McCain on Israel, Iran and the Holocaust

Two weeks ago, I spoke with Barack Obama about the Middle East, Zionism, and his favorite Jewish writers. Since my blog is both fair and balanced, I had a lengthy conversation with Senator John McCain earlier this week about many of the same subjects.

The two candidates, who are scheduled to address the AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C. early next week, have well-developed thoughts on the Middle East, and their differences are stark. Obama sees the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as one of America's central challenges in the Middle East; McCain names Islamic extremism as the most formidable challenge. Obama sees Jewish settlements as "not helpful" to peacemaking between Israel and the Palestinians; McCain does not offer a critique of the settlements, instead identifying Hamas' rocket attacks on the Israeli town of Sderot as the most pressing problem. And both men take very different positions on the issue of Philip Roth.

In our conversation, McCain took a vociferously hard line on Iran (and a similarly hard line on Senator Obama's understanding of the challenge posed by Iran). He accused Iran of not only seeking the destruction of Israel, but of sponsoring terrorist groups - Hamas and Hezbollah - that are bent on the destruction of the United States. And he said that the defense of Israel is a central tenet of American foreign policy. When I asked him why he is so concerned about Iranian threats against Israel, he said - in a statement that will surely placate Jewish voters who are particularly concerned about existential threats facing Israel - "The United States of America has committed itself to never allowing another Holocaust."

Here is an edited transcript of my talk with McCain:

Jeffrey Goldberg: Is the Zionist cause just, and has it succeeded?

John McCain: I think so. I'm a student of history and anybody who is familiar with the history of the Jewish people and with the Zionist idea can't help but admire those who established the Jewish homeland. I think it's remarkable that Zionism has been in the middle of wars and great trials and it has held fast to the ideals of democracy and social justice and human rights. I think that the State of Israel remains under significant threat from terrorist organizations as well as the continued advocacy of the Iranians to wipe Israel off the map.

JG: Do you think the Palestinian cause is just?

JM: In respect to people like Mahmoud Abbas, who want to have a peaceful settlement with the government of Israel, to settle their differences in a peaceful and amicable fashion. If you are talking about Hamas or Hezbollah, which are dedicated to the extinction of the state of Israel, then no. It depends on who you're talking about.

JG: Senator Obama told me that the Arab-Israeli dispute is a "constant sore" that infects our foreign policy. Do you think this is true, and do you think that the Arab-Israeli dispute is central to our challenges in the Middle East?
JM: Well, I certainly would not describe it the way Senator Obama did -

JG: He wasn't referring to Israel as an "open sore," he was referring to the conflict.

JM: I don't think the conflict is a sore. I think it's a national security challenge. I think it's important to achieve peace in the Middle East on a broad variety of fronts and I think that if the Israeli-Palestinian issue were decided tomorrow, we would still face the enormous threat of radical Islamic extremism.

I think it's very vital, don't get me wrong. That's why I've spent so much time there. The first time I visited Israel was thirty years ago, with Scoop Jackson and other senators, when I was in the Navy. I visited Yad Vashem (Israel's Holocaust memorial) with Joe Lieberman the last time I was in Israel. So my absolute commitment is to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But the dangers that we face in the Middle East are incredibly severe, in the form of radical Islamic extremists.

JG: Do you think that Israel is better off today than it was eight years ago?

Continue reading "McCain on Israel, Iran and the Holocaust" »

The Doughnut Jihadi

Dunkin' Donuts' spokeswoman Rachael Ray got herself in trouble with certain segments of the blogging community for wearing what appears to be a keffiyeh in an ad for iced coffee. With the help of resident Atlantic design genius Jason Treat, I propose the following costume change to help Ray avoid any future Middle East-related wardrobe malfunctions:

Of course, this will lead to a boycott of Dunkin' Donuts across large sections of the Muslim world, but, on the other hand, Jews eat a lot of doughnuts.

Times are changing

Interesting news from Bahrain.

Quote of the Day

From Lyndon Johnson:

'In a taped conversation from June 25, 1967, about three weeks after Israel defeated three Arab armies, Johnson relates a conversation with Soviet Premier Alexey Kosygin.

"He couldn't understand why we'd want to support the Jews — 3 million people — when there are 100 million Arabs," the president said. "I told him that numbers do not determine what was right. We tried to do what was right regardless of the numbers."

When the Jews Knew How to Throw a Party

Seth Gitell takes us back to Israel's 30th anniversary party, which featured Barbra Streisand, Golda Meir and the Fonz. I remember watching this primetime special, which was co-written by the patriarch of one of my favorite Hollywood families, Buz Kohan, father of Jenji "Weeds" Kohan and David Kohan, who gave us "Will and Grace," which is not, I learned in Pakistan, a favored show of at least some Islamic fundamentalists, but that's another story.

