Entries Tagged 'Mondoweiss' ↓

The other day a friend sent me a piece by the columnist "Spengler" of Asia Times online, saying that Israel is the happiest country in the world, while Arabs are "miserable" and their covetousness makes the idea of peace in the region impossible. These neocon horse feathers were trimmed out with theology about Islam and Judaism. I wondered who the hell Spengler is.

Then yesterday, a guy called Mark wrote to me, pointing out an even uglier statement by Spengler, on May 8, in an online forum Spengler leads:

The hidden premise of Islam is that Israel is chosen; that is why it [Islam] had to invent a "final revelation" to replace Hebrew Scripture, substitute Ishmael for Isaac, etc. etc. The nations desire Eternal Life, of which they first heard from the Jews, and covet God's promise to the Jews, who never can "unchoose" themselves, because no-one ever will believe them. The Arabs are a dying culture and Islam is a dying religion, and the only sensible thing to do is keep death at a distance.

So: more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please! [emphasis mine]

Who is this murderous person? Wikipedia informs that Spengler has not been forthcoming about his religion, ethnicity or identity. My new friend Mark told me that he thinks Spengler also writes under the pseudonym "Shushon." Here are his first couple emails to me [and I will freely interpolate my comments within his, in brackets]:

I'd like to draw your attention to an article in the current issue of First Things, a monthly journal of "religion, culture and public life" [edited by neoconservative Father Richard John Neuhaus]. The article is entitled "Zionism for Christians" and is written by "David Shushon". I put the author's name within quotation marks because I think it's a transparent pseudonym, almost certainly for the anonymous internet gadfly "Spengler." First Things once previously published an article by Spengler under his Spengler pseudonym ("Christian, Muslim, Jew" - October 2007), and anyone familiar with his style and thought will recognize "Zionism for Christians" as his work.

[In a rapid hunt of the 2 pieces, I find that both quote extensively from Franz Rosenzweig, including his statement that Christians and Jews are "laborers at the same task," and both speak of anti-semitism as a form of neopaganism, i.e., not Christian. This guy Mark is making sense to me.]

The idea of this most recent article is to persuade Christians that support for the state of Israel is theologically mandated by their faith. What does "support for the state of Israel" mean, from the Spengler perspective? Perhaps the best way to summarize that phrase from Spengler's point of view is to quote a recent comment he made on his forum--the kind of comment he avoids in the urbane pages of First Things. [And here Mark quotes the "barbed wire" comment from above]

Obviously, such comments are difficult to make under a true name in mainstream media, so Spengler has been making them pseudonymously. For more polite audiences he has now found a forum at First Things, where he couches his ideology in pseudo-theological terms.

The bottom line is that Spengler is seeking to convince Christians that support for the Greater Israel agenda that you decry is hardwired into Christian theology. He is also probably trying to bolster the flagging Jewish support for this ideology.

First Things [breathlessly] touts the article in these terms: "The issue features, as well, David Shushon’s “Zionism for Christians.” That’s this month’s free article, available even to non-subscribers–but, then, why are there any non-subscribers, when you could read in the print version Shushon’s fascinating essay, which begins: 'Israel always matters. Biblical scholars have devoted endless pages to ancient Israel as a religious idea, and pundits have penned endless newspaper columns about modern Israel as a geopolitical entity. The deeper implications, however, have received less attention than they deserve in recent years, overshadowed by the exigencies of Middle Eastern politics. Indeed, real questions remain: What does the sheer existence of the modern state of Israel mean for theology–particularly for Christian theology? And what does that theology mean for the continuing existence of Israel?'"

What, in effect, Spengler is attempting is to persuade the Catholic Church--or, at least and less grandiosely, influential intellectuals and opinion shapers within it--to sanction a specific form of nationalism: Zionism. The practical benefit Spengler sees would be an increase of support for a radically Zionist Israel within influential Catholic circles, and the Catholic Church remains the largest and most influential single Christian grouping in the West.

