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The Guardian-approved American Judeophobic Paleo-Conservatism of Glenn Greenwald

March 20, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | by | 3 comments

Pat Buchanan's extreme right magazine, The American Conservative

In contextualizing the Guardian daily, among the most troubling dynamics we’re continually commenting on is not, per se, their explicitly antisemitic commentary.

Rather, their supreme hypocrisy, an egregious moral blind spot in the context of their claim to represent anti-racist values, is their licensing of commentators purportedly advancing a “liberal” agenda (consistent with their left-wing political brand) who possess an unambiguous antipathy towards Jews – those who advance tropes indistinguishable from what is normally associated with far-right Jew-hatred.

Examples of the Guardian’s tendency to issue a political stamp of approval to exceedingly illiberal figures abound.

Such commentators granted the media group’s progressive kashrut license are typically of the Islamist variety – those who fully endorse values which are inherently incompatible with even the broadest understanding of progressive values yet are given a pass by virtue of their cynical use of the language of human rights in the service of demonizing Israel.

What else could explain their editorial decision to grant members of terrorist groups, or their supporters, space at ‘Comment is Free‘? 

However, the Guardian-approved socially acceptable anti-Israel brand of reactionary politics isn’t limited to those of the Islamist persuasion.

Ben White, who penned an appalling apologia for antisemitism for the extremist publication CounterPunch, is routinely published at ‘Comment is Free’ –  given a platform to advance his malign obsession with the Jewish state. 

The Guardian even offered space, in their letters section to Alison Weir - accurately characterized as one of the few modern day promoters of the ancient antisemitic blood libel.

Gilad Atzmon, who has literally endorsed the conspiracies advanced in the Elders of the Protocols of Zion that Jews are indeed trying to take over the world, has been the subject of quite laudatory profiles at the Guardian – and also had a letter published.

I’m not going to fisk Glenn Greenwald’s recent essay at ‘Comment is Free’, Afghanistan and American Imperialism, March 19, but, rather, provide a glimpse into the American blogger’s politics.

Greenwald (who blogs at Salon.com) advances an anti-imperialism, much in the tradition of Guardian Associate Editor Seumas Milne, informed by a seemingly insatiable loathing of America, a nation he sees a dangerous force of evil in the world – a malice so intense he even once compared the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein to the Nazi conquest of Europe.

But, more consistent with the mission of this blog, here’s a sample of his musings on the villainy of organized Jewry.

  • “So absolute has the Israel-centric stranglehold on American policy been that the U.S. Government has made it illegal to broadcast Hezbollah television stations.”
  • “Not even our Constitution’s First Amendment has been a match for the endless exploitation of American policy, law and resources [by the Israel lobby] to target and punish Israel’s enemies.”
  • “The real goal [of the Israel lobby], as always, was to ensure that there is no debate over America’s indescribably self-destructive, blind support for Israeli actions. [Charles] Freeman’s critics may have scored a short-term victory in that regard, but the more obvious it becomes what is really driving these scandals, the more difficult it will be to maintain this suffocating control over American debates and American policy.”
  • “The point is that the power the [Israel lobby] exercises [is] harmful in the extreme. They use it to squelch debate, destroy the careers and reputations of those who deviate from their orthodoxies, and compel both political parties to maintain strict adherence to an agenda that is held by a minority of Americans; that is principally concerned with the interests of a foreign country; and that results in serious cost and harm to the United States. In doing so, they insure not only that our policies towards Israel remain firmly in place no matter the outcome of our elections, but also that those policies remain beyond the realm of what can be questioned or debated by those who want to have a political future.”
  • “Anyone who has argued that a desire to protect Israeli interests plays too large of a role in our foreign policy has been subjected to some of the most vicious and relentless smears. Ask Juan Cole about that, or John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Those tactics have, as intended, prevented a substantive debate on this question, as most people have feared even approaching the topic.”
  • “[Eisenhower] told Israel that “we handle our affairs exactly as though we didn’t have a Jew in America” – and [this] was then likely an uncontroversial sentiment. Today, if an American politician said anything remotely like that – that American interests would take precedence over Israel’s…how many seconds would elapse before the full-scale and permanent destruction of their political career was complete?”
  • “If you don’t…pledge your loyalty to our policies toward Israel and to Israel, what will happen to you is what just happened to Charles Freeman. You’ll be demonized and have your career ended.”
  • “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.”
  • “Those [American Jews] who favor the attack on Gaza are certainly guilty…of such overwhelming emotional and cultural attachment to Israel and Israelis that they long ago ceased viewing this conflict with any remnant of objectivity.”
  • “The dominant narrative among neocons and the media is that, deep down in his heart, [Obama] may be insufficiently devoted to Israel to be President of the United States. Has there ever been another country to which American politicians were required to pledge their uncritical, absolute loyalty the way they are, now, with Israel?”
  • “[Charles] Freeman is being dragged through the mud by the standard cast of accusatory Israel-centric neocons (Marty Peretz, Jon Chait, Jeffrey Goldberg, Commentary, The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb, etc. etc., etc.).”
  • “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.” 

As you read these quotes tell me one thing. How is such reactionary rhetoric dissimilar from the paleoconservativism of Pat Buchanan?

In fact, Greenwald has been published at Buchanan’s magazine several times, once on the topic of undue Jewish influence on American politics.

Glenn Greenwald, whose blog was initially called “UNCLAIMED TERRITORY,” styles himself as a bold new thinker, and a brave dissident who is willing to explore “taboos” about the national loyalty of Jews and their corrosive effects on the American body politic that others dare not go.

His narrative, however, full of poisonous, old, lethal tropes about the dangers of collective Jewry to the body politic is as ancient as the Jewish diaspora itself.

Greenwald’s toxic, Judeophobic ideological territory, absurdly framed as liberalism by the Guardian, has been claimed before.

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“Israel Firster”: Anatomy of an Antisemitic Smear

February 7, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | by | 22 comments

This is cross posted at The Sad Red Earth, by A. Jay Adler

There are many aspects to the current controversy over use of the “Israel Firster” term. There are people who use the term – continue to use it, resistantly defending its use – and there are those who criticize them for it. The critics claim that adopters of the term are continuing an ages-old anti-Semitic libel against Jews – of disloyalty to their home country because of greater, primary loyalty to their Jewish identity. The people who use the term have accused their critics of “smearing” them with the anti-Semitic label for political ends. Again, there are multiple issues buried in these counter charges – that of anti-Semitism itself, and of disloyalty, or divided loyalty or, as has mostly been expressed, “dual” loyalty – but first I consider the notion of the smear.

