J Street Tees Up 'Disturbing' Jewish Role in Iraq War

Salon has a good piece on the new Israel lobby, J Street, whose founder, Jeremy Ben-Ami, says that part of the motivation for the organization was the special Jewish role in the Iraq war. Well let's not put words in his mouth: 

[Ben-Ami] pointed out that the "very visible" right- wing Jewish support for the Iraq war and for a possible future war against Iran was a powerful motivation for liberal American Jews to speak out.

"Some of the loudest voices that are beating the war drums are those of either neocons who happen to be Jewish, or established Jewish community leaders who happen to be neocons. This is very disturbing," Ben-Ami said. "And it applies not only to Israel but to the whole Middle East -- whether it's American policy towards Iran, or maybe it had some role in the leadup to the war in Iraq. And I think this has made people say, 'Wait a minute, I may never have been interested in Israel, I may never have been interested in the Jewish community, but these folks are speaking in my name and driving us towards wars and policies that I don't want to be responsible for.'"

OK, Ben-Ami doesn't go as far as I do. But he's political. This is yet another sign that some day soon, or not so soon, the Jewish community will search its soul on the responsibility of Jewish neocons for the greatest foreign-policy debacle of the new century, the responsibility of non-neocon Jewish intellectuals and journalists in giving the neocons cover, and the role of Zionism in Jewish ideas about American power.

Comments

[Todd]

I think it's a little late to out the neocons at this point. If the Jewish community gave the neocons cover, which seems to be the case, then isn't a healhy dose of collective guilt due?

[liberal white boy]

Speaking of neocons.
Zionist Treason Monkey Charles Krautheimer...Obliterate Iran If Israel Is Attacked
http://homo-sapien-underground.blogspot.com/2008/04/zionist-treason-monkey-charles.html

[Todd]

Wouldn't it be easier to just obliterate Krauthammer?

[otto]

Is J Street publicly denouncing a possible US or Israel attack on Iran?

[Richard Witty]

You've not stated "I" very often.

What do YOU propose? And to accomplish what goals?

[Jim Haygood]

.

"What do YOU propose? And to accomplish what goals?"

Okay, hers's a specific, serious answer. In March 2005, an investigation into the faulty Iraq War intelligence ended with the publication of the Silberman-Robb report. It concluded that “U.S. intelligence agencies were `dead wrong’ in their belief that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, but the analysts who worked Iraqi weapons issues universally agreed that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments.”

Incredibly, the Silberman-Robb report did not even mention the Office of Special Plans, a Pentagon unit created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, and headed by Feith, to supply senior Bush administration officials with raw intelligence pertaining to Iraq.

Within weeks, the Silberman-Robb report was exposed as a ridiculous whitewash when the UK Sunday Times published the Downing Street memos on May 1, 2005. A note-taker for the British PM observed that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

This smoking gun, which directly contradicted the conclusions of the Silberman-Robb report, should have led to a fresh Congressional investigation. But it did not and has not.

It is STILL important to investigate the serious crimes of falsifying intelligence, espionage and treason, even now. After all, it appears to be happening again in regard to Iran. The purpose is to root out subversion of the U.S. government by those promoting the interests of a foreign power.

Not that "J Street" is likely to take up this neglected cause. But they should.

[LeaNder]

"then isn't a healhy dose of collective guilt due?"

Interestingly we see quite some efforts at soul seraching in US Jewish communities.
But shouldn't we expect the same kind of soul searching on the side of the GOP generally? Or on the side of the Democratic Leadership Council of which Hillary is the most prominent representative? (I am assuming the DLC supported the Iraq war strongly.]

Watching the AlJazeera interviews twice again, I find my reactions shifting every time I do. What makes Mearsheimer's arguments feel more forceful? Is it since he represents the standard image of the learned scholar better than Norman does? Someone who carefully leaves escape routes open? [simply stop pushing and "we will brush it all under the carpet", as we Germans say. Were it gets out of side and public attention.]

Let me paraphrase a couple of Normans statements, that I consider important:

*The did expect it to be a calk walk.*

This is the most important statement of the whole interview. Try to imagine it had turned out as expected. [we wouldn't have witnessed the complicated scenario or line blurring between Iraq war critics $ and Iraq war execution critics mirrored in a Wikipedia category]

Another one of his sentences I like a lot again paraphrased is:

**When 911 happened, after feigning a little consternation, they (the administration) looked at each other and said: Wow! What a big chance!*

Now is this the mainstream scholarly way of expressing things? Definitively not. Mearsheimer treads the lines of the provable very carefully. And that is a standard we are much more trained to except, and that is why he is not given publicity over here. He is very convincing.

But Norman comes closer to my cynical view of power politics as business as usual.

As Philip shows us all the time there is a huge cross-fertilization between Jewish and non-Jewish elites how can the Iraq war be a specific Jewish guilt then?