Spengler's attempt rests upon a fundamentalistic reading of the Bible, specifically of the Abraham and Exodus stories. While one might expect the Catholic Church to be immune from such a fundamentalist appeal, that is not the case. Catholic scriptural theology has been deeply infected with fundamentalist readings since the Reformation--essentially, they were put on the defensive by the Reformers and are unsure how to distance themselves from fundamentalism without seeming to renounce scriptural authority. I speak on a popular level--the official statements of the Church do struggle to effect this distancing, but very cautiously and not entirely coherently, for fear of the "modernists" among them. So, Spengler's appeal could well be considerable among the "conservative" Christians (including Catholics) especially in America.

By the way, as you may know, in Jewish mysticism the "shushon/shushan flower" seems to be a symbol for Zion - six points/petals to the flower. [Nope, you're over my head Mark] So, for those in the know, the pseudonym Shushon may be a code for Zionist.

[I asked Mark what's wrong with Spengler, whoever he is, using pseudonyms.]

First Things has given Spengler/Shushon a forum to try to recruit Catholics to the Zionist cause. Spengler/Shushon presents Zionism in a theological way, whereas Spengler's real interests are very practical. He conceals what may be entailed for those who are deluded into believing that support of the state of Israel is a matter of fundamental theology for Catholics: once on board with that concept, they may (if Spengler has his way) be called upon to support "more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please!" (Reminds me of the bar scene in Fawlty Towers.) After all, if support of the Zionist cause is written into the Creed, so to speak, there's no backing away from the implications: the end will justify the means at that point. For that reason, I think Neuhaus owes it to his readers to reveal who the author Shushon is, so they can be aware that his agenda is not academic theology but power politics.

[Weiss again: I think the sale of Zionism to evangelical Christians gets at one of my big problems with Zionism. Because Israel has depended from the start on the west and Zionists generally believe as an article of faith that gentiles won't protect Jews when it comes right down to it, Zionism's advocates have often tried to market Zionism as being in the west's best interest, and at times that claim feels like so much snake oil. During the Cold War it made realist sense, to some, to overlook the landgrabs. Since then it's been problematic. The whole idea of "Islamofascism" clearly helped--the claim that the U.S. and Israel are in the same war (a claim that Trita Parsi has said was dreamed up by Israelis in the '90s). But this idea hasn't worked out very well in Iraq, not in the blue states anyway, and meantime the American Jewish interest in Zionism has weakened: young Jews don't feel they have to flee to Tel Aviv, not when they're marrying privileged gentile peers.

[I raised the snake-oil issue with Mark.]

It's precisely the snake-oil aspect of what he's peddling--his effort to couch his product in terms that will appeal to the intellectual pretensions of the Christian chattering classes--that needs to be addressed. You don't have to be a Christian to have grave doubts as to the compatibility of "more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please!" with what are generally supposed to be the tenets of Christian faith, nor for that matter do you have to be Jewish to have the same reservations regarding the compatibility of what he's saying with the best in the very diverse Jewish tradition.

The other day a friend sent me a piece by the columnist "Spengler" of Asia Times online, saying that Israel is the happiest country in the world, while Arabs are "miserable" and their covetousness makes the idea of peace in the region impossible. These neocon horse feathers were trimmed out with theology about Islam and Judaism. I wondered who the hell Spengler is.

Then yesterday, a guy called Mark wrote to me, pointing out an even uglier statement by Spengler, on May 8, in an online forum Spengler leads:

The hidden premise of Islam is that Israel is chosen; that is why it [Islam] had to invent a "final revelation" to replace Hebrew Scripture, substitute Ishmael for Isaac, etc. etc. The nations desire Eternal Life, of which they first heard from the Jews, and covet God's promise to the Jews, who never can "unchoose" themselves, because no-one ever will believe them. The Arabs are a dying culture and Islam is a dying religion, and the only sensible thing to do is keep death at a distance.

So: more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please! [emphasis mine]

Who is this murderous person? Wikipedia informs that Spengler has not been forthcoming about his religion, ethnicity or identity. My new friend Mark told me that he thinks Spengler also writes under the pseudonym "Shushon." Here are Mark's first couple of emails to me [and I will freely interpolate my comments within his, in brackets]:

I'd like to draw your attention to an article in the current issue of First Things, a monthly journal of "religion, culture and public life" [edited by neoconservative Father Richard John Neuhaus]. The article is entitled "Zionism for Christians" and is written by "David Shushon". I put the author's name within quotation marks because I think it's a transparent pseudonym, almost certainly for the anonymous internet gadfly "Spengler." First Things once previously published an article by Spengler under his Spengler pseudonym ("Christian, Muslim, Jew" - October 2007), and anyone familiar with his style and thought will recognize "Zionism for Christians" as his work.