The first definition of a smear, in its literal, physical sense is to apply an oily, greasy substance that adheres. Extended metaphorically to its secondary meaning, a smear is an unsubstantiated accusation intended to label and “stick” to its object, sullying its reputation. Note the element of unsubstantiation. There is the additional, more uncertain element of intent.

To criticize, in contrast, is “to consider the merits and demerits of and judge accordingly.” In other words, criticism, in its analytical, intellectual sense, is empirical – evidence based. It is not simply a label applied with sticky fallaciousness, but an analytical discrimination that classifies according to identifying characteristics.

One may use the term smear at will, and many do, but it is not just another one of those misguided, relativistic “one person’s smear is another person’s criticism” cases. The two acts are not the same – they have distinct definitions – and they can be identified and themselves discriminated.

There have been several foci of attention in this current accusatory debate, including those initiated by a Ben Smith piece at Politico and James Kirchick in Haaretz. Another was Jeffrey Goldberg’s blog post responding to an email request from Glenn Greenwald. The email from Greenwald, beginning with a typical, causal and friendly “Hi Jeffrey” and ending with a “Much appreciated” explains that Greenwald is “working on (yet another) piece about the CAP anti-Semitism controversy.” Greenwald is seeking helpful information from Goldberg.

Goldberg himself, given the substance of the request, wryly noted the “much appreciated” sign off. I’ll add to that the “(yet another)” parenthetical. It’s all just one pro – writer, blogger, journalist – seeking assistance from a fellow slogger in the field (oh, you know, “yet another”) in getting some work done. What decent guy or gal would not provide collegial assistance?

However, the specific request was the following:

Hi Jeffrey – I’m working on (yet another) piece about the CAP-anti-Semitism controversy. Could you confirm whether, when you joined the IDF, you took this standard oath:

“I swear and commit to pledge allegiance to the State of Israel its laws, and authorities, to accept upon myself unconditionally the authority of the Israel Defense Force, obey all the orders and instructions given by authorized commanders, devote all my energies, and even sacrifice my life for the protection of the homeland and liberty of Israel.”

Much appreciated -

That is, Greenwald was trying (so he thought) to get the goods on Goldberg, to establish, voila, that Goldberg was/is(?), like Sasquatch caught by flash lumbering through the Bayou – there he is, Ladies and Gentleman, you pays your buck, you steps right up, you get to see him, certified, we got the goods on him – a real live Israel Firster in the flesh.

Goldberg provided his answer in the blog post. He offered other comments in other posts, which prompted other responses from a variety of defenders of the Israel-Firster term, including, from Corey Robin, one exceedingly tedious attempt at clever academic exegesis, of an observation by Goldberg, intended to demonstratesee, we’re not anti-Semitic, you’re anti-Semitic, nyah, nyah.

Focus on Goldberg is significant. Goldberg is a liberal supporter of Israel. (The meaning of the word “support” when applied to Israel is yet another issue embedded in this debate. For my purpose today, I’ll call such supporters of Israel as Goldberg firm supporters.) Critics – indeed, very harsh critics of Israel – consistently identify firm support of Israel with the political right, which identification is an essential ground to this whole debate. Neocon is another popular label. Such as Greenwald will apply that term to any individual who has offered any measure of support at any time to exercises of military force by the United States. The right aids in this identification by the typically fundamentalist belligerence of its own support for Israel. If firm support for Israel can successfully be isolated as a hard right position –  and there has been great success in this effort – then the ongoing campaign against the Israeli position can gain greater strength. If a firm, liberal supporter of Israel can be exposed as an “Israel-Firster,” then the very idea of liberal support for the Israeli position can be dismissed as a phantasm. The Israeli-Palestinian war of historical cases can be drawn only in terms of Israel’s most extreme defenders, while the Palestinian extremes are ideologically white washed, and liberal sense is vanquished from the field.

First, then, I call your attention to Greenwald’s approach to Goldberg, on a personal level. In the past, Greenwald has been consistently vituperative in his treatment of Goldberg, with whom he has no personal relationship. Yet he sends this email dressed in the imposture of a friendly, collegial request for assistance – an email intended to gather the information that will help Greenwald, as he sees it, expose Goldberg as a disloyal American. Now it is true that in the political world – and in the journalistic world, where reporters are always seeking very, very importantinformation, justifying all sorts of behavior for the greater good of the human race and the future of the world – excuses are often made for what is normally considered bad behavior. But in that normal world, Greenwald’s phony smile of an email, with its hateful, destructive intent, is as slimy as a human being gets. That the act he committed with his email was not committed for money or to gain political power is a function only of the interests that motivate his life. The discredit it brings upon him should not be forgotten.

Second, consider that we know from the public record of Goldberg’s service in the IDF decades ago, oath taken or not. There are about  in some form, with the details complex and varied. Dual citizenship may easily be argued as prima facie (thought not actually certain) evidence of dual loyalty. The United States does not formally recognize dual citizenship; neither does it restrict or punish it in any way. While there are no records kept of dual citizenships, the 2010 census shows the percentage of foreign-born Americans – people with the potential of being dual citizens, and likely to feel degrees of dual loyalty – to be 12.7%, or about 39 million people. Americans, like people all over the world, feel multiple loyalties, to their religious faith, their families, to causes and ideals separate from the official policies of their national governments. Red meat GOP candidates will almost without fail name God first among their following loyalties to family and country. And if God led them to believe that some other nation or group was in his service rather than their own nation?

Beginning in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, approximately 2800 Americans fought in Spain on behalf of the Republican cause, in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and elsewhere. Most were members of the Communist Party or other leftist organizations. They served without the support of the U.S. government, were treated with suspicion after the war, and in some cases were even prosecuted by the Roosevelt Administration for recruiting volunteers into the Brigade. These volunteers into a foreign army are universally regarded with respect and even reverence by American liberals and the broader left.

