JustASC

Andrew Sullivan stands up to his pro-Israel critics:

I will not be intimidated from examining and criticizing both the actions of the Israeli government and the lobby that does so much to enable it, against what I believe are the long-term interests of the US and the West. Neither, I suspect, will the others now routinely targeted with these lies and smears.

The headline of the post — “On Walt, Mearsheimer, Weiss, Greenwald And Me” — suggests he is defending himself and the others from Lee Smith’s highly flawed attack in Tablet. But I’m not sure Sullivan should be so eager to put himself in the company of the others, especially Walt and Weiss, whose critiques of Israel tend to quickly slide into something a lot creepier than merely ”examining and criticizing both the actions of the Israeli government and the lobby that does so much to enable it.”

I gave myself a test — how many Walt and Weiss posts would I have to read before finding one that seems to dip  into the well of classic anti-Semitic tropes?

(I say “seems to,” because it is not up to me to decide if either is anti-Semitic. I don’t care what’s in their hearts, only in their writing, and time and again I and a few other fairly reasonable people I know find these bloggers using rhetorical strategies that are often indistinguishable from those used by proud and open anti-Semites.

(I think that was part of Smith’s point, although poorly articulated: The crazies find comfort in these blogs because they so often traffic in the kinds of themes that confirm the anti-Semite’s world view. Aren’t Jews exerting an influence beyond their small numbers? Check. Does that influence work against the interests of America, the world, our government, our civilization? Check. Can we come up with any other reasonable explanations for America’s Middle East policy other than the pernicious influence of Jews (and perhaps their Evangelical allies)? No? Then check. Does the mere fact that someone is Jewish make them suspect as a government official or journalist dealing with the Middle East? Check. In understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can we ever factor in any perspective other than that which puts Israel and its supporters in the worst possible light? No? Then check.)

Weiss makes this exercise easy: I only had to go as far back as this morning for a post that traffics in classic guilt-by-association, ethnic generalizations, and Jewishness as the grand unifying theory of what ails America’s foreign policy.

In a post titled “Obama’s philosemitic network reflects the new establishment,” Weiss refers to a list of administration officals who are presumed to be Jewish. (The list was compiled by Mitchell Bard, a conservative pro-Israel blogger.)  The occasion for Weiss’ post is Maureen Dowd’s Sunday column, which he describes thus:

Maureen Dowd points out wisely that the Obama administration is too white. There are only two blacks in the administration, she says.

Weiss’ unmistakable point is that Obama’s administration is not only too white — it’s too Jewish (or why raise the list in this context?). He explains:

My impression is that Obama’s philosemitism outstrips Clinton’s and Bush’s. And the lesson is that Obama is a conservative person temperamentally who has a keen sense of where American power lies. Originally an outsider from a scattered family in the west, he gravitated unerringly toward the east coast Harvard establishment; and the American establishment today has a prominent Jewish component.

When an anti-Semite uses a phrase like “the east coast Harvard establishment” it’s usually a codeword for “Jew” — for Weiss it is not a codeword at all, it is in fact synonymous with the establishment. “This is not a sinister trend; it is the trend that lifted me,” Weiss writes, helpfully, albeit cryptically (I think he might mean that as a Jew himself he is a beneficiary of the demise of the WASP power structure, although I’m not sure).

To be fair to Weiss, Jewish papers like mine and plenty of Jews are proud of the gains made by Jews in the establishment — the Supreme Court justices, the politicians, the pundits, the academics. We remember what it meant to be blocked from the establishment. And let’s face it — we are disproportionately represented in the establishment, which long ago stopped being a WASP bastion.

But the “we” is misleading. Michael Chertoff and Ruth Ginsberg are included in that “we,” as are Andrew Breitbart and Frank Rich. So are Lawrence Tribe and Josh Bolton. Ideologically, each of these pairs could not be further apart from one another. So except for the purposes of ethnic pride, how could a tally of the “prominent Jewish component” benefit a discussion of public policy?

When we’re talking about the Middle East of course, says Weiss:

 The significance of these numbers is the effect on Middle East policy. And of course, along with that, the absence of Arab-Americans; and the fact that people like Rashid Khalidi, Chas Freeman and Rob Malley (yes, a Jew, but a progressive one) are exiled from this braintrust.

The assumption here is that because these various Jewish administration officials are Jewish, they are of one mind on Israel, or perhaps they are of one mind because they are Jewish.  And that’s what gets my anti-Semitism radar a-tingling. Weiss does this a lot — he likes to tally Jewish reporters with a “connection” to Israel, by way of suggesting that they can’t possibly be anything but slavish apologists for the Jewish state, never mind their ideological diversity or range of “connections.” 

The idea that the administration’s Jews are good for Israel would come as a surprise to the extremely anti-Obama elements in the pro-Israel world,  who are convinced that Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod are doing Hamas’ dirty work in Washington.

But Weiss doesn’t care how Emmanuel’s Mideast views might differ from Dennis Ross’, or whether Cass Sunstein or Peter Orszag contribute in any way to White House Mideast policy. He doesn’t care about the other factors that might lead the United States to favor Israel’s narrative in its Mideast policies. Those things don’t matter when religion and ethnicity explain everything. What matters to Weiss is this: Obama is too philo-Semitic, and the White House is too Jewish.

Weiss might not get how this veers into anti-Semitism, but (and here Smith also has a point), many of his readers do. Here’ a comment from his blog:

There is nothing sinister about Jewish power in the U.S. because it has lifted you? With all the complaining about Jim Crow and white privilege, you sure are giving Jewish power (and yourself) a major pass. So far the Jewish elites have proved to be nepotistic, racist, destructive, cynical and undemocratic. How long can they last, and what will be left when they are swept aside?

If you can tell me how the essence of this commenter’s argument differs from Weiss’, you are a more astute reader than I.