[In a rapid hunt of the 2 pieces, I find that both quote extensively from Franz Rosenzweig, including his statement that Christians and Jews are "laborers at the same task," and both speak of anti-semitism as a form of neopaganism, i.e., not Christian. This guy Mark is making sense to me.]

The idea of this most recent article is to persuade Christians that support for the state of Israel is theologically mandated by their faith. What does "support for the state of Israel" mean, from the Spengler perspective? Perhaps the best way to summarize that phrase from Spengler's point of view is to quote a recent comment he made on his forum--the kind of comment he avoids in the urbane pages of First Things. [And here Mark quotes the "barbed wire" comment from above]

Obviously, such comments are difficult to make under a true name in mainstream media, so Spengler has been making them pseudonymously. For more polite audiences he has now found a forum at First Things, where he couches his ideology in pseudo-theological terms.

The bottom line is that Spengler is seeking to convince Christians that support for the Greater Israel agenda that you decry is hardwired into Christian theology. He is also probably trying to bolster the flagging Jewish support for this ideology.

First Things touts the article in these terms: "The issue features, as well, David Shushon’s “Zionism for Christians.” That’s this month’s free article, available even to non-subscribers–but, then, why are there any non-subscribers, when you could read in the print version Shushon’s fascinating essay, which begins: 'Israel always matters. Biblical scholars have devoted endless pages to ancient Israel as a religious idea, and pundits have penned endless newspaper columns about modern Israel as a geopolitical entity. The deeper implications, however, have received less attention than they deserve in recent years, overshadowed by the exigencies of Middle Eastern politics. Indeed, real questions remain: What does the sheer existence of the modern state of Israel mean for theology–particularly for Christian theology? And what does that theology mean for the continuing existence of Israel?'"

What, in effect, Spengler is attempting is to persuade the Catholic Church--or, at least and less grandiosely, influential intellectuals and opinion shapers within it--to sanction a specific form of nationalism: Zionism. The practical benefit Spengler sees would be an increase of support for a radically Zionist Israel within influential Catholic circles, and the Catholic Church remains the largest and most influential single Christian grouping in the West.

Spengler's attempt rests upon a fundamentalistic reading of the Bible, specifically of the Abraham and Exodus stories. While one might expect the Catholic Church to be immune from such a fundamentalist appeal, that is not the case. Catholic scriptural theology has been deeply infected with fundamentalist readings since the Reformation--essentially, they were put on the defensive by the Reformers and are unsure how to distance themselves from fundamentalism without seeming to renounce scriptural authority. I speak on a popular level--the official statements of the Church do struggle to effect this distancing, but very cautiously and not entirely coherently, for fear of the "modernists" among them. So, Spengler's appeal could well be considerable among the "conservative" Christians (including Catholics) especially in America.

By the way, as you may know, in Jewish mysticism the "shushon/shushan flower" seems to be a symbol for Zion - six points/petals to the flower. [Didn't know that. By the way, Switchboard lists nobody with the last name of Shushon in the U.S., suggesting that it is a madeup name] So, for those in the know, the pseudonym Shushon may be a code for Zionist.

[I asked Mark what's wrong with Spengler, whoever he is, using pseudonyms.]

First Things has given Spengler/Shushon a forum to try to recruit Catholics to the Zionist cause. Spengler/Shushon presents Zionism in a theological way, whereas Spengler's real interests are very practical. He conceals what may be entailed for those who are deluded into believing that support of the state of Israel is a matter of fundamental theology for Catholics: once on board with that concept, they may (if Spengler has his way) be called upon to support "more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please!" (Reminds me of the bar scene in Fawlty Towers.) After all, if support of the Zionist cause is written into the Creed, so to speak, there's no backing away from the implications: the end will justify the means at that point. For that reason, I think Neuhaus owes it to his readers to reveal who the author Shushon is, so they can be aware that his agenda is not academic theology but power politics.