Whether Goldberg himself swore the oath in question, it is a matter of the most common sense that any military force would require of its personnel that they pledge allegiance to the fighting force that was entrusting them with weapons and their cause.

Greenwald’s attempt to impugn Goldberg’s full loyalty to the United States is vile and reprehensible on two scores. First, in the convergence of some elements of the American left with reactionary movements and sentiments, Greenwald’s attempt to question Goldberg’s loyalty on the basis of an oath resounds with the questioning of Roy Cohn and others during the McCarthy hearings:

Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?

Now, the question is from Greenwald, and from those who countenance these questions about the loyalty of American Jews whom they believe to support Israel a little too much,

Are you now or have you ever been too ardent a supporter of Israel?

Of what other ethnic or racial group would supposed progressives permit such questions to be asked without condemnation? And in the matter of the most regressive right political forces in the nation – resisting all identification of their own and others’ racist language and insinuation (see: the current GOP presidential primary race) – though the anti-Semitic history of “Israel Firster” has been well documented – these so-called progressives reach to rationalize use of an offensive term against Jews in a manner they would countenance in no other cultural context.

Just because white supremacists used a term doesn’t mean everyone who employs it is an anti-Semite.

Substitute “racist” for anti-Semite and search left literature world-wide for a similar expression.

“Israel-firster” is admittedly a deliberately crude response, but use of the term should be understood within the context of decades of American Jewish right-wing rhetoric that has largely silenced dissent on Israeli policies by discrediting those who dare to criticize Israel.

Try this substitute:

“Food stamp President” is admittedly a deliberately crude response, but use of the term should be understood within the context of decades of militant black rhetoric that has largely silenced dissent on Welfare policies by discrediting those who dare to criticize their perpetuation of an African-American underclass.

Once again:

He also fails to mention that many of those employing the term “Israel-firster” are deeply concerned about Israel’s future and about regional stability, and are no different from members of the Israeli peace camp – not to mention that some of them are Jewish themselves.

Or

He also fails to mention that many of those employing the term “Food stamp President” are deeply concerned about America’s future and about social and economic stability, and are no different from members of the Nation of Islam – not to mention that some of them are black themselves, e.g. Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele, Herman Cain, and Alan West.

That some people who consider themselves progressive do not cringe with embarrassment and shame at the incoherence of these ideas and arguments, or, in the case of those like Greenwald, at the depths to which they plunge in their animus toward Israel, would be startling if not for the twentieth century history that records these depths before.

It is always so, though, that misguided, even hateful political manifestations will be betrayed in their nature by the figures who most publically represent them. So when we consider Greenwald’s malign questioning of Goldberg’s loyalty on the basis of an oath he might have made over twenty years ago, we need to consider it in the following final light.

When Glenn Greenwald began blogging in 2005, he espoused opinions about illegal immigration that would not be admired or popular among his current fan base. He has been challenged about these views a sufficient number of times to have posted an explanatory update at his original blog, Unclaimed Territory, six years later. His explanation?

This post was written in 2005, one month after I began blogging. It was recently dug up by some Obama cultists trying to discredit my criticisms of the President ….

That was a 6 yrs ago: 3 weeks after I began blogging, when I had zero readers. I’ve discussed many times before how there were many uninformed things I believed back then, before I focused on politics full-time – due to uncritically ingesting conventional wisdom, propaganda, etc. 

Six years is not a very long time in the intellectual life of a 44 year old man. For Glenn Greenwald and Mitt Romney, however, it is sufficient time to reverse most of their previously, and apparently not very reliably, conceived political views, and to now scorn those who believe some of what they once did, including, for both men, ironically, Barack Obama. Six years is sufficient time for Greenwald to expect not to be held accountable for his views. In contrast, for Greenwald, the twenty-two years since Jeffrey Goldberg may have taken an oath that Greenwald thinks damning is no barrier to setting Goldberg up for a smear of disloyalty (IsraelFirster) based upon it.

To repeat and clarify: criticisms are based on evidence analyzed and subjected to judgment. A smear is unsubstantiated. The anti-Semitic history of the term “Israel Firster” has been clearly laid out by numerous sources. The disloyalty (IsraelFirster) of no one of significance or party to this debate has been substantiated, only malignly alleged in the hope that the accusation will stick.

These critics of Israel could easily back away from the expression and continue to make their case about Israel-Palestine on the basis of the merits they can gather. That they do not, that they aggressively reassert their claim to the term “Israel-Firster,” – rationalizing it in the face of all evidence – and attack those who object to it – casting themselves as victims (rather like Rick Perry’s and Newt Gingrich’s “war on Christianity) – clearly reflects their likeness to their mirrored opposites. These critics defend their use of the term because they believe that this time it is true. They believe that this time there really are divided loyalties, there really is a cadre of Jews exercising excessive, secretive power while aggressively attempting to suppress any exposure of it. And like all their reactionary forebears (like every GOP reactionary today who plays the card of nationalist loyalty) they forget that the belief they cling to is the belief to which purveyors of anti-Semitic tropes of Jewish power always hold fast – it’s the essential marker of the tradition – that what they believe is true.

And this is the belief, like a ball that is chained to the ankle, drawing one down to the depths, by which they will be known.

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CAP report on Islamophobia co-authored by writer sympathetic to antisemites & Muslim Brotherhood

January 26, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | by | 11 comments

When I originally wrote about an essay at ‘Comment is Free’ by Wajahat Ali titled, “Fighting the defamation of Muslim Americans“, in August, I wasn’t as aware with the left-wing think tank, Center for American Progress (CAP), which published the report on Islamophobia that Ali co-authored and introduced in his post.

I did note suspicion about the the CAP report, as it included in their list of those guilty of disseminating anti-Muslim bigotry – titled “Fear, Inc. Exposing the Islamophobia Network in America” –  a vast network of institutions which included Fox News, The National Review, and the Washington Times, Middle East Scholar Daniel Pipes, and Terrorism expert Steve Emerson.

But the recent scandal, involving bloggers associated with CAP engaging in antisemitic rhetoric, places Ali’s report, and his contribution to CiF, in a different light.