Fallows on Homeland Insecurity

It turns out that, in addition to a shared aversion to boiled frog stories, Jim and I are both unhappy with the the term "Homeland Security," which for Jim has the ring of a "Teutonic-in-the-bad-sense" Orwellianism. For me, the term has more of the Russian in it than the German, but I see his point. In any case, I attach myself to Jim's strongly-held feeling that the department should change its name. That, or make it's official anthem "The Song of the Volga Boatmen."

Sydney Pollack

A highlight of my currently non-thriving screenwriting career was working on a script for the delightful and neurotic Sydney Pollack, who died yesterday at the age of 73. My writing partner, Richard Taylor, and I had pitched Sydney a story about high-level corruption in Washington, which was just chum for Sydney, who was fascinated by Washington, and therefore fascinated by sleaze, greed and moral failure (see: Absence of Malice, Michael Clayton, etc.)

We wrote a first draft, and then Sydney and his executives brought us out to L.A. to review our progress. It turned out that we hadn’t made much progress. We met at the offices of Mirage Enterprises, the company he ran with the director Anthony Minghella, who, strangely and horribly, died just two months ago. The office, in Beverly Hills, wasn’t over-adorned. I’ll always remember the photograph, hanging in the bathroom, of a very young Sydney taking instruction from a very round Alfred Hitchcock, and, of course, it’s not easy to forget the Oscars placed indifferently on Sydney’s shelves.

Sydney ordered salads from California Pizza Kitchen (you’d think he could do better, but there you are) and then he took us to school. The script at that point was 132 pages long, and, weirdly, there was something wrong on every page. We emerged from the conference room five hours later, completely wrung out. For a while inside, we had fought back:

Sydney: “Fellas, I just don’t get this. How could she be flirting with a guy you told us three pages ago was dead?”

Me: “Well you see, Sydney, he wasn’t really actually dead, the death was just a metaphor--”

Sydney: “Yeah, okay, now on page four….”

After a while, we stopped fighting, because he exhausted us – the Sydney Pollack you see on screen (Ross has an excellent, and illustrative, clip) was the Sydney Pollack we saw in his office. And also because he was right.

It wasn’t all misery, of course. He was a wonderful storyteller, and also a world-class obsessive. He took a fifteen-minute break to explain how he packs for overseas trips. I started writing down the monologue, it was so captivating: “You see, fellas, what I do is I check the weather averages for each place I’m heading, and that way I can know exactly what sock I’m going to need for each destination, so I don’t pack any more socks than necessary, just the socks of appropriate weight for the prevailing weather conditions…” And so on. The business with the socks struck me as unnecessary, by the way, because he flew his own plane and could bring three suitcases of socks, but never mind.

We saw him several times after that, and each time the movie got better. Once, early in the process, I visited him on the set of The Interpreter, which was being produced by a friend of mine, Kevin Misher, and we talked a bit about screenwriting. The most exciting part of that visit was my encounter with Nicole Kidman (she gave me a piece of gum – Orbit Sugarfree Bubblemint, which is really the world’s best gum, and not because Nicole Kidman gave me a piece), but the next most exciting was watching Sydney work. His energy and enthusiasm were astonishing.

Things happen in Hollywood and Sydney didn’t get the chance to make our movie. Rich and I are cautiously pessimistic about its chances. We hope, of course, that it gets made. If it does, and if it’s any good, it will be because Sydney Pollack laid his hands on it.

Palestinian National Suicide

Those of us who have a hard time believing that even the most irrational Iranian leader would actually sacrifice Persian civilization on the altar of anti-Zionism ought to pay attention to this story, about the tendency among Islamists toward national suicide.

And while I'm at it, Bradley Burston, one of my favorite columnists, has a real barn-burner up at Ha'aretz, a warning to the Palestinians about their self-destructive tendencies.

I've been writing recently about the existential threat that Israel will face if a Palestinian state isn't created. What I neglect to note is that the Palestinians already live in a state of national non-existence.

The Problem with Boca

Jodi Kantor's alternately amusing and disturbing visit to Boca Raton and environs, in which she found many elderly Jews willing to say ill-informed things about Barack Obama, is a reminder that the rupture in black-Jewish relations is still very real (and that Crown Heights story didn't help, either). I would have been happier had some of these alte kockers expressed some substantive criticism of Obama. But it's important to remember that, despite all of these problems of perception, and of actual racism, Jews are still far more likely than other whites to vote for a black candidate for President. I wouldn't be surprised if Obama ends up with 70 or 75 percent of the Jewish vote. The Appalachian Jewish vote might be problematic -- those Kentucky Jews are hardheaded, all five of them -- but overall, I imagine that, at the very least, he'll do better than Carter did in 1980.

Max Boot, Palestinian?

Max Boot writes, "Sort of like the Israelis and Palestinians, Jeff Goldberg and I seem to be talking past one another."

I wonder which one I'm supposed to be?

In any case, Max went on to write, "I argued on CONTENTIONS that the reason Israelis aren't dismantling the settlements (and that President Bush isn't pressing them to do so) has nothing to do with the views of American Jewish groups and everything to do with the dismal record of recent Israeli concessions in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. In both cases (as well as at the Camp David negotiations in 2000) Israelis thought that territorial concessions would lead to peace. Instead they led to the empowerment of terrorists. It's an obvious point, and one I'm sure he's familiar with, but one that Jeff never mentioned in his article."

