Why won't anyone say they are Jewish?

Adbusters magazine ^ | March/April 2004 | Kalle Lasn

[optimistically_conservative]

Friends help each other out. That’s why the US sends billions of dollars every year to Israel. In return, Israel advances US strategic interests in the Middle East. But despite this mutual back scratching, Israeli-American relations are enduring a rough patch. Last December, a senior State Department official blasted Israel for having “done too little for far too long” to resolve the conflict with its Palestinian neighbors. Indeed, President Bush himself had scolded Israel a month earlier with his demand that “Israel should freeze settlement construction, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people and not prejudice final negotiations with the building of walls and fences.”

Harsh words, but is it all just window-dressing? This was not the first time Bush criticized Israel and he has made numerous calls for a “viable” Palestinian state during his presidency. Nevertheless, he has never concretely punished Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for ignoring US directives and shrugging off his commitment to the peace process. It’s also worth noting that diplomatic admonitions are the responsibility of the State Department which has been on the losing end of the policy wars in Bush’s White House. One wonders what Israeli-American relations, and indeed what American relations with the rest of the world would look
like if the neocon hawks who control Rumsfeld’s Defense Department were also in charge at State.

A lot of ink has been spilled chronicling the pro-Israel leanings of American neocons and fact that a the disproportionate percentage of them are Jewish. Some commentators are worried that these individuals – labeled ‘Likudniks’ for their links to Israel’s right wing Likud party – do not distinguish enough between American and Israeli interests. For example, whose interests were they protecting in pushing for war in Iraq?

Drawing attention to the Jewishness of the neocons is a tricky game. Anyone who does so can count on automatically being smeared as an anti-Semite. But the point is not that Jews (who make up less than 2 percent of the American population) have a monolithic perspective. Indeed, American Jews overwhelmingly vote Democrat and many of them disagree strongly with Ariel Sharon’s policies and Bush’s aggression in Iraq. The point is simply that the neocons seem to have a special affinity for Israel that influences their political thinking and consequently American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Here at Adbusters, we decided to tackle the issue head on and came up with a carefully researched list of who appear to be the 50 most influential neocons in the US (see above). Deciding exactly who is a neocon is difficult since some neocons reject the term while others embrace it. Some shape policy from within the White House, while others are more peripheral, exacting influence indirectly as journalists, academics and think tank policy wonks. What they all share is the view that the US is a benevolent hyper power that must protect itself by reshaping the rest of the world into its morally superior image. And half of the them are Jewish.

Kalle Lasn

Debate:
Is this another Jewish conspiracy theory – or a truth people deny for fear of being labeled 'anti-semitic'?

[optimistically_conservative]

Ahhh...putz.

It's the J-O-O-O-S.

[af_vet_1981]

Here at Adbusters, we decided to tackle the issue head on

The Germans already tried this.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Is the list on the right from Adam Sandler's Channukah song?

[Servant of the 9]

Adbuster's
next issue
comming soon
'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'

So9

[AppyPappy]

Next, AdBusters posts name that sound like they might be Negros.

[rabidralph]

This is nothing. You should read Adbusters message boards. Artists and anarchists, spewing all over the place.

[FoxInSocks]

A person named "Kraut-hammer" is Jewish. Go figure.

[optimistically_conservative]

Is the list on the right from Adam Sandler's Channukah song?

There must be a good joke in there, right?

[Piranha]

OK, what's Adbusters?

[JimRed]

What the heck is a RSQUO?

[Wombat101]

Weel, golly gee, if one billion of the planet's inhabitants would rather see me dead or forcibly converted, I think I wouldn't voluntarily tell anyone my religous affiliation. Would you?

[JimRed]

...and a RDQUO?

[Petronski]

Hey everybody, time for another rousing edition of Spot the Jooo!

[Gringo1]

I'm a frisbeetarian. We believe that when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and you cannot get it down.

[MediaMole]

Drawing attention to the Jewishness of the neocons is a tricky game. Anyone who does so can count on automatically being smeared as an anti-Semite.

OK, I'll say it. The author of this piece is an anti-semite.

[thoughtomator]

It's getting more and more brazen every day... how far are we from the ovens?

[optimistically_conservative]

From what I gather, it started out as a magazine that parodied the commercial propaganda techniques how you can be skinny, athletic and promiscuous drinking light beer.

It has become anarchist, communist and anti-capitalist (is that redundant?).

[Bluntpoint]

So is Eric Cartman.

[optimistically_conservative]

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