Briefly, for those unaware, CAP is a Washington-based policy organization that serves as a source of ideas for the Democratic party, and is very influential among policy makers in the Obama White House.  The controversy arose when it was discovered that Zaid Jilani, who blogged for CAP’s ThinkProgress website, used Twitter to call US supporters of the Jewish state “Israel Firsters” –  evoking the classic (typically far right) antisemitic narrative that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own country.

Maryland historian Jeffrey Herf, who has authored books on anti-Semitism, expressed concern that such dual-loyalty conspiracy theories, which typically existed mainly on “the far Left and far Right of American politics” may be seeping into the center of American politics.

Further, Matt Duss, CAP’s Middle East Progress director, wrote on ThinkProgress that “the entire Israeli occupation” of the Gaza Strip is “a moral abomination” comparable to the former Jim Crow South in the US. 

The Jerusalem Post obtained an e-mail in January in which Faiz Shakir, editor-in-chief of ThinkProgress, acknowledged that Jilani’s words charging supporters of Israel with dual-loyalty was “terrible anti-Semitic language.”

The think tank has been engulfed in the affair since December, resulting in strong condemnations from civil rights organizations, and resulted in a White House Jewish affairs official terming the situation at CAP to be “troubling.”

But, perhaps more concerning than antisemitic terms being employed by commentators association with CAP, is the background of the activist, Wajahat Ali, they chose to ally themselves with in the 40 page report on anti-Muslim racism.

As I observed previously, Ali has demonstrated a tendency to engage in accusations of “Islamophobia” quite liberally.

For instance, he leveled the charge of Islamophobia against the U.S. government in the context of the FBI prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for the “charity” group’s ties to terrorism – a prosecution which resulted in five convictions, including “conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a foreign terrorist, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.”

Further, a little more research into the background of  Wajahat Ali reveals that the author holds some decidedly illiberal views about another historically oppressed minority.

Ali is a contributor to the radical anti-Zionist site, Counterpunch, where, in one essay, he likened Israel to Apartheid in S. African, and characterized the Gaza war as an “Israeli blitzkrieg that repeatedly bombards a beleaguered Palestinian refugee population.” Ali also published, in Counterpunch, an extremely sympathetic interview with Norman Finkelstein, about “The Holocaust Industry” – a book which characterizes Israelis as “basically Nazis with beards and black hats”.

Essays at Ali’s own blog, Goatmilk: An intellectual playground, are often cross posted at the English Website of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and, additionally, he was a board member of the Muslim Students Association, an organization established by members of the MB. 

Further, Ali clearly demonstrates a propensity to use his “intellectual playground” to promote voices hostile to Jews and opposed to Israel’ existence.

On June of 2010, he included in his blog, as the “Essay of the week”, a cross-post of a piece by Ilan Pappe, the universally discredited radical Israeli “historian” who advocates the end of the Jewish state.  Pappe, in the essay, commenting broadly about Israel in the aftermath of the May, 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, accused the state of practicing ethnic cleansing, and opined that “only sustained pressure by Western governments [similar to the pressure placed on S. Africa] will drive the message home that the strategy of force [and] oppression are not accepted morally or politically by the world to which Israel wants to belong.”

In April of 2009, Ali posted a piece by Sasha Rabkin titled, “A Jewish American man’s defense of self-hatred” which characterized Zionism as an “identity centered on racism, military might, ["fascism"] and occupation,” and later characterized Jewish Zionist identity as a “Judaism devoid of soul and love and oppressing the most occupied people in the world”.  He also characterized Israel’s War of Independence as an act of “genocide” against Arabs.

Rabkin’s defense of Jewish self-hatred, which Ali evidently endorses, concludes with this passage:

“the two main forces of the 20th century who sought to separate Jews were the Nazis and the Zionists. This is not to fully equate the two. There are obvious differences. But, both sought to single out the Jews, to show them as special and in need of segregation. They both contributed to the death of Jews. Most importantly, they both have sequestered Jewish identity in a militarized, confrontational and racist corner. 

Finally, Ali’s thoughts on the CAP “Israel Firsters” row, can possibly be explained by his retweet of a Max Blumenthal Tweet.

The link leads to a Glenn Greenwald post, “The ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign against CAP and Media Matters rolls on“.

Greenwald, who himself trades in antisemitic tropes about dual loyalty with abandon, summed up the CAP controversy thusly.

 This is a truly disgusting spectacle: these [CAP] commentators…are being publicly smeared early in their careers as anti-Semites as part of a coordinated, ongoing campaign planned by Josh Block and carried out by numerous journalists with large media platforms, and aided and abetted by Jewish groups trading on their credibility to suppress debate….about crucial policy matters in the U.S.,

And, I simply can’t imagine why anyone would find such tropes about the injurious effects of Jewish power, and the disloyalty of “Israel-Firsters”, by CAP bloggers, authors, and their supporters to be antisemitic!?

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Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill sees Obama’s Israel support, in State of Union, reflecting need of Jews’ money

January 25, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: , , , , , , , , | by | 20 comments

Ewen MacAskill is far from the first commentator to evoke the specter of the influence of Jewish money on American politics.

Unapologetically antisemitic sites often complain that Jewish money distorts U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and warn of the broader danger posed by Jewish influence in politics – narratives which can be found on the extreme left, the Jewish far left, the extreme right and Islamic sites.  (And, the Arab world is simply saturated with such antisemitic displays.)

Such a narrative could reasonably be seen as having been popularized over the last several years by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s book on the harmful influence of the Jewish lobby, and the manner in which, they claim, it “distorts” U.S. foreign policy.

Within the respectable far left of the American political spectrum, Glenn Greenwald trades in classic antisemitic stereotypes about the injurious effects of organized Jewry, and the associated charge that Jews aren’t sufficiently loyal, with abandon.  In a blog post in 2007, Greenwald wrote:

It is simply true that there are large and extremely influential Jewish donor groups which are agitating for a U.S. war against Iran, and that is the case because those groups are devoted to promoting Israel’s interests and they perceive it to be in Israel’s interests for the U.S. to militarily confront Iran

However, such memes have recently become so mainstream that, on Dec. 13, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, in attacking Israel and its supporters, wrote: ”The standing ovation (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) got in Congress this year was … bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

Here’s E in today’s Guardian, commenting on Obama’s State of the Union address: 

On foreign policy, a president who has been at loggerheads with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, over a Middle East peace process promised unflinching support for the state. With an election looming and in need of votes and funds from American Jews, some of whom have been unhappy over his approach to Israel, Obama referred to “our iron-clad, and I mean iron-clad, commitment to Israel’s security”.

