitic in theory, but come on. There’s more neoconservatives that are Christians in this country than Jewish. But, to say AIPAC isn’t the most powerful lobby in Washington, and to pretend it doesn’t exist, is really pushing the bounds of rational thought.
If you think the US and Israel are separate entities and your loyalty is to the US, then why do you defend Israel’s actions, when they embarrass and shame the United States?
ah, the old dual loyalty critique, so nice to see it appear in these comments.
1.
You yourself say that Greenwald being a Jew says nothing about whether he is antisemitic, the “come on” comment doesn’t change that.
2.
Who’s pretending that AIPAC doesn’t exist or that it isn’t powerful?
3.
How come Italian Americans are never asked to condemn the shameful and increasingly fascist government of Italy and accused of disloyalty if they don’t? How come Catholic Americans aren’t being asked to condemn and dissociate themselves from the Vatican ( a foreign and independent state which holds its laws and customs to be superior to those of the United States and all other countries where Catholics are present ) for the systematic rape and torture of children it has fomented and protected? How come Irish Americans were never asked to condemn the Provisional Republican movement for its campaign of sectarian terror against one of Britain’s closest allies ? How come the active support of some of them for that terrorism was seen in many quarters as praiseworthy and indeed as enhancing their status as real Americans?
How come only Jews have to prove that that their loyalties are first and foremost to the US?
When did Greenwald (or any halfway significant public figure) ever say or imply that Jews who didn’t condemn Israeli actions were disloyal to the United States? He certainly didn’t do so in the article Levick was just pointing at in horror. Mr. McDonagh’s string of rhetorical questions really doesn’t address anything at issue.
I finally thought to look at the comments to my post and, while I have no intention to attempt to refute my critics point by point(Eamonn McDonagh did that very well), I do wish to simply challenge my critics to defend this following quote I used from Greenwald’s blog.
“Large and extremely influential Jewish donor groups are the ones agitating for a U.S. war against Iran, and that is the case because those groups are devoted to promoting Israel’s interests.”
This passage represents the perfect storm of antisemitic rhetoric, as it combines the historical narrative warning of excessive Jewish power with the dual loyalty charge in one full swoop.
So, Jeffrey, Joseph, Ray, and company: Are you guys ready to defend this?
Adam,
“Large and extremely influential Jewish donor groups are the ones agitating for a U.S. war against Iran, and that is the case because those groups are devoted to promoting Israel’s interests.”
Your question is a canard. It is the perfect example of the policing of thought. Instead of confronting Greenwald’s arguments as to whether it is true that AIPAC and its apologists are urging for a war in Iran for the benefit of Israel, you avoid the real question, and go immediately to labeling him an anti-Semite. Why not discuss whether AIPAC and its neoconservative apologists are detrimental or not to the United States?
The problem, and Richard Sagor above identifies it clearly, is that if every time someone makes a very logical observation about how we got into the war in Iraq they are labeled and anti-Semite eventually a tipping point will be reached, and than all hell breaks loose. It is very reasonable to conclude that AIPAC and PNAC and many Neocons pushed for the war in Iraq primarily for the benefit of Israel. To make that statement is not anti-Semitic.
These groups have a strong pro-Israel bias, and they pushed for regime change long before 9/11, and used 9/11 as the excuse to carry out a war which has dubious strategic benefit for the US and clear benefit (in their minds) for Israel. Many may disagree with this analysis, and may have some good arguments against it. But if you insist on calling those that see AIPAC as a dangerous influence on American foreign policy as anti-Semitic, at some point there will be a major backlash.
Anti-Semitism is horrid, and is justifiably taboo. However, I think it is also reasonable to at least speculate that many people who adamantly support Israel, also use the anti-Semite taboo as a defense of last resort against very powerful arguments against AIPAC, US support for Israel and the manipulation of American foreign policy by Israel visa vi AIPAC, PNAC, the JDL, the Anti-Defamation League, The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, CAMERA etc.
The Mearsheimer and Walt episode was a low point in American intellectual discourse, it reeked of McCarthyism. Instead of an open, adult, discussion of a very serous topic, it became a vitriolic attack on their persons, not on their ideas. Beware of what people whisper about, it is much more dangerous than what they say in public. If these topics are not spoken about openly, that only reinforces the unspoken feeling many harbor that there is a strong pro-Israel bias in US media and academia.
Richard is right, these are scary times, and imagine, it is not to difficult to do so, that this current ‘recovery’ collapses into a major social and economic upheaval. Scapegoats will be sought by demagogues who know all to well what people whisper about.
Good, logical, thinking must never be ‘taboo’. If the obvious can’t be spoken, then one day it will be used as ammunition for hatred.
“it is true that AIPAC and its apologists ”
why apologists? Why not supporters. AIPAC is a legal lobbying organization, not, say a sect whose clerics rape children.
“These groups have a strong pro-Israel bias,”
AIPAC doesn’t have a strong pro-Israel bias, its raison d’etre is supporting Israel. Just like other lobby groups, for example, this one.
http://www.irishnationalcaucus.org/
“But if you insist on calling those that see AIPAC as a dangerous influence on American foreign policy as anti-Semitic, at some point there will be a major backlash.”
So it’s a priori impossible that any of the people who criticse the influence of AIPAC are antisemitic?
I stopped checking back for replies when a week or two went by without one. Now Mr. Levick challenges me to defend Greenwald’s statement that “Large and extremely influential Jewish donor groups are the ones agitating for a U.S. war against Iran.”
This is a disgracefully doctored quote. Greenwald did not say Jewish donor groups “ARE THE ONES” pressing for war against Iran, he said “THERE ARE Jewish donor groups” pressing for war against Iran. Levick alters Greenwald’s words to make it appear — falsely — that Greenwald is attributing the war agitation solely to Jews. Greenwald’s actual words were a plain statement of fact; Levick has to lie about what Greenwald said in order to make it appear he is indulging in paranoid anti-Semitism about the power of the Jews.