Then he states that I objected "only to one part of my critique," the one concerning the vile Walt and the vile Mearsheimer. The reason I did so, Max, is I felt that you were accusing me of something atrocious, so I thought I ought to knock it down. Also, I'm allergic to long posts. But if you want to discuss the substance of the dispute, I'm happy to. Maybe the great Rosner can referee.

Two quick points: Like many people on the right, Max focuses mainly on the problems Israel would face by leaving the West Bank, but he doesn't address the problems Israel brings on itself by staying, and I don't mean merely what he might think of as the goo-goo moral issues concerning the long-term effects of occupation on the society that is doing the occupying. I'm talking about the demographic threat to Israel's Jewish and democratic nature.

The second point concerns Walt and Mearsheimer: One of their many sins, perhaps one of their bigger sins, was to make impossible an open conversation in the Jewish community about the impact of pro-Israel lobbying. By accusing American Jews of acting against the best interests of their country, they not only made themselves worthy heirs to Father Coughlin and a long list of antique Jew-baiters, they sent us into a defensive crouch.

It is actually okay to talk about Aipac's priorities, and even its power, despite the odious specter of Waltsheimer. Discussion of Aipac's power doesn't bother me, because I believe that its power derives mainly from the fact that most Americans, and most members of Congress, actually like Israel and support Israel. (Unlike Waltsheimer, I've actually interviewed members of Congress on this subject.) It's the first rule of lobbying: Lobbying can only be successful over the long-term if the cause in question is one Congress is predisposed to support anyway.

But on Max's substantive points, concerning the best course of action Israel could take to protect itself from external threats, and from demographic challenges to its Jewish nature, I'm ready to rumble. Actually, I'm not entirely ready, because I'm leaving for the Middle East soon, but I'll rumble anyway.

Jewcy to the Rescue

Maybe I'm not a jihadist, after all.

Press Freedom, Hezbollah-Style

The democratic social service organization Hezbollah trashes a television station in Beirut.

Obama Cedes Israel to Iran

It's incredible, actually. Obama is not yet the official nominee of the Democratic Party, and he's already asked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to become mayor of the Shi'ite Republic of Tel Aviv. At least that's the impression I get from reading the ever-excitable Caroline Glick.

Next week, Obama meets with a delegation of Sudeten Germans to discuss their legitimate complaints about ethnic Czech hegemony.

The Distortions of Max Boot

Dear Max,

I have a "fair amount of respect" for you, as well, so it bothers me that you misread my recent Times op-ed so comprehensively. In your post, you misrepresented my views consistently, but let me grapple with your most outrageous assertion: that I "concede" most of the case made by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their book "The Israel Lobby."

Max, as you well know, "The Israel Lobby" makes three principal arguments: The first is that American support for Israel - which is engineered solely by the Jewish community, the authors erroneously claim - hurts America. The second is that the organized American Jewish community, by advocating for policies that are not in America's best interests, caused the Iraq war and is partially to blame for the attacks of 9/11. The third is that Israel's behavior is so outrageous as to make it undeserving of American support, on moral grounds.

You accuse me of conceding their case. Let me quote from my Times op-ed: "John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, in their polemical work, "The Israel Lobby," have it wrong: They argue, unpersuasively, that American support for Israel hurts America. It doesn't."

So Max, how do I concede their case? By rejecting it?

Their most outrageous charge - that American Jews, by forcing Washington into an unnaturally close alliance with Israel, are partially to blame for al-Qaeda's attacks of September 11 - I don't address at all in the op-ed, though I've addressed it elsewhere, and rather dispositively. It is, of course, an anti-Semitic charge. I have dealt similarly with the third of their main charges.

My argument in the op-ed is that unthinking American support for Israel actually hurts Israel in one area of existential importance: By not encouraging Israel in any meaningful way to evacuate the settlements of the West Bank, America - as well as the American Jews who support Aipac and who thus help shape American policy toward Israel - is doing the Jewish state no favors. I am interested in preserving Israel's strong Jewish majority while at the same time ensuring that Israel remains a democracy. These will be more difficult tasks if Israel continues to rule over the hostile Arabs of the West Bank. If you can't see that, well, you haven't spent much time on the West Bank.

I'm fully aware of the dangers inherent in a settlement withdrawal, but I believe that the dangers of staying on the West Bank outweigh the dangers of leaving. And by the way, I don't advocate a unilateral end to the occupation, just to the settlement project. An end to the occupation has to come about through negotiations with a viable Palestinian partner. A partner, by the way, who might be strengthened by a reversal of settlement program.