First, such tropes about of the centrality of Jewish votes (and money from the Jewish lobby) typically ignore the fact that Jews make up merely 2% of the American population, and that strong support for Israel among the non-Jewish electorate has been demonstrated in annual polls conducted by Gallup going back to 1967. 

The degree that Obama is sounding more pro-Israel merely reflects something of a pro-Israel consensus across the American political spectrum. 

Moreover, Obama received 78% of the Jewish vote in 2008, and current polls show that Jewish support for the President is considerably higher than the national average.

More importantly, the notion that Jews manipulate the levers of power in Western societies, through their money, is probably the most enduring of all the West’s Jew-hating myths, and it seems that a genuinely liberal paper would strenuously avoid even the suggestion of such historically dangerous stereotypes.

But, it seems that MacAskill’s Judeo-centric analysis reflects a deeper issue at the Guardian: their failure to understand why others don’t share their institutional hostility towards Israel, reflecting, perhaps, the broader tendency among a percentage of the Western electorate to seek simple (and, at times conspiratorial) answers to complex problems, and any political phenomena they find disagreeable.

In searching for common denominators which explain the U.S. War in Iraq, or the threat of war with Iran (or even the 2008 American financial meltdown, in which nearly 1/3 of all Democrats polled blamed Jews for the crisis) citing the disproportionate political influence of U.S. Jews provides a convenient and increasingly acceptable explanation.

MacAskill’s passage is far from the most egregious example of such calumnies about excessive Jewish control, but the odious pedigree of such a charge demands that such rhetoric simply can not be taken lightly.  

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Guardian’s David Leigh disclosed secret WikiLeaks passwords for thousands of unredacted diplomatic cables.

September 4, 2011 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: , , , , , , , | by | 3 comments

H/T Margie

Guardian investigations executive editor David Leigh negligently disclosed top-secret WikiLeaks’ decryption passwords, thus enabling public access to hundreds of thousands of unredacted unpublished US diplomatic cables.

David Leigh

According to Wired.com, a keyword search of the file shows that “the uncensored cables contain more than 2,000 occurrences of the phrase ‘strictly protect’, which is used in cables to denote sources of information whose identities diplomats consider confidential.”

As Nigel Parry framed it:

“[Leigh revealed] the top-secret password revealing the names of U.S. collaborators around the world—information now freely available to all the enemies of the U.S.”

Specifically, Leigh published the password as a chapter heading in his book, “WIKILEAKS: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy“, which is still being promoted on the Guardian’s online bookshop:

Many believe that the Guardian disclosure is a violation of the confidentiality agreement between WikiLeaks and Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, signed July 30, 2010. David Leigh, Parry notes, is also Alan Rusbridger’s brother in law, which has led some to believe that David Leigh has been unfairly protected from the fallout.

Indeed, it is not the first time the WikiLeaks security agreement has been violated by the Guardian.

David Leigh and the Guardian have, per WikiLeaks, repeatedly violated WikiLeaks security conditions, including requirements that the unpublished cables be kept safe from state intelligence services by keeping them only on computers not connected to the internet.  It has been claimed that Ian Katz, Deputy Editor of the Guardian, admitted in December 2010 meeting that this condition was not being followed by the Guardian.

By any estimate, this breach by Leigh seems to represent journalistic malfeasance on a grand scale.

Many sources have apparently been revealed in the document dump and even extreme left blogger Glenn Greenwald is acknowledging that lives  (including whistleblowers and human rights activists) have been put in danger.

PJ Crowley, U.S. State Department spokesman, told AP on the 30th of August, 2011 that “any autocratic security service worth its salt” would probably already have the complete unredacted archive. For many people in totalitarian states this could prove life-threatening.

As we noted back in January, regarding Leigh’s role in orchestrating the WikiLeaks plot, the initial release of documents even then included secret cables containing a list of key U.S. installations around the world which, if targeted by terrorists, could have a potentially “debilitating impact on security, national economic security, [or] national public health.”  

The current public release of unredacted versions of cables, Der Spiegel argued, represents “A chain of careless mistakes…indiscretions and confusion [which] now means that no potential whistleblower would feel comfortable turning to a leaking platform right now.”

In other words, Leigh’s careless behavior – his recklessness in pursuit of what he determined to be in the public’s best interest - may have a severe chilling effect on socially minded citizens who would normally be predisposed (with the assumption of confidentiality) to inform the public about dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government, a public or private organization, or a corporation.

Leigh’s “war on secrecy” may have the unintended consequence of making it far less likely that secrets whose revelation would truly serve the public interest will be revealed. 

Related articles

On CiF Watch and the fight against anti-Semitism

July 8, 2011 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | by | 14 comments

I was interviewed recently, on contemporary anti-Semitism and the role CiF Watch plays in combating it at the Guardian and Comment is Free, by Daniel Vahab, a freelance writer who’s currently conducting research for a book he’s writing on anti-Semitism.

He published an edited version of my response in his newsletter, 

DV: What is CiF Watch?

AL: CiF Watch is a media monitor focused on monitoring and exposing anti-Semitism in the UK Guardian newspaper blog known as “Comment is Free” (commonly known as CiF). As CiF Watch has evolved, our mandate has expanded to more generally combat the assault on Israel’s legitimacy in both Comment is Free and in the Guardian’s online edition.

The Guardian newspaper and its blog, Comment is Free, are renowned for promulgating both anti-Semitic and anti-Israel narratives and have been singled out by the Community Security Trust (the ADL equivalent in the UK) as one of the major purveyors of anti-Semitic discourse in the UK.

As the only media monitor singularly focused on the Guardian’s assault on Israel’s legitimacy, since the nearly 2 years from its launch, CiF Watch has become the leading website combating delegitimization in the UK.

CiF Watch hired me as their managing editor in July, 2010.   Professionally, my background included working for the ADL and NGO Monitor and an evolving expertise in anti-Semitism in the progressive mass media.

DV: Please describe some of the correlations you encountered with antisemitism. And do you see antisemitism as increasing?

