The Same Old Lies
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As I said earlier, there is not much point in addressing this sort of garbage, but the lying does get tiresome after a while. Noah Pollak says that TAC “attempts to undermine the democratic legitimacy of the contribution of Jews to the public debate,” which is simply a lie and one easily exposed as such. Any references to a “fifth column” in the first piece cited referred specifically to individuals who are under indictment for espionage, and in the second (Pollak’s link is broken, but the article is here) it refers to advocates for a war with Iran, which is a war that is manifestly not in the interests of the United States.
No one here is questioning the democratic legitimacy of anyone’s contributions to public debate–that is the sort of trashy, despicable behavior that we have come to expect from opponents in debate. I don’t think the phrase “fifth column” is terribly helpful, and the word “un-American,” like “anti-American,” gets thrown around far too freely and quickly loses whatever significance that it may have had in the past, but no one should trust Noah Pollak to characterize anyone else’s views honestly. He has utterly and completely misrepresented TAC’s work, which is typical but hardly defensible.
On a related matter, does Andrew actually disagree with anything Mr. Buchanan said in his latest column on Freeman?
Filed under: politics
I’m right with you on this one, Daniel. My problem with Buchanan’s piece was his use of the “un-American” label – something he should know better than to use so lightly. It’s simply always a bad tactic to start labeling your ideological opponents in this manner, unless of course their ideology is overtly anti-American, which, in common discourse is fairly rare (at least internally).
E.D. Kain is correct in that, PJB having been the victim here so often, he really should be more alive to the nuance of what he says.
Having said that, it wouldn’t matter anyway. As is often pointed out, but not often enough, there is more actual debate in any mainstream Israeli newspaper as to proper policy than one will find in the pages of Commentary. They sometime seem claim to speak for Israel whereas it appears to me that they speak for only one narrow band of Israeli opinion, never mind for the larger Jewish community. Yet they consider even the mildest cautionary notes to sing of a desire for the complete immolation of Israel…. Isn’t in within the last year that we saw Jeffrey Goldberg accused of being insufficiently pro -Israel?
This junk does serve it’s intended purpose – it intimidates most of us who doubt the wisdom of the U.S.’s lockstep alliance with alleged Israeli interests from expressing our minds lest we be called anti-semite or something a bit worse. And the push is quite bi-partisan extending as it does from National Review to New Republic. Those who dare disagree are marginalized “with a quickness” as has been the case with Mother Jones and, now, with TAC
Sorry. I edited my comment even more sloppily than usual. “But, by Golly, my blood was up!”
I see no reason why the epithet Un-American should not be applied to the Israel Lobby. To identify with a country not one’s own to the decrement of one’s fellow citizens is unpatriotic and in our case Un-American. We gain nothing from squeamishness in this debate.
Seriously. “Truly vile”? WTF?
jetan writes:
“Those who dare disagree are marginalized “with a quickness†as has been the case with Mother Jones and, now, with TAC”
I’m not up to date on Mother Jones and a brief web search isn’t informative. What happened to them?
Commentary continually conflates “American Jews” with people of their political viewpoint. Commentary, neocons, etc., reflect just a fraction of American Jews. The most vociferous Zionists are similarly a minority. Yet they conveniently usurp the mantle of American Jews when criticized to argue that any criticism of them is an attack on American Jews.
I wonder if this obvious tactic of obfuscation might be running out of steam?
Mother Jones weren’t declared non-persons or anything. But the self-proclaimed “mainstream” of the left such as New Republic claims to represent tends to give them the “crazy aunt in the attic” treatment. There is a quiet implication that they are a bunch of card-carrying Henry Wallace style Reds, just as Commentary is trying to paint TAC as a bunch of closet fascists. Even The Nation gets a lot of that. If your default position is to prefer peace to war you are a week-kneed,soft minded Quisling. I reckon this is one reason why, irrespective of partisan outcomes our foreign policy hasn’t changed very dramatically throughout my lifetime.
WRW, I haven’t even had the nerve to use the word “Zionist” in decades, since that seems to inspire the full treatment
‘ just as Commentary is trying to paint TAC as a bunch of closet fascists. ‘
Projection, They’re fascists and know the easiest way to get away with it.