[Weiss again: I think the sale of Zionism to evangelical Christians gets at one of my big problems with Zionism. Because Israel has depended from the start on the west and Zionists generally believe as an article of faith that gentiles won't protect Jews when it comes right down to it, Zionism's advocates have often tried to market Zionism as being in the west's best interest, and at times that claim feels like so much snake oil. During the Cold War it made realist sense, to some, to overlook the landgrabs. Since then it's been problematic. The whole idea of "Islamofascism" clearly helped--the claim that the U.S. and Israel are in the same war (a claim that Trita Parsi has said was dreamed up by Israelis in the '90s). But this idea hasn't worked out very well in Iraq, not in the blue states anyway, and meantime the American Jewish interest in Zionism has weakened: young Jews don't feel they have to flee to Tel Aviv, not when they're marrying privileged gentile peers.

[I raised the snake-oil issue with Mark.]

It's precisely the snake-oil aspect of what he's peddling--his effort to couch his product in terms that will appeal to the intellectual pretensions of the Christian chattering classes--that needs to be addressed. You don't have to be a Christian to have grave doubts as to the compatibility of "more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please!" with what are generally supposed to be the tenets of Christian faith, nor for that matter do you have to be Jewish to have the same reservations regarding the compatibility of what he's saying with the best in the very diverse Jewish tradition.

I'm not the best source on Jewish liturgy but I remember that at Yom Kippur they open the doors of the ark, the cabinet of the law, and later warn you that the doors are closing. The days of atonement are coming to an end, this is your last chance to come to grips with all the vows you broke in the year before and get ready for the year ahead. Soul-ravishing... Today the Times cracked opened the doors of American consciousness a little further..

It published Walt and Mearsheimer in the letters column, pointing out that Jeffrey Goldberg, who trashed them up and down the town last year, has now borrowed their argument. When will the Times see fit to invite these important scholars to speak out on the Op-Ed page? Americans want to hear their analysis of the latest Iran fear-mongering!

Just as important, the Times published a letter from Jacob Bender. I'm going to reprint it in full; it's better than anything else you're going to read here: 

Sixty years after Israeli independence, it is time for Jews to acknowledge the painful truth: the Jewish state was born on the forced expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinian people. 

As an American Jew who lived in Israel for many years, and who has worked with Muslim organizations for the last decade, I believe that our recognition of this agonizing history would help open doors to peace between Israel and Palestine, and could lay the foundation for Jewish-Muslim reconciliation.

In the third century, Rabbi Hama bar Hanina wrote, “Great is repentance: it brings healing to the world.” This ancient Jewish teaching can guide us as we seek to bring peace to what Martin Buber rightly described as “a land of two peoples.”

Amen. And further evidence that 40 years of temporizing on the '67 borders, by both sides, has led to the inevitable, Let's talk about '48 and the creation myths.

This piece in Vanity Fair online is historic: it is an open discussion, in a glossy social column, of the social resentment among WASPs toward the new wealth, the Jews, and their gauche manners, in this instance the horrifying fact that Schwartzman is putting his name on the facade of the NYPL, something I decried weeks ago. The only writers to address this issue before are me, Scott McConnell, and Kevin MacDonald, though in MacDonald's case it is interlarded with antisemitism.

This piece too is interlarded with antisemitism. The writer both echoes the antisemitism and condemns it at the same time. What is the answer? We should talk about it. A giant shift has taken place in the American establishment. Jews are principals in the Establishment now. This column is a great help. It suggests that the meritocracy has eroded old bars and discriminations. Alright, yes.

What it does not address are the absolutely necessary sequiturs: How much of political giving  now comes from Jews? Why is McCain thumping the Iran tub? Is that about money? When Obama says that McCain's talk is about "domestic politics," is he speaking about Jewish wealth? What is the Jewish leadership's agenda for the Middle East? Do Americans want Zionism on the facade of the Lincoln Memorial?

This piece in Vanity Fair online is historic: it is an open discussion, in a glossy social column, of the social resentment among WASPs toward the new wealth, the Jews and their allegedly-gauche manners, in this instance the (truly) horrifying fact that Stephen A. Schwartzman's name is being incised on the facade of the NYPL, something I decried weeks ago, and something the Astors, the original givers to that shrine of learning, never would have allowed. The only writers to address this issue directly before are me, Scott McConnell, and Kevin MacDonald, though in MacDonald's case it is interlarded with antisemitism.