AL: First, traditional correlations are often no longer valid. While most anti-Semites in the past in the US were on the Right, data demonstrates that today it is more prevalent on the Left. And, whereas conventional wisdom would suggest that those who are poorer and less educated would be more inclined to be anti-Semitic, today there is evidence to suggest that that also is no longer the case. Other than paleoconservatives (such as Pat Buchanan), the most popular anti-Semitic tropes in the US (such as the “injurious effects” of Jewish power and the “Dual Loyalty” charge) are more often found on the left: Popular leftwing bloggers such as Glenn Greenwald, who blogs at Salon.com, and Andrew Sullivan who blogs at Daily Dish.While in the UK, and much of Europe, you can, as in the US, easily find tropes about Jewish power and dual loyalty, the hostility toward Jews and Israel far exceeds what’s found in the US. One of the drivers of this phenomenon is the influence of Islamist anti-Semitism. The connection between Islamist anti-Semitism and liberal non-Muslim anti-Semitism is sometimes a complicated one. Islamists are often able to argue against Israel using the language of human rights, democracy, anti-imperialism, and anti-Colonialism.

However, it’s important to put American and European anti-Semitism in perspective.  As such, there is simply no comparison between antisemitism in the US, or Europe, and antisemitism in Arab and Muslim countries. Credible empirical date demonstrates that, in much of the Middle East, Jew hatred is normative behavior.

To answer your question, anti-Semitism is increasing. Driven, in large measure, by hatred of Israel, anti-Semitism in Europe has indeed increased over the last 20 years. In the Arab world anti-Semitism has reached epidemic and dangerous proportions. In the US, though there are some worrying trends within the activist left, and intelligentsia, by and large anti-Semitism has clearly decreased over the last 20 years.

DV: For argument’s sake, if one compares Israel to Nazi Germany and Israelis to Nazis or to Apartheid South Africa, what can be said to counter those antisemitic statements?

AL: Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany have been codified as anti-Semitic by the EU working definition of anti-Semitism.

When you compare Israel to Nazi Germany you’re saying, in effect, that, like Nazi Germany, Israel is morally beyond the pale and therefore has no moral legitimacy and no right to exist.  It’s a way for those who seek her destruction to morally and politically justify their stance. Moreover, being asked to respond to such a hideous charge is not unlike asking the US to respond to charges by Iran that America is the great Satan.

In other words, such a charge against Israel is not a morally or intellectually serious argument, and it really shouldn’t be dignified as if it’s a serious charge. It’s simply abuse. The fact is that, by any measure (such as the annual country reports which are published by the highly reputable human rights monitoring organization, Freedom House), Israel is, by far, the nation with the best human rights record in the Middle East.

As far as the Apartheid slur, again, the main point of such a charge is to morally delegitimize Israel. The fact is that Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy full civil rights (in housing, education, voting, etc.) which South Africa’s blacks were denied. There are Arab Israelis in every sector of Israeli society—and their rights are protected by an independent judiciary.

In fact there is a Christian Arab on the Supreme Court, and Arab parties in the Knesset. In South Africa under Apartheid, Blacks weren’t permitted to live in White neighborhoods, go to White schools, or even date (or marry) Whites. There is no policy in Israel which even approaches such prohibitions.

The related charge that Israel “ethnically cleanses” its Palestinian/Arab/ethnic minority population are easily contradicted by population growth of every major religious/ethnic minority, both in Israel proper, and in the disputed territories.

DV: What are the best ways to combat antisemitism? What can the average person, Jew and non-Jew, do to combat antisemitism–that is, aside from becoming an activist?

AL: The best way for someone not involved in professional advocacy to fight anti-Semitism is to speak out against it online—on Facebook, Twitter, and in comment threads of online newspapers/blogs. In other words, what the average person should do who is committed to fighting anti-Semitism is not that dissimilar to what we do. The social media is a place best suited to waging this war as it involves one’s own community (or virtual community).

Further, for those who don’t wish to have their name associated with a particular position regarding Israel, but still wish to defend Israel and speak out against anti-Semitism, the talkback threads at online publications allow users to remain anonymous by using user names (monikers) which have no similarity to their email address or real name.

Also, those committed to fighting anti-Semitism and defending Israel should spend time reading up on the issues. With the internet there’s no shortage of free sites with contain information on Israel, Israeli history, Jews, Jewish history, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.  While there are way too many to cite here, the one I would highly recommend as a great all around reference is Jewish Virtual Library.


DV: What are some of the ways Cif Watch combats antisemitism?

AL: CiF Watch has become a leading innovator in combating delegitimization. CiF Watch’s unofficial mantra is to delegitimize the delegitimizers and that the best form of defense is offense. This manifests itself in the following ways: publishing multiple exposes on specific anti-Israel writers (which, among other things, results in impacting Google searches on these writers that are targeted), utilizing Twitter to directly engage and attack Guardian writers, producing YouTube videos focused on delegitimizing anti-Israel writers and the Guardian, initiating a Press Complaints Commission complaint against a Guardian anti-Israel writer, publishing anti-Israel comments of Guardian readers to demonstrate the kind of discourse that is being generated, and publishing articles which arm CiF Watch readers in waging the battle of ideas against the delegitmizers.

-CiF Watch highlights the anti-Semitic discourse dressed up as “anti-Zionism” of certain anti-Israel writers that is published on Comment is Free. The accusation of anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry is one of the most potent weapons at our disposal. Since most of the Guardian writers are left-leaning, they pride themselves on being anti-racist and therefore the accusation of anti-Semitism is something which they take a strong exception to and vigorously refute. At the same time, the anti-Semitism of the type engaged in by these writers is much more sophisticated in that it is often dressed up in anti-Zionism to shield the writer from accusations of anti-Semitism.

-CiF Watch ridicules the Guardian. The Guardian is more than just a passive actor – it commissions articles from anti-Semites providing them with a mainstream media platform to spew their bigotry; it focuses a disproportionate amount of editorial space to the subjects of the Israel/Arab conflict, anti-Semitism, and Judaism, with the vast majority of articles carrying an anti-Israel or anti-Jewish bias; it knowingly encourages flame wars in its comment threads on Israel-related subject matter in order to generate internet traffic, and it uses its position of influence to deflect any criticism of the Guardian by employing the so-called “Livingstone formulation” (the Jews use the charge of anti-Semitism to suppress valid criticism of Israel).