David Addington, chief Juridical architect.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2008/04/jackson-circle.html

The Hidden Power.The legal mind behind the White House’s war on terror. by Jane Mayer

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/03/060703fa_fact1?currentPage=all

Conventional wisdom holds that September 11th changed everything, including the thinking of Cheney and Addington. Brent Scowcroft, the former national-security adviser, has said of Cheney that he barely recognizes the reasonable politician he knew in the past. But a close look at the twenty-year collaboration between Cheney and Addington suggests that in fact their ideology has not changed much. It seems clear that Addington was able to promote vast executive powers after September 11th in part because he and Cheney had been laying the political groundwork for years. “This preceded 9/11,” Fein, who has known both men professionally for decades, said. “I’m not saying that warrantless surveillance did. But the idea of reducing Congress to a cipher was already in play. It was Cheney and Addington’s political agenda.”

[LeaNder]

Sorry for the typos. I really don't have time to hang around here. I won't correct mistakes beyond typos concerning place.

The time-space-relation has changed much lately.

[Jim Haygood]

.

In the linked Salon article, after bemoaning the "taboo" on criticizing Israel, author Gary Kamiya writes:

"But because of the highly sensitive nature of the subject, American Jews must lead the way."

How incredibly patronizing! This isn't true for any other issue. For instance, in opposing the disastrous tax-subsidized ethanol industry, no one says that "because of the highly sensitive nature of the subject, the ethanol industry must lead the way." Israel is only "sensitive" because Jews go off like crazed badgers on anybody who intrudes into their lucrative little tax-funded franchise.

So, Kamiya counsels that the gentile majority needs to delegate Jeremy Ben-Ami, a son of Israeli parents who has lived in Israel, as their proxy on U.S. policy toward Israel. It's way too sensitive to be handled by their clumsy gentile mitts, Kamiya opines. Mooo-oo-ooo ... we cattle who are about to be slaughtered, salute you!

Generally, proponents of a two-state solution are either ignorant of the geography of Israel-Palestine, or simply want to stall for time to build more settlements, by holding out the carrot of a solution which will somehow remain just out of the Palestinians' grasp. Having lived in Israel, Ben-Ami knows better than provincial Americans that Jewish and Palestinian settlements are entwined in a way which makes two viable, contiguous states almost impossible. Yet he continues to advocate "a two-state solution with a broad-based land for peace agreement."

Thus, I can only reluctantly conclude that Ben-Ami belongs to the latter group. Recognizing that hardline Zionism is in crisis as younger Jews recoil from it, Ben-Ami wants to offer a smoother, gentler, Richard Witty-style Zionism, which prattles about "even-handedness" for U.S. consumption, while the settlements expand and the IDF goes on annihilating women and children.

Ben-Ami, the son of Israelis who's going to give Americans back their country? HA HA HA. That's funny; tell me another one!

[LeaNder]

"Definitively not. Mearsheimer treads the lines of the provable very carefully."

More than that actually. At one point he uses a standard PR technique. He starts out with a positive: the administration may indeed have believed, there were WMD. This gives the listeners the comfortable feeling, that the admin simply may have misjudged things. Interestingly this term was used all over the place for the charge of the looming atomic cloud. But this charge he later denies carefully avoiding using the term again in this context.

Come to think of it. This is how Phil deals with Norman Finkelstein. In a nutshell:

He is a brilliant scholar, but he is vicious.

Without even asking him, why did you use "imbecile" here? The answer might have led to a more interesting article.

His insult (Aaron David Miller = imbecile) clearly sticks out in the larger context of his Znet interview and thus has a signal function.

Is the "polite put down" maybe not a British but a Harvard virus after ali?

While we are at it: What gives you the impression that Norman only recently came over to the camp that supports the one state solution?

Is the base positive mirroring? Is it since you yourself basically support the one state solution at least as an ideal?

[the Sword of Gideon]

I'm going to take this one slow because you guys aren't that bright. The position of religious minorities in the rest of the middle east is precarious to say the least. Any reasonable observer would know that the one state solution would lead to the death and expulsion of most of the Jews in Israel. Right now, and I know that this is aggravating to you but Israel with all its problems happens to be a thriving country on a lot of levels. Why should they surrender the country and expose themselves to death and destruction in some sort of one state scenario. How would you sell the average Israeli on this, I really would like to know.

[Charles Keating]

The same way you'd sell the average Palestinian they should be happy with their lot?

Yep, it's a toughie.

In America it's done by keeping the masses ignorant and repeating the same sound bite myths. But that's harder to do in the contested land over there.

[Charles Keating]

Maybe there's a lesson in how our three main presidential candidates all equally ignore the demographics and illegality of the USA immigration issue? As well, the MSM does not press them on it.