This piece too is interlarded with antisemitism. The writer both echoes the antisemitism and condemns it at the same time. What is the answer? We should talk about it, and have this out. A giant shift has taken place in the American establishment. Jews are principals in the Establishment now. This column is a great help. It suggests that the meritocracy has eroded old bars and discriminations. Alright, yes. And thru intermarriage the Christians are flesh of my flesh, and Jews are flesh of theirs. Get used to it. Guess who's coming to the inauguration. Obama is about to ring in a great new age of miscegenation.

What this social column does not address are the absolutely necessary sequiturs: How much of political giving  now comes from Jews? Why is McCain thumping the Iran drum? Is that about money? What is Sheldon Adelson, the third richest man in America, doing at Bush's head table when Haaretz says he wants to push the Arabs out of the West Bank? Why is Haim Saban funding the Brookings Institution? Why is Lester Crown funding the Council on Foreign Relations--and reportedly banging tables about Iran? When Obama says that McCain's talk is about "domestic politics," is he speaking about Jewish wealth?

In short, what is the new Jewish leadership's agenda for the Middle East? And does the next generation of Jews want Zionism incised on the facade of the Lincoln Memorial? (Nope, hallelujah). These are real political questions. Get over your ancient dogeared canards and look at the face of America. 

Commentary and I agree for once. Jeffrey Goldberg has embraced Walt and Mearsheimer. After trashing the brave authors last year, says Commentary,

Goldberg concedes most of their substantive case.

Hooray. Earlier today I said Goldberg showed real courage, and spent some political and personal capital. After all, he's losing his neocon traveling buddies, and buddying up to Obama. Maybe it's not courage, though-- maybe it's the New Conventional Wisdom? Goldberg's not the only one trying to put his Iraq War judgment behind him... 

Speaking of Hillary's efforts to count Florida on CNN yesterday, congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin said some of Hillary's methods might not be considered "kosher" by the Democratic Party. It used to be that people used the word "cricket" to convey the idea of observing the rules, or bending them. Nothing wrong with kosher. But another sign that Jews are principals in American life...

The Huffington Post says that Israeli-American Clinton backer Haim Saban dangled a $1 million gift to the Young Democrats of America during a phone call in which he pushed the group's two uncommitted super-delegates to commit to Hillary. Saban denies it. Why is it that even Huffpo can't say what Saban's ulterior motive is. No you have to read Haaretz for that:

Saban: "[Israel] must do all we can to maintain the alliance with America. A major crisis at the wrong time could be a disaster, a disaster."

Haaretz: "Do you feel that as an Israeli-American of influence your mission is to prevent that crisis?"

Saban: "You said it."

International Jew, money, influence. I know, we're not allowed to talk about that stuff. Sorry.

The Times has now published two very important op-ed pieces on "The Israel Lobby," by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, both of them basically endorsing the authors' view. Two years ago the Times ran a fabulous piece by Tony Judt, largely endorsing Walt and Mearsheimer's thesis, a month after they'd published in LRB, that shot heard round the world. The piece had a huge effect: Judt is an eminent New York Jewish intellectual, and he gave a lot of people in progressive circles permission to say they agreed with W&M. And yesterday we got Jeffrey Goldberg's piece on the Israel lobby. Yes, Goldberg peed on Walt and Mearsheimer in the piece, but the central idea in his article, that the Jewish leadership has fostered Israel's settlement policy and prevented American politicians from criticizing same, W&M had boldly stated two years ago.

Both these writers are Jews. Why can't we hear from the goyim on this subject? They also have something at stake here. The Times could strike a great blow for open debate by asking non-Jews to hold forth on this subject--and by lifting its ban on John Mearsheimer, a regular contributor to the Op-Ed page for many years, till he made the CLM (that's Goldman Sachs argot: career limiting move) of opposing the Iraq war. 