DV: What are some of the things CiF Watch accomplished so far?

AL: Demonstrable reduction in anti-Israel output of the Guardian. While the Guardian continues to adopt an anti-Israel stance, the number of anti-Israel articles in Comment is Free has reduced by over half when comparing 2010 to 2009. Regular anti-Israel columnists have disappeared from the Guardian which we attribute to our campaigns to name and shame and publicly expose the anti-Israel animus.

-Improved comment moderation at the Guardian. As a result of CiF Watch’s exposure of anti-Israel hate in comment threads of Israel related articles during 2010 the Guardian limited below-the-line commenting of Israel related articles from 9-6pm UK time so as to ensure full-time moderation. It is notable that comment threads of non-Israel related material are open 24 hours a day.

Related articles

The world’s oldest hatred finds a new home

January 5, 2011 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | by | 6 comments

Here is an essay I had published in the Jerusalem Post on Jan. 3

Some would call me a masochist. I spend most of my day reading a reactionary blog – one which often advances narratives warning darkly of a dominant “Zionist” lobby which stifles debate and has a corrosive effect on the political system.  This blog has been identified as one of the main purveyors of antisemitic hate in the British mainstream media by the CST – the organization dedicated to collecting, analyzing, and responding to antisemitism in the UK.

Clearly a glutton for punishment, I also scour the comment section of such posts where I often find quite palpable expressions of hatred towards Jews.

This site, home of such far-right views, also happens to be the most widely read blog in the UK – 37 million unique visitors a month.

I must admit that I omitted one crucial detail about this blog.  It describes itself as a progressive left publication.

Comment is Free, the blog of the UK paper, The Guardian, not only brands itself as progressive left, but has stated its aim to become “the world’s leading liberal voice.”

“Oh, come on”, you’re thinking. “Surely the Guardian is an anomaly. The progressive left, by their very nature, are anti-racist and opposed to antisemitism.  Expressions of hatred towards minority groups are a phenomenon uniquely prevalent on the right.” Well, actually, that’s not the case.

As my report for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs demonstrated, some of the more popular progressive left blogs in the US – Huffington Post, Glenn Greenwald and Daily Kos – with extremely large liberal audiences – freely engage in Judeophobic invectives.  In addition, the most popular and influential conservative blogs in the US – such as National Review’s blog, The Corner, Hot Air, Instapundit and many others – tend to be strongly philo-Semitic.  My follow-up report for the JCPA analyzed the presence of antisemitic cartoons on such progressive sites. Indeed, there is credible polling data that such expressions of bigotry are not anomalous.

Read the rest of the essay, here.

On the Palestinians, Israel, and American moral clarity

December 25, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | by | 37 comments

I was tempted to simply post the following image created by Elder of Ziyon without comment.

However, upon reflecting on the significance of the message Elder was conveying, it seemed more fitting to provide a bit of context.

Much of the American hard-left intelligentsia always seem so baffled by the fact that the U.S. has historically been so steadfast in their support of Israel.  They simply can’t understand why, in poll after poll, Americans overwhelmingly side with Israel over the Palestinians.

Some, in an effort to “understand” this dynamic, resort to answers which call upon historic anti-Semitic tropes – such as the injurious “power” of organized Jewry (their control of Congress, the media, etc.)

However, for the overwhelming majority of Americans – who don’t read the Guardian, aren’t smitten with Walt and Mearhsheimer, and aren’t seduced by the vitriol of Glenn Greenwald – the answer is a simple one.

Though Israel, like every Western democracy, of course isn’t perfect, most average Americans instinctively know the difference between a democracy under siege and a reactionary movement whose values simply do not reflect their own.

Per Elder of Ziyon:

Americans are, far more than Europeans, a proudly and passionately patriotic lot, aren’t crippled by moral relativism and, most importantly, know the difference between a friend and a foe.

Yes, some things in life really are that simple.

On “Jewish Privilege”, and the unlikely midwife to such a hideous idea

November 15, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | by | 22 comments

“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” – George Orwell

Before I  moved to Israel and began working for CiF Watch, I worked for the Anti-Defamation League – an organziation which fights anti-Semitism, but also promotes diversity education and multiculturalism – largely through a program called A World of Difference Institute (AWOD). Though I have a lot of respect for my former colleagues and naturally support AWODs stated goal of “recognizing bias and the harm it inflicts on individuals and society,” some of the rhetorical discourse, and ideological currents, which lay at the foundation of AWOD often caused me concern.  An especially egregious example was one of ADL’s recommended readings for AWOD educators: Peggy McIntosh’s “White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack.” (The recommended reading list isn’t available on their website, but this ADL sponsored conference demonstrates the group’s endorsement of McIntosh’s views). McIntosh, associate director of the Wellesley Center for Women, in the essay, says:

In my [white] class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.

Disapproving of the systems won’t be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitudes. [But] a “white” skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can palliate, but cannot end, these problems.

To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these taboo subjects. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try and get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.

It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power, and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.

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Glenn Greenwald “likes” conspiracy monger, Alan Hart (or does he?)

October 1, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | by | 1 comment

This is cross-posted at the blog, Adam Holland

What does it mean to “like” someone on Facebook?  Salon Columnist Glenn Greenwald says that he is a fan of anti-Israel conspiracy theorist Alan Hart.  I wonder why.  (See screenshot from Hart’s website above.  Hart’s Facebook widget featuring Greenwald’s image is located on the right side.)

Does Greenwald share Alan Hart’s belief that, on 9/11, Israeli agents controlled the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center via remote control devices hidden in cell phones?  Does he agree with Hart that Israel has stolen nuclear weapons from a U.S. military base and intends to use them to destroy an American city? (Read my column documenting Hart’s conspiracy theories here.)  In May, Hart not only made those bizarre assertions, he also claimed in radio/podcast interviews with conspiracy mongers Kevin Barrett and Alex Jones that he had proof that the World Trade towers were destroyed by controlled demolition, i.e. that explosives had been planted within the buildings and were detonated after the plane crashes to bring down the towers. (This implausible belief is an essential part of truther conspiracy theories.) Hart said in those interviews that his proof for this controlled demolition conspiracy, which he claimed came from a source within “one of the world’s leading engineering firms”, resided on a laptop to which he didn’t then have access because he was away from home on a U.S. speaking tour. That was more than four months ago, and Hart has still not come forward with the computer file that, if it actually existed, would undoubtedly provide him with the biggest scoop of his career as a journalist.  Maybe Hart just hasn’t gotten around to looking for it.