One other thing - it is no secret that Aipac is powerful. I've said this repeatedly. So has Aipac, by the way. For all the money it has collected from pro-Israel donors over the years, it had better be powerful. It is not anti-Semitic, or anti-Israel, to acknowledge Aipac's power. I believe it does many good things with its power. It has strengthened the overall relationship between America and Israel. I just wish that it would counsel Israel to make sure that it doesn't endanger its own future by trying to swallow too much of the West Bank. And I wish it would acknowledge that American politicians - and American Jews - can be pro-Israel and anti-settlement at the same time.

The Assumption of Palestinian Moderation

My friend (and Atlantic contributor) Reuel Marc Gerecht writes to challenge a key supposition of my Times op-ed on Israel:

Jeffrey, I'm not sure I understand where a moderate Palestinian state comes from, since we would not have a "moderate" Egypt, or Syria, or probably Jordan if free votes were allowed (I assume "moderate" means willing to recognize Israel). Would a Fatah dictatorship last against Hamas if it were to gain East Jerusalem? Well, that's an interesting question. I suspect not: the opposite catalytic effect I fear is much more likely. Could Palestinian democracy change the equation? Maybe. But wouldn't it have to demonstrate to Israelis its profound seriousness before Israelis are willing to give up East Jerusalem? Isn't Israeli democracy's highly attuned sense of its primary antagonist more the issue than the intransigence of Jews in Boca, Manhattan, and Highland Park? You tell me.

I don't see how Israel gets out of the current pincer grip unless the power dynamics change in Lebanon, Iran, Gaza and the West Bank, and Egypt. Until that happens, then it's pretty hard to see things getting better. Odds are, when Iran gets the nuke, things are going to get worse. Perhaps, a lot worse. And if the fundamentalists dominate Egypt, which is only a matter of time, then I just don't see any possible progress on East Jerusalem for generations. Democracy in Egypt could surprise us in how fast it distances itself from the Muslim Brotherhood's hardcore, but even with this "progressive" evolution, the Israel-Palestinian dialogue ain't, in all probability, going anywhere.

A Not-Unreasonable Hitler

A great moment in journalism.

Israel's America Problem

My op-ed in the Times has provoked a certain amount of unhappiness in people who believe it to be an attack on AIPAC. Apparently, we are all supposed to behave as if Israel has never made a mistake in its 60 years of existence. For Israel's sake, it seems important to acknowledge, and then fix, its mistakes. Or we can just hunker down and wait for doomsday.

We've Already Had a Roth Presidency

Sara Ivry, from Nextbook, wrote to say that we've already experienced a Roth-inspired presidency, circa "Clinton/Monica." Of course! A presidency devoted to oral sex.

Obama: The New Herzl?

Shmuel Rosner, the Herzl of Ha'aretz, thinks so.

Hagee Calls for Israel's Destruction

Jon Chait does a little bit of reinterpreting.

For more interesting, uplifting and substantially less bloody pro-Israel Christian views, might I suggest a visit to Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East.

The (Truly) Honorable Pete Wehner

Andrew has the details.

Another Roth winner

This one from reader Jonathan D. Cohen:

Was it his swollen prostate or aching conscience that caused him to turn down the Vice President's invitation to join her for a nightcap? Still, there was something about her Midwestern Protestant rectitude that made him want to penetrate her in places not even reached by the former President who was nominally her husband and officially, in his new role as special envoy to the Middle East, the biggest of all his pains in the ass.

An Early Philip Roth Winner

Here's a most excellent response to my request for a couple of paragraphs describing what a Philip Roth-influenced Obama White House would look like. The genius author has requested anonymity, but may still win the liver:

"An Obama presidency," said Murray to me then, shaking that maned head, that maned Newark head that had seen him through the riots, the fires, the lobotomizing of a city's heart, a head that now embraced within its unusually wide span the trochaic hopes of a Kenyan-Kansan who might, but just might, if all went well and he nailed that Chappaqua succubus to the ground, he was thinking then, get that heart back again. "What a thing that would be, kiddo, what a thing to see a black kid come up that way, a black kid I tell you, a black kid in that Oval Office, a black kid, 'cause you know as well as I do it's only a black kid can make us proud again, take us back to making things again, put our people in the factories again, make us proud just to craft a pair of goddamn gloves again and don't tell me he won't do it, kiddo, you know as well as I do he will, because he can, yes he can, and he will, he will," Murray swore. That was 2008, May I think it was, the last time I saw Murray alive, a year to the day before he came coffined back to Dover, shamed in life and death, with the blood of eleven Iraqi schoolchildren on his hands.

Memo to Lieberman

Joe Klein reports that Joseph Lieberman is working hard to make the Hamas "endorsement" of Barack Obama a campaign issue. I would point the senator to Obama's interesting, and credible, answer to me on the question of why Hamas's Ahmed Yousef would say what he said. Please take careful note of the last sentence:

"It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, 'This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,' and that’s something they’re hopeful about. I think that’s a perfectly legitimate perception as long as they’re not confused about my unyielding support for Israel’s security."

Which part of "unyielding support for Israel's security" is unclear?

