I'm trying to get a Google adsense account to try and make a little money from my blog. I've applied twice, and been rejected twice on grounds of "Difficulty of navigation." I wonder whether I'm submitting the wrong URL. I've used www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/ Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Thanks.
More on Arafat's supposed intransigence. In summer 2001 Jerome Slater published this article in the Political Science Quarterly demonstrating that Arafat had repeatedly sought to make a peace with Israel and that the best he'd gotten was an offer at Camp David that would have created a fractured Palestinian state with a huge Israeli presence inside it, sucking the water from the aquifers. And the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem would be engulfed by Israel:
As Arafat told Clinton, in responding to his proposed compromise in which Israel would allow the Palestinians a "sovereign presidential compound" next to Al-Aqsa mosque, 'So there will be a small island surrounded by Israeli soldiers who control the entrances.'"
In that article, Slater implored the American Jewish community to start seeing Palestinians as the oppressed, weaker party in the situation, and therefore to seek to shift American foreign policy, before further disaster resulted. He spoke of terrorist attacks on the U.S. because of our Israel/Palestine policy--just months before September 11.
I'm talking to Slater now about getting his analysis of American journalism on this subject into this blog on a regular basis. Slater's appeal to me is that he was an early and excited reader of the New Historians in Israel but not a passive reader. He's been a New Historian in the U.S. too. What is the New History? Slater:
"The revised history holds that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is rooted not in mindless Arab anti-Semitism but in Zionism's insistence that a Jewish state must be created in Palestine, despite the fact that for over 1,300 years it had been overwhelmingly inhabited by Arabs, who in the 20th century sought political independence in and sovereignty over their homeland."
I banned someone from commenting today, using an IP address. Maybe he'll be back, I'll try and get on it if he does. It's hard to know if I even got him...
Thanks to Charles Keating for doing some detective work, and apologies to Richard Silverstein, who told me a long time ago about trolls and who is one of the people this commenter impersonated. Richard has pushed me to be more responsible. I'm going to try. I apologize to among others Clara, who this commenter was especially rude to. And to all commenters who had to put up with this crap and readers who thought this site was about ideas.
I was saying to my wife this morning, I have poor leadership skills. I've always been irresponsible in life, and loosey-goosey. Well, having a blog represents a form of leadership; and I find I'm happy to be a censor. The rules for this site are: I will tolerate abuse, even name calling, even some invective and mild obscenity. I touch on sensitive issues here; and it only seems fair that people should go after me and others with all they've got. But raw obscenity, scabrous namecalling, impersonation--that's over the line.
Richard asks what makes me proud of my tradition, what is in it, what other influences are in there. Truthfully I know little about Jewish spiritual tradition, though I am aware that I was steeped in certain aspects of it, chiefly the learning stuff and the family/matriarchal stuff. Synagogue was largely lost on me. Stale old men.
The 70s counterculture also formed me. Sex drugs rock and roll. I wanted a part of that, even as a nerdy Jewish kid with glasses. There was a spiritual component in that too...
A commenter with a pseudonym, maybe something "American," sorry it's not at hand, says that I'm a mess of contradictions, and he's right. I am both tribal and American polyglot. I think many people are American messes in the same way. Also I don't think it's bad to be proud of certain tribal traits. We are tribal people, anthropologically maybe biologically too, and if you are a reflective sort, you want to sort these things out. And I am very hard on my people here, you may have noticed. So when Eliot Spitzer does something that seems to me Jewish, even if it has universalist resonance, I find that it touches a Jewish chord in me. Sorry.
A digression that speaks to my spiritual identity. Last night I was reading Norman Finkelstein's evisceration of Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial, in Finkelstein's amazing book Image and Reality. Some readers will know that these are both hugely important books in the Jewish/American war of ideas over Israel/Palestine. They involve the narrow and now forgotten question of Whether there were "Palestinians" in '48, or whether those Palestinians hadn't moved to Palestine to get in on the desert blooming at the hand of the Jews. An irrelevant argument really, today. And both books are almost impossible to read. It is very hard to keep the numbers straight, and Finkelstein is so witty and lacerating and supercilious and brilliant. To me this is pure Talmudic Jewish. It is the analytic reader gifts that Jews through our ghettoized studious history have brought to America. I have great pride in that. Though I think our spiritual confusion has to do with the fact that these gifts have become tremendously remunerative, when applied to markets and media, and they have transformed our place in society. This is what I want to help my people, and Americans sort out. I know that my elitism also has a Jewish component, though god knows I've come to know a lot of gentile elitists. Now I'm blathering. But you pressed me.
Finally I think it is worth noting that there were Christian and Jewish Kabbalists. This is what I learned from a Chabad rabbi last year, the brilliant Asher Crispe, himself a convert to Judaism: there was in the middle ages an intermingling of Jewish and Christian kabbalists, their ideas influenced one another. In fact at one time the Jewish kabbalists discovered many references to Jesus Christ, coded, as a false prophet, in the Old Testament. I won't say more because I'm sure to get it wrong, but it speaks to the fact that there has been a conversation between spiritual traditions for eons, and it goes on in our hearts today.
Also I lament that while this is an elitist populist blog, it is bedevilled by a real stupid sonofabitch who has been posting in Charles's name. I just don't know quite what to do about this. In the meantime I've asked Charles if he has anything to say to email it to me and I'll post it.