Jeffrey Goldberg's piece yesterday in the Times is very important. Goldberg is someone many Jews look to for guidance, and his piece is the green flag to the American Jewish community to have open war over Israel and the lobby. At last. On one side, the Adelsons and Perles who want Israel in all of historic Palestine. On the other, the Jews against occupation, the Aaron David Millers who want to divide the land and share Jerusalem. Time for a robust debate, the piece declared (giving an imprimatur to a demand Walt and Mearsheimer and MJ Rosenberg have been making for months). And it was obviously an expenditure of Goldberg's political and personal capital: what will happen to his many friendships with the likes of Bill Kristol?

The big question I have about the piece is Whether Goldberg discussed it with Obama.

I start with the idea that Goldberg is a power journalist. He is very powerful, and you don't get power without seeking it. In his journalistic value system, questions of power--Is it good for the Jews?/Is it good for Jeffrey?--seem to trump questions of truth. The best evidence of this is the 180 he has now done from his vicious New Republic review of Walt and Mearsheimer last fall. The giveaway in that piece was Goldberg's statement that W&M's book represents a historic moment in the disenfranchisement of the Jewish people in America. Goldberg was looking at the book in strict power terms: Is this good for the Jews? And he was right, that the book served to disenfranchise American Jews, or rightwing American Jews, the body of Jewish leadership, and may have been a highwater mark in the role of Jews in the American establishment. But whether it is good for the Jews is not an intellectual argument. The idea that Dreyfus was falsely accused caused a huge loss of power to the Catholics in the French power structure, yes; but it didn't make the idea any less true. W&M are political scholars, they are not power guys. They were trying to tell the truth about the lobby's influence, and yes Jewish influence, and recognized that they would be sacrificing their own access to power by doing so. Goldberg responded as a guy who has always cared most about the fate of the Jewish people. The book scared him. He went after it like a pitbull.

And a few months pass and now he comes out with a piece attacking that same Jewish leadership.

To explain it, I go back to Goldberg's "conversation" with Obama of a week before. Not an interview, but a conversation, i.e., between equals. And indeed in this published portion, they are equals; Obama actually kisses Goldberg's tuchis (Yiddish for you-know-what) several times, complimenting him on a recent piece he wrote, etc. And offers mild statements against the settlements, as a "sore" point across the Arab world.

But note that Goldberg is only offering "excerpts" of the conversation. So what happened in the rest of the conversation? Obama is a power guy, and he is wicked smart. And when the door closed and he had Goldberg's assurance that it was completely off the record, he channeled the ghosts of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower and laid it on the line to his new friend:

The settlements are wrong. You know they are wrong, most Jews are against them. And not only are they wrong, they are nullifying our policy across the Middle East. We won't get anywhere with the Arab and Muslim world until we deal with that issue, and Israel too. As Olmert has said, this is Israel's last chance to stay a Jewish state. But Jeffrey, I can't do diddly on this. I can't open my mouth, I can't talk to Rob Malley, I can't talk to Zbig Brzezinski, no one in the realist or progressive camp, without getting hammered; because I have no cover on this issue. No cover. Because your own community doesn't dare to criticize Israel openly, and when brilliant honorable men like Jimmy Carter and Mearsheimer and Walt open their mouths, they are cut down. Cut down. I need cover. Someone from your community has got to run interference. J Street can't do it for me, it's a good sign but nobody knows these guys. I love Mondoweiss, but he's way off the reservation. I need someone everyone knows, a guy like Marty or Alan Dershowitz, look he says he's a liberal Democrat, or Stephen Spielberg, Jeff Katzenberg, to step up and take the spears and say what you know to be true, which is that the lobby is killing us on this stuff, and hurting America. There has got to be a debate within the Jewish community over this or Jeffrey it's just like what I said in Philly about race, Nothing will change. Nothing will change. Only this time it's world stability that's at stake. And it's got to be someone from the Jewish community because look, I could talk about race because I'm black, I have standing. Here I have no standing. No standing at all. A big Jew has to say it. And maybe, maybe Jeffrey-- that person is you.

And Goldberg looked across the table at the next commander in chief of the country--a guy he believes in his heart won't sell the Jews out, a guy who has the unique ability to triangulate Arab, Jew, and American, and maybe too, just to be cynical for a second, a guy who will give him a job-- and said, Aye-aye, sir.