Happy 60th

"If you will it, dude, it is no dream" -- Walter Sobchak, "The Big Lebowski"

The Secretary of Tsuris

The clever Noam Scheiber at the clever New Republic picked up on the most interesting single statement made by Barack Obama in my interview with him. Not, by the way, Obama's contention that Israel is a "sore" -- because he didn't say it, Mr. Boehner. Obama told me that his sensibility was partially shaped by the books of Philip Roth. This obviously has profound implications for American foreign policy, and for shiksas, as well.

And so, a reader contest. In a couple of pithy sentences, tell us what the first 100 days of a Roth-influenced Obama presidency would look like. I'll post the best responses. First prize is a piece of liver.

The Honorable Mr. Boehner (II)

Michael Dobbs, of the Washington Post, is on to Boehner's ridiculous slander of Barack Obama. He's not the only one.

The Honorable Mr. Boehner

A press release from House Republican leader John Boehner asserts that Barack Obama told me that Israel is a "constant sore" that infects American foreign policy. "Israel is a critical American ally and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, not a `constant sore' as Barack Obama claims," Boehner's statement reads.

Mr. Boehner, I'm sure, is a terribly busy man, with many burdensome responsibilities, so I have to assume that he simply didn't have time to read the entire Obama interview, or even the entire paragraph, or even a single clause. If he had, of course, he would have seen that Obama was clearly calling the Middle East conflict, and not Israel, a sore. Why, there's no one who would disagree that the Middle East conflict is a "sore," is there?

I have no doubt that Mr. Boehner will issue a correction to his press release in which he states the obvious, which is that Obama expressed -- in twelve different ways -- his support for Israel to me.

If he doesn't, however, I would, sadly, have to agree with my colleague, the less-forgiving Andrew Sullivan, who called Boehner's statement a "flat-out lie." In fact, I would add to Andrew's post, by calling Boehner's statement mendacious, duplicitous, gross, and comically refutable. So Mr. Boehner, do the right thing, and correct the record. I'll be happy to post the correction right here.

Obama on Zionism and Hamas

The Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef did Barack Obama no favor recently when he said: “We like Mr. Obama and we hope that he will win the election.” John McCain jumped on this statement, calling it a “legitimate point of discussion,” and tied it to Obama’s putative softness on Iran, whose ever-charming president last week called Israel a “stinking corpse” and predicted its “annihilation.”

The Hamas episode won’t help Obama’s attempts to win over Jewish voters, particularly those in such places as –- to pull an example from the air –- Palm Beach County, Florida, whose Jewish residents tend to appreciate robust American support for Israel, and worry about whether presidential candidates feel the importance of Israel in their kishkes, or guts.

Obama and I spoke over the weekend about Hamas, about Jimmy Carter, and about the future of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community, and about the influence Jews have had on his life. Among other things, he told me that he learned the art of moral anguish from Jews. We spoke as well about my Atlantic cover story on Israel’s future. He mentioned his interest in the opinions of the writer David Grossman, who is featured in the article. “I remember reading The Yellow Wind when it came out, and reading about Grossman now is powerful, painful stuff.” And, speaking in a kind of code Jews readily understand, Obama also made sure to mention that he was fond of the writer Leon Uris, the author of Exodus.

Here are excerpts from our conversation:

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I’m curious to hear you talk about the Zionist idea. Do you believe that it has justice on its side?

BARACK OBAMA: You know, when I think about the Zionist idea, I think about how my feelings about Israel were shaped as a young man -- as a child, in fact. I had a camp counselor when I was in sixth grade who was Jewish-American but who had spent time in Israel, and during the course of this two-week camp he shared with me the idea of returning to a homeland and what that meant for people who had suffered from the Holocaust, and he talked about the idea of preserving a culture when a people had been uprooted with the view of eventually returning home. There was something so powerful and compelling for me, maybe because I was a kid who never entirely felt like he was rooted. That was part of my upbringing, to be traveling and always having a sense of values and culture but wanting a place. So that is my first memory of thinking about Israel.

And then that mixed with a great affinity for the idea of social justice that was embodied in the early Zionist movement and the kibbutz, and the notion that not only do you find a place but you also have this opportunity to start over and to repair the breaches of the past. I found this very appealing.

JG: You’ve talked about the role of Jews in the development of your thinking

BO: I always joke that my intellectual formation was through Jewish scholars and writers, even though I didn’t know it at the time. Whether it was theologians or Philip Roth who helped shape my sensibility, or some of the more popular writers like Leon Uris. So when I became more politically conscious, my starting point when I think about the Middle East is this enormous emotional attachment and sympathy for Israel, mindful of its history, mindful of the hardship and pain and suffering that the Jewish people have undergone, but also mindful of the incredible opportunity that is presented when people finally return to a land and are able to try to excavate their best traditions and their best selves. And obviously it’s something that has great resonance with the African-American experience.