[the Sword of Gideon]

Seriously Keating, Explain to me why an average Israeli should disband the army and have the lads from Islamic Jihad move in next door. Where is the benefit?

[Charles Keating]

Sword, seriously I refer you back to how the three American main presidential candidates and the MSM are handling the USA immigration issue. Just a thought. Judge for yourself.

It appears your real question is, To Whom is the benefit?

It will unfold.

Personally, I don't like paying for it.

[americangoy]

Jim Haygood - check my blog.

You were immortalized.

Congratulations :-)

[Jim Haygood]

.

Well, there goes my chance of being invited to speak at the J Street annual dinner.

I don't like rubber chicken anyway. ;-)

[Todd]

"Interestingly we see quite some efforts at soul seraching in US Jewish communities.
But shouldn't we expect the same kind of soul searching on the side of the GOP generally? Or on the side of the Democratic Leadership Council of which Hillary is the most prominent representative? (I am assuming the DLC supported the Iraq war strongly.]"

I wasn't completely serious about collective guilt, but I would like to hear Daniel Goldhagen's take on the issue. Somehow, I don't expect to see anything about zionism's willing executioners come out in my lifetime.

Either way, the issue is J-Street, and I don't see any evidence of Jewish soul searching in the national media. Do the Natars and Satmars count? Otherwise, I've seen nothing more than crocodile guilt and half-hearted excuses.

If I'm wrong, I'd be happy to know it. But I don't know who is actually talking about throwing Israel to its own fate, holding Israel and the traitors in this country accountable for their actions, and making Israel pay for Israeli injustice out of Israeli pockets. I don't see it.

On the other hand, I don't believe that the average American has the ideological or emotional ties that would have made the conflict in Iraq or Palestine possible. I don't know that the same can be said of the Jewish community.

[Charles Keating]

The Alamo doesn't live?

[the Sword of Gideon]

How about Islams executioners. You can't swing a dead cat in Gaza without hitting a terrorist. Any thoughts on that.

[Todd]

I would expect Gazans to be a little pissed off.

[LeaNder]

Todd, basically I agree, what I am not sure about is, is the whole scenario

- apart from the fact that US Jews (or our main suspects, like "dear" Hendryk M. Broder)openly and fiercely defended the war and a series of future ones to come -

a more general "Occidental mind/Western mind" problem? With Israel/and pro-Israel scholars the spearhead in expertise concerning the post 1989 much looked for newthreat scenario: pan-Islamist

Condi said over here to DER SPIEGEL: After 1989 everybody asked himself, who will be the next enemy now? Then 911 happened and everybody new. (analogously)

What Western nation could have remained inactive after 911? Nations are used to attack nations. There is no real expertise concerning terrorism. The ideological cloak under which quite possibly a huge amount of *interests* were invited:

Dry out terror sponsorship, then terror will disappear. Israel delivered evidence that Saddam supported terror e.g. by providing help to suicide terrorist's families. Iraq looked like a cake walk so it was attacked. It promised the first planned fast victory.

As NF asks: What would have happened had they succeeded?

For me it is absolutely important *who supported the war* from the start and who only later, and when made a u-turn. I would like to see the decision process closer up. And even among the "Iraq war critics" I would like to see the ones sorted out that criticize the war only after it became obvious it wasn't the promised easy success or minimal costs. What exactly caused the u-turn, the upcoming election or the fear the larger WWIII/IV scenario would be stopped. Like Yaron Brook. Or what caused the support. There must be speeches, arguments. That's a bloody complex matter.

Addington and Cheney show that neocons are a useful but not quite an adequate term to grasp the larger problem.

**********************************

I committed a huge blunder above. My self-censurship forces me: whenever I find a mistake in someone's writing I seem to have to commit one myself. My real question to Phil would have needed to be:

Phil: What makes you so sure, that Norman Finkelstein only recently supports the two state solutions?

So far I have hesitated to buy his books - the Holocaust industry was too warmly received on the right for my taste - and only watched many videos or listened to his seminars (? German) so far. Or witnessed the smear campaign against him.

But I now will read his books on the Palestine context and yes I am pleased about an upcoming update in his field of study.

I'll shut up for a while. My blunder rate is getting too high

[LeaNder]

VERDAMMT! damned!

much looked for new threat scenario: pan-Islamism

Condi said over here to DER SPIEGEL: After 1989 everybody asked himself, who will be the next enemy now? Then 911 happened and everybody knew. (analogously)

I wont read the rest. May my typos rest in peace. Bye, bye

[Charles Keating]

It's really pretty easy to understand the USA, LeaNder, just look at the proportion of American Jews in Congress and as appointees in higher levels of the federal government, and compare that percentage to those American Jews in the enlisted ranks of the US Military system. Of course the base line is the actual percentage of Americans who are Jews.

[Charles Keating]

While you are at it, note who is in the congressional committees
related to foreign affairs. See a trend?