I don’t believe that Greenwald shares Alan Hart’s belief in these bizarre theories, but his “liking” Hart does raise the question: how crazy does an anti-Zionist have to be to be too crazy for Glenn to like?

Read the rest of this entry »

Meet “progressive” U.S. blogger, Glenn Greenwald: An American Guardianista

September 30, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | by | 7 comments

Let me introduce you to someone who can give CiF’s Michael Tomasky – their American columnist – a run for his money.  In fact this blogger who, oh yes, happens to be Jewish, actually exceeds Tomasky in that, in addition to his visceral malice towards most Americans, he also employs, without inhibition, classic anti-Semitic tropes.  If the Guardian ever wanted to replace Tomasky, they would be well advised to seek the services of one of the U.S. blogosphere’s most popular commentators, Glenn Greenwald, who blogs at Salon.com.  Much like the Guardian, Greenwald’s blog is highly influential among the left-wing activist elite:  His blog – apart from Salon’s general traffic – is typically ranked in the top fifteen (in overall traffic) among all liberal blogs, and in the top twenty in a category including all print and online bloggers/columnists. On 22 January 2009, Forbes named Greenwald one of the “25 Most Influential Liberals in the U.S. Media.

Greenwald’s anti-Americanism

Greenwald’s brand of anti-Americanism is truly legion – he seems to truly regard the United States as something approaching a force of evil in the world. He has argued that one could compare the U.S. war in Iraq with the Nazi conquest of Europe.  And made the incredible assertion that the liberation of the Kurds which (which should be celebrated by civilized people everywhere), can be compared to the Nazi seizure of the Sudetenland:

Greenwald said:

“It’s difficult to find an invasion in history that wasn’t supported by at least some faction of the invaded population and where that same self-justifying script wasn’t used.  That’s true even of the most heinous aggressors.  Many Czech and Austrian citizens of Germanic descent, viewing themselves as a repressed minority, welcomed Hitler’s invasion of their countries, while leaders of the independence-seeking Sudeten parties in those countries actively conspired to bring it about.”

As fellow liberal blogger Joe Klein even argued:

“This is obscene. Comparing the Kurds, who had been historically orphaned and then slaughtered with poison gas by Saddam Hussein, with Nazi-loving Sudeten Germans is outrageous. Comparing the United States to Nazi Germany is not merely disgraceful, but revelatory of a twisted, deluded soul.”

Greenwald’s anti-Americanism has continued recently, when he meditated on the similarities between the Taliban and the U.S.:

“…there are areas — significant ones — where the actions of the American Right (and, for that matter, many Democrats who supported them) are literally comparable to the Taliban and Muslim extremists generally.”

Greenwald adds:

“In what universe is it “obscene” to compare the architects of the Iraq War, the torture regime, and endless War with Muslims “to killers and terrorists”?  The comparison is true by definition.  The people who launched the attack on Iraq are guilty of an aggressive war — what the Nuremberg prosecutors condemned as the “kingpin crime” that “holds together” all other war crimes — which killed hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings, turned millions more into refugees, and destroyed an entire nation.  The aptly named “Shock and Awe” was designed to terrify an entire civilian population into submission.”

Later in the column, he says:

“There are countless examples of America’s political leaders espousing a core mentality indistinguishable from those of the Islamic villains who are endlessly paraded before us…the similarity between the American Right’s aggression, tribalism, and violence and those of the Islamic extremists who are endlessly demonized in American political culture is an important one.”

“[Its ridiculous to argue that] Americans — even when they engage in violent, destructive and inhumane acts — are intrinsically good, well-intentioned, and even superior, and thus no comparison should be tolerated between them and those foreign [terrorists].”

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Playing With Fire

July 31, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | by | 9 comments

This is a cross-post by Lee Smith at Tablet Magazine

When the comments on the blogs of Stephen Walt, Andrew Sullivan, Philip Weiss, and Glenn Greenwald turn ugly, who should be held accountable? Plus: A Jew-baiter’s lexicon.

Last week this column [1] argued that major media organizations were mainstreaming the opinions of anti-Semitic commenters in the hopes of boosting traffic on their websites. Some of my critics mistakenly believed that I was accusing specific journalists and academics—Stephen Walt, Andrew Sullivan, Philip Weiss, and Glenn Greenwald—of being anti-Semites. Some also charged that I had smeared these writers by incorrectly holding them accountable for the hate that appears in the comments section of their blogs.

These detractors missed the point of my article, which had nothing to do with the indiscernible beliefs of individuals; rather, I was instead illustrating that these pundits, their audiences, and the major media companies hosting their blogs, are complicit in the common work of mainstreaming the kind of anti-Semitic language, ideas, and discourse that were once confined to extremist hate sites on the far right.

Let’s start with a very recent example: After I contacted Foreign Policy’s Editor-in-Chief Susan Glasser for comment before publication of last week’s column, FP.com quickly excised dozens of the most egregiously anti-Semitic comments that stuck to Walt’s posts. Perhaps they should have also vetted some of the links that Walt himself embeds for the edification of his readers. Consider this recent post [2] where Walt has inserted a link under the name Ariel Sharon, which leads to a 2002 article [3] on the Media Monitors Network website:

The name Safire, as in William Safire of the New York Times, is a name they recognize well at the State Department. He is one of the high priests of Sulzberger’s New York Times empire which has a franchise to dictate terms to the State Department. Of course, it is Safire himself who appears to be taking in dictation work these days from his old pal, Ariel Sharon. Before you read on, note that the Boston Globe is also a publication owned by Sulzberger. Is there a civil war breaking out among the Yiddish Supremacists? Or is Sulzberger trying to deflect some of the damage that is bound to come his way as a result of transforming his media empire into just another corner of the Israeli Lobby? Who cares? Let Sulzberger explain his shadow government’s antics.

Read the rest of this entry »

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