One of the things that is frustrating about the recent conversations on Israel is the loss of what I think is the natural affinity between the African-American community and the Jewish community, one that was deeply understood by Jewish and black leaders in the early civil-rights movement but has been estranged for a whole host of reasons that you and I don’t need to elaborate.

JG: Do you think that justice is still on Israel’s side?

Continue reading "Obama on Zionism and Hamas" »

Muslim-Jewish Anti-Hog Coalition

Elijah Muhammad, in "How to Eat to Live," on the matter of swine:

"The hog takes away the beautiful appearance of people and takes away their shyness. The people who eat the hog have no shyness because they eat the hog. Nature did not give the hog any shyness. God, in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, taught me that the scientists have found that the hog carries 999 poisonous germs in it and they are not 100 percent poison, but nearly 1000 percent poison. The swine takes away our life gradually and creates worms in our bodies. The worms eat away our digestive tracts and cause bad thinking."

However, I'm told that bacon tastes good.

Hezbollah and its Apologists

Hezbollah has been doing a bang-up job this week undermining Lebanon's future on behalf of its sponsors, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Syrian intelligence. It is simultaneously doing effective work undermining its apologists in the West. We've heard the arguments over and over again: Hezbollah is social service agency; Hezbollah wants to join the Lebanese political process; Hezbollah is not in fact dominated by murderous Jew-haters. And so on.

It's been a tough year already for Hezbollah's apologists; the assassination of Imad Mugniyah, the terrorist many of Hezbollah's friends denied existed until Hezbollah gave him what amounted to a state funeral, hurt the cause of those on the left, in particular, who wanted to whitewash Hezbollah's violent, anti-democratic program. Michael Young, the Lebanese commentator, wrote about Hezbollah's patsies here.

Mr. Charm

And happy birthday to you, too.

Cooking with Elijah Muhammad

I was rooting around in a box of Nation of Islam paraphernalia the other day when I came across a wonderful book by Elijah Muhammad (the self-described "Messenger of Allah") called "How to Eat to Live." (I pulled out the box, by the way, because I noticed the presence of the execrable Malik Zulu Shabazz at the Jeremiah Wright press spectacle, and the sight of him made me nostalgic for my days covering the Nation. It was Malik Zulu Shabazz who once called me a lox-eating Jewboy. Which, though offensive, contained an element of truth.)

"How to Eat to Live" -- which Elijah Muhammad said was handed down to him from God through Master Fard Muhammad, the mystery man at the center of Nation theology -- is about the Fruit of Islam, quite literally. Each page has wonderful advice about diet and cooking, and I thought I would feature some of his comments on this blog from time to time. Here he is on some foods to avoid: "Do not eat the swine flesh. It is forbidden by the divine law of Allah (God). Do not eat field peas, black-eyed peas, speckled peas, red peas or brown peas. Do not eat lima beans, or baby limas. Do not eat any bean but the small navy bean -- the little brown pink ones, and the white ones."

I'm not with him on the pea issue, but we're one on the matter of swine. Tomorrow, why Elijah Muhammad hated hogs.

60 Years of Israel

An Atlantic special video production: Me talking about Israel, with lots of pictures of Arabs and Jews. (That's me on the left). This is part one of a four-part conversation with Jennie Rothenberg Gritz.

The Delusions of Caroline Glick

Caroline Glick, the far-right columnist for my former employer, the Jerusalem Post, wrote earlier this week that my Atlantic cover story on Israel's future was evidence of my "anti-Zionism," its writer "a disillusioned Zionist who abandoned Israel and moved back to America." My argument in the piece, she wrote, is that the Jewish state is "doomed because it has sinfully deviated from Jewish history by being powerful."
I have to believe that she didn't actually read the story (She also spelled my name wrong, which is never a sign of attentiveness.) I assert nothing of what she alleges. I don't believe that Israel is doomed because it is powerful. I don't even believe that it is necessarily doomed at all. I believe, simply put, that the occupation of the West Bank undermines Israel demographically, strategically, and morally. Demographically, because there will eventually be under Israel's control more Arabs than Jews. Strategically because the occupation undermines Israel's international legitimacy, which it needs in order to wage the coming war of national defense against Iran and its proxy armies. And morally, because -- well, I served in the occupation, and I saw what such service did to my fellow soldiers, not to mention the Palestinians who were our captives. In fact, I wrote a whole book about this, which Caroline Glick could surely read, if she even reads book written by people with whom she disagrees.
Glick is representative of a certain strain of mainly-American Jewish thinking: She believes that all criticism of Israel is illegitimate; she believes Jews who disagree with her are traitors to her cause; and she conflates the settlement movement with the entire Zionist project. I believe that it is possible to stand against the settlements and stand for Israel at the same time. This is actually the position of millions of Israelis, including the "far-left" -- in Glick's estimation -- David Grossman. Grossman has given a great deal to his country. I would hazard a guess that he's given more to Israel than Caroline Glick has. Caroline Glick can take shots at me all she wants, but she's on much shakier ground when she goes after Grossman.