Charles Keating had this response to Clara's long comment re lobby,
Finkelstein and censorship in the thread below, on "Spitzer's
Nobility":
I agree with Clara. Please don't respond to her by attacking her
because of her "reperations" typo. Digest what she says. Consider also
Fallon's resignation. Also, returning directly to Phil's article
about
Spitzer, he was a light to the world attacking the big Wall Street
scams, courageous, ethical. His success went to his head, hurt his
family. He will/is paying the price--his family is of course
innocent.
Hopefully, he will look at his arrogance. We will see what he does
with it. Kristen might even become a real (young and abused) human
being in his mind.
Richard Witty has challenged me, re my belief that Jews make too much money: "Do you have too much money? Do you think I do?"
I don't know about you Richard, but I think I do. And no, I don't have the strength of character to give any back, I am competitive as the next jerk. But I do think there's something terribly wrong with a society that has created such a gulf between the rich and the poor, in part through the work of the tax code and the hedge funds and the elitist meritocracy. I would like to see a much fairer society, and would vote against my economic self-interest on that score. (As Jews often do). As I have said before, the chattering classes are utterly separated from the battering ones. Iraq was enabled by that separation.
The reason I single out my people, Jews, is that I believe our unprecedented wealth (unprecedented in our history) has created 1, a political imbalance in the life of this democracy, in which presidential candidates kowtow to American Jewry, trying to be further and further right on horrifying injustices in the Middle East, which they conspire in blinding the American people to and 2, a real if unacknowledged crisis in Jewish values. I believe 1, is a subject for journalism and political speechifying and even legislation. I think 2 is just a subject for journalism and inquiry and soul-searching.
I am routinely shocked by extravagant behavior in the next Jewish generation that would have been unheardof in mine or my parents. I find it shallow, materialistic, thoughtless. It seems to me to be corrupting a great tradition and damaging Jewish values of learning. I know that another commenter said this is true of many rich people today. I agree. But I am talking about my spiritual tradition. And my tone, "Oy, My People Are Too Rich" was meant to convey that this is a lament...
A comment yesterday said I'm wrong about where Spitzer grew up.
"Spitzer grew up in the Bronx, a-----e. Where did you "gather"
that he grew up on Park Avenue? You're even less successful as a journalist
than you are as a husband/lover, so perhaps you should gather
a little more carefully."
Sounds like I'm wrong. But I deleted the post because it is signed
Charles Keating and Charles didn't write it. I believe
n censoring misrepresentation
"I've been posting on your blog for many months now. I always
address the issues raised by you and/or related
issues raised by fellow posters. I never toss out
vulgar or indeed any personal insults," Charles writes to me.
Much appreciated. I again apologize to readers that I don't do a
better job of monitoring this stuff. And to the people of Manhattan
for suggesting that they are in any way responsible for Spitzer...
What hath Walt and Mearsheimer wrought! Today William Arkin, the "Early Warning" blogger for the Washington Post, tries to suss out Obama's position on missile defense systems and learns that Obama's only comment relates to Israel:
A search of Obama's website yields nothing under homeland security positions, and only one mention of missile defenses. Curiously, according to the website, "He has called for continuing U.S. cooperation with Israel in the development of missile defense systems."
So here is the real world. The only specific Obama has uttered relates not to defending America itself but kowtowing to the Israeli lobby. I guess we can expect McCain to argue that he'll give even more money to Israel and build an even bigger defensive shield.
Isn't kowtow an antisemitic slur?
More about Arkin. Former soldier, author, lecturer. Doesn't have a lot of hair. Not sure what he means by Israeli lobby. But I love that: "defending America itself." No dual loyalty here. A sign of progress clearly, in a pro-Iraq-war newspaper that printed vicious and sophomoric attacks on Walt and Mearsheimer as "teutonic," i.e. Nazis.
The center cannot hold. The natives are restless with our Israel policy....
I am bad about reading comments. I don't like to admit this because it is hard to excuse, especially in a blog that claims to care about ideas. My chief reasons are, I don't get paid for this (and have to make my income elsewhere) and it is psychically-taxing enough to do a blog without also reading the comments and finally, I'm sensitive and if I started reading them I'd think about them nonstop. And yet I know: comments are the life of a blog, I'd learn a lot from comments. I do promise that if I ever get paid to do this, I will get on the case. (For that matter I think this site looks like hell; I'd get on that too...)
This is prompted by a note from Joachim to me at weissphilip@yahoo.com telling me that a commenter had smeared his wife. I removed it. I'm a free speech nut; this one was way over the line for me, I have no problem censoring obscenities or vicious namecalling... Readers who need to communicate to me know my email address...
The best comment on the horrifying Desmond Tutu blacklisting in Minnesota comes from Tony Karon, who grew up in South Africa and notes that he heard the same maligning of Tutu from the apartheid leaders. (God does Karon's blog look nice; wish I knew how to do that!) And Richard Silverstein points out that ZOA is misrepresenting Tutu... who once had the temerity to blast "the Jewish lobby."
For many years, advocates for Israel have had to struggle with the fact of its affiliation with apartheid South Africa. Once they were allied. That made for a p.r. headache, when talking to liberal American Jews. When Jimmy Carter said Israel was practicing apartheid in the territories last year, defenders ran to the parapets to boil the oil. Joseph Lelyveld wrote in the New York Review of Books that it isn't nearly as bad as apartheid. Jeffrey Goldberg argued in the New York Times that such analogies are antisemitic, as I recall, the argument he wheels out again against Walt and Mearsheimer. Defenders of the faith! Still the analogy won't go away. Alas for good reason...