A Jew of the Liberal Breed

Nahum Barnea, Israel's leading columnist, wrote this past Friday in Yediot about my Atlantic cover piece on Israel's 60th anniversary. An unofficial translation appears below. Like many Israelis, he is frustrated by questions about Israel's existence. Nobody asks about Bolivia's rationale for existence, so why should we ask about Israel's? He's right of course, but he's talking into the wind.
Here's the piece:

UNFORGIVEN, YEDIOT AHRONOT, MAY 2ND, 2008

BY NAHUM BARNEA

In 1992, Clint Eastwood created a solemn, melancholic Western about a contract killer who returns to the straight and narrow, and after years of distress and hard work, goes on his final job. "Unforgiven," he called his film. "Unforgiven" is also what the respected American monthly The Atlantic called a wide-reaching article it published on Israel in April. The immediate unforgiven is Ehud Olmert. The article deals extensively with author David Grossman's refusal to meet with Olmert and shake his hand.

On another level, one that is irritating and infuriating, the unforgiven is also the State of Israel.

Olmert was interviewed for the article and, in his responses, fell into every possible trap. Grossman was also interviewed, as was the standard list of readymade quote producers, consisting of Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, Avraham Burg, and Ziad Abu-Ziad, among others. A week ahead of the article's publication, the monthly presented the article to the interviewees for their perusal. Olmert and Grossman were angry, each for his own reasons, but it was too late for amendments.

Jeffrey Goldberg, the author, is renowned in American Journalism, especially in magazines such as The New Yorker. He has specialized in investigative reporting on Islamic terrorist movements and the Israeli-Arab conflict. He based his book, Prisoners (2006), on conversations he had with an ex-prisoner from Fatah. The book garnered sweeping praise in the American media and awards from Jewish organizations.

"Grossman thinks," he told Olmert, "that you haven't done enough to remove outposts and leave the West Bank."

"Olmert's face took on a dark cast," Goldberg wrote. "'Listen,' he said with evident irritation. 'This is why I am prime minister and he is a writer.'

"Olmert sighed. 'I'll tell you, I don't like to argue with David since he lost his son,' he said. 'I think there is an emotional part in the way he expresses himself about me, which has nothing to do with my views or my actions... He doesn't really separate the personal from the political.'"

Olmert's response is neither accurate nor fair. It is inaccurate because Olmert himself has admitted, in interviews he gave ahead of Passover to Yediot Aharonot and other publications, that he has failed to meet his commitments dismantle outposts. It is unfair because Grossman's opinions on the conflict and the ways of solving it have not changed following the death of his son. Instead of facing up to relevant criticism, Olmert hides it deep inside the tear duct.

On the eve of Remembrance Day, it may be useful to discuss the role of bereavement in political debates. Bereaved parents have no advantage over anyone else in understanding the reality or determining who is at fault and what the appropriate punishment for that person is. Bereavement does not shield them from criticism and does not excuse them from justifying their positions. Nonetheless, the respect given to the fallen by the Israeli society extends to them as well. People listen to them. That is also what is required from public figures, first and for most when it comes to those who sent their sons to the battlefield, never to return: listen; respond to the matter at hand and not to the person at hand; take their anger quietly and with humility, if public figures remain that are capable of showing humility. Ehud Olmert, who succeeded in surviving a failed war, does not know and may never know that one need not win every argument.

Accompanying this story is a footnote. Apparently, former politician Avraham Burg, the man who made a career out of flippancy, had rushed to Grossman to convince him to meet with Olmert. As would be expected, he wasted no time in telling the world of his effort. What motivated me, he told the reporter, was a concern over Olmert's emotional well-being. "The prime minister suffers the casualties of war," Burg said. "He doesn't sleep at night"

Grossman rejected the plea, thus saving his protest from becoming a soap opera. As for Olmert, to the best of my knowledge he sleeps at night. Sometimes, when meetings grow especially grueling, he sleeps during the day as well.

The uncle in the States

Jeffrey Goldberg is a Jew of the liberal breed, what we here call center-left. In his official biography and in his articles he highlights the fact that he lived in Israel and even served in the IDF for several months. "As a young Zionist in the late 1980s," he writes, "I was drawn to the idea that Israel represented the most sublime and encompassing expression of Jewishness."

Jews like him are an invaluable asset to the future of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. If I have friends in the U.S. and in Europe, these are the friends who quietly ask, when no one is listening, say, were we the ones behind the Mughniyeh assassination? The plant in Syria, was that us? And listen to my answer with a sparkle in their eyes. These are the friends for whom a barrage of Qassams on Sderot acts as an arrow to the heart and a woman accidentally killed in Gaza ruins their day.

These wonderful people have one weakness: They are compelled to search for justification for the State of Israel's existence. This tormented state has existed for 60 years, rocking between tremendous moments and grave disasters, yet it is still required to defend the why and how of its establishment and existence to its friends, and even more so to its enemies. They set the bar higher than they do for any other country, even their own. It is no wonder that it ultimately fails the test: it can't meet the expectations.

Jeffrey Goldberg came here to examine "the meaning of Israel's existence." These are his words. He examined our meaning with Grossman, who simply and logically said: "I wouldn't like to live in any other place. With all the difficulty and criticism I have, it is still for me, as a Jewish person, the highest spiritual challenge and endeavor to see this country become a better place."

Olmert, in his answer, listed the achievements of the Zionist idea, first and foremost the ingathering of Jews. Goldberg agreed: The achievements are impressive. Can you list the flaws, he asked. "Of course there are flaws," said Olmert. "I don't care about it. Of course, I mean, I care about the flaws, I'm the prime minister. I have to improve things, I have to amend things. But when I celebrate the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel, what I have in mind are the enormous achievements."

Why, Goldberg asked, is Israel less safe for Jews than America?

"I'll tell you something that you have to realize," Olmert replied. "This is the most important thing and this is the most significant thing. First of all, no people are safe anywhere, okay? Let me tell you, Jews are not safer in Israel than they are in other parts of the world, but there is only one place that Jews can fight for their lives as Jews, and that is here." Olmert, Goldberg writes, banged on his desk. "Jews were persecuted, Jews were attacked, Jews were suppressed, Jews were killed. But they could never defend themselves as Jews."

If so, Goldberg asked, does the success of the American Jewish community not lessen the necessity for the state of Israel to exist?

"Never," Olmert said. "Never, no way."

That's when he fell into another trap. "By the way," he said, "Jews in Germany--and I don't draw any comparison at all--Jews in other parts of the world were very successful all their lives, and that didn't provide them with safety."

The allusion to Germany sent Goldberg up the wall. "The prime minister of Israel," he writes, "should be able to muster an argument for the necessity of his country without forecasting a Holocaust in America. His was a careless and cynical statement, one that supports the notion that he is not Israel's deepest thinker."

The bedrock of our existence

Debates over the right of Israel to exist take place all the time all over the world. They take place in Washington, in London and in Paris, and they also take place in Tehran, Beirut and Cairo. Articles are published, Research papers are submitted, people make a living off it. One of the disturbing aspects of this breadth of debate is that any friendly, empathetic discussion on Israel's existence legitimizes less friendly discussion of this issue in Ahmadinejad's speeches. Both camps feel an uncontainable urge to encircle the State of Israel with a question mark.

I bear no news by saying that for better and for worse, Israel interests the world far more than is warranted by its size, its strategic importance, and the amount of bad news emerging from it. I bear no news by saying that the words "Jewish State," which to us sound natural and obvious, constitute a charged phrase for hundreds of millions of Christians and Muslims who have difficulty settling it with their faith, their ambition, and their cultural heritage.

But there's more to it: feelings of guilt among Jews who do not live here and feelings of sacrifice among Jews who do live here and emit bitterness to the outside world.

Goldberg says that his decision to serve in the IDF was unfathomable to his fellow soldiers. "One of my commanders asked me, 'Why would a person leave America to die in Israel?' Then he asked if we could switch places--he would move to New York and marry a doctor's daughter, and I would die chasing Palestinians through the casbah of Nablus. I was dreaming Leon Uris dreams, but he was having visions out of Goodbye, Columbus."

Private Goldberg did not die: He went back to America. Israel went on existing without him. States have this quality: They go on existing, with the Goldbergs or without them.

Dreams are a good thing, either if dreamt by one person or by en entire people. The element of dream is especially important to a state such as Israel, with its establishment being the realization of a dream and with its current desperate need for a dream or a vision.

But its existence is not condition on the dream. Israel is not a startup: It is an established and rooted state. A state filled with failures, inner diseases and outside problems, but still a living and breathing state. Seven million people live here, eat here, drink, love, work for a living, fight for their lives. They need not justify their existence to anyone, not even our worried brothers in the Diaspora.

Two years ago, I wrote a sharp article about a kibbutz in the Galilee, a kibbutz I knew well. Some time later, I met a longtime member of the kibbutz. "We really love you here," she said. "We have only one request: Don't write about us."

That, more or less, is what I would tell a warm, Israel-loving Jew, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, for example, asking me to explain to him, once and for all, what the justification is for Israel's existence.

Then I would hug his shoulders lightly and invite his children to come to Israel.

Saddam and al-Qaeda

The energetic Reihan Salam has an interesting, and sane, post about the widely-ignored Institute for Defense Analyses study on possible connections between Saddam's regime and Islamist terror organizations. Among other things, the report disproves the orthodox CIA view that ideological and theological differences between Ba'athists and Islamists kept them from cooperating. You can read Eli Lake's story about the report here.

The Sins of Wal-Mart

I've been interested in Wal-Mart for some time -- I spent three bizarre days in Bentonville a while ago, and wrote up my visit, and Wal-Mart's semi-comical attempts at media manipulation, for the New Yorker, and I've been following the Debbie Shanks story with some feeling of disgust. For those of you unacquainted with the story, Wal-Mart Watch has the details.