Posted on 03/20/2006 4:16:27 AM PST by veronica
A paper recently co-authored by the academic dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government about the allegedly far-reaching influence of an "Israel lobby" is winning praise from white supremacist David Duke.
The Palestine Liberation Organization mission to Washington is distributing the paper, which also is being hailed by a senior member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization.
But the paper, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," by the Kennedy School's Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, is meeting with a more critical reception from many of those it names as part of the lobby. The 83-page "working paper" claims a network of journalists, think tanks, lobbyists, and largely Jewish officials have seized the foreign policy debate and manipulated America to invade Iraq. Included in this network, the authors say, are the editors of the New York Times, the scholars at the Brookings Institution, students at Columbia, "pro-Israel" senior officials in the executive branch, and "neoconservative gentiles" including columnist George Will.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
LOL! Only a toddler would have to post it so many times....
feeling a bit insecure on where you stand there?
my common mistake was answering a post from someone that would give a pass and look the other way to a racist if said racist supported their views....
kinda like supporting Ted Kennedy on his ethics views...his views may be spot on- but to use Teddy as the mouthpiece for said views make one look like a fool.....
He's lost races for every political office he's contested, save one.
He's lost as a Democrat, as a "Populist"-a neo-Nazi party whose banner he ran under-and as a Republican, even though the entire Republican Party repudiated him and his noxious beliefs.
The fact that he can win the votes of a few thousand people-most of whom voted for Duke out of an extreme disaffection from the political system in that state, not some latent hatred towards non-white Americans-does not mean he has any credibility.
He doesn't, and never has.
They proceeded to quickly recite the Noahide laws and then handed out pamphlets about them before they proceeded to the next car.
I know that you are frustrated by the lack of Jewish missionary outreach to Gentiles - I found this little presentation fascinating.
Usually when Hasids are on the subway they simply ask Jewish-looking people if they are Jewish and then try to give them teshuvah-related pamphlets.
Thanks for sharing that. That is wonderful news!
Someone using the temporary captivity of straphangers to proselytize for his religious or political beliefs isn't much of a novelty here.
Most people in this city have become inured to it.
Then more recently he made a statement that there was a difference in the manner that men and women processed information. (Or something close to that.) I believe he stated that women were either not as interested or not as adept in the area of mathematics. That was when the fury of the feminists coalesced and took off on a world of its own. It is my understanding that was the precipitating event leading to his stepping down.
I had never even heard a thing about any antisemitic remarks. Can you please document that?
The best thing about this article is that it brings the bigots out into the open.
Here and everywhere.
Good answer.
Motives and honesty are joined at the hip. Honest people will be up front with their motives. A liar won't. And reputations for honesty precede the advocates of any particular proposition.
If they're proven liars why waste time on them? i. e. They don't get the benefit of the doubt.
The title of the NY Sun article appears to come from the remarks of Duke who praises it and Alan Dershowitz whom the authors call an "apologist" for Israel, said he found much of the paper to be "trash." He said, "It could have been written by Pat Buchanan, by David Duke, Noam Chomsky, and some of the less intelligent members of Hamas. An intelligent member of Hamas would not have made these mistakes."
Larry Summers was punished for condemning anti-Semitism-its most visible manifestation being an Islamist/socialist-led divestment campaign taking place on campus during his tenure-not for condoning it.
Well, I've read the full version of their paper [link posted on this thread in # 44]. I would not be questioning their intellectual honesty.
I only ask this because I am trying to get to the truth of almost anything I read these days so though I knew about the move to divest I didn't think about who was working for what end because I saw no recognizable names speaking out for either side. So,Summers did say something?
Guess I was just anxious to blame pressure from the feminists for his somewhat abrupt departure.
If you could point out some documentation of his position I would appreciate it, then I could put it to bed,in my mind at least. Thanks.
Lawrence H. Summers
I was powerfully struck two years ago, and am not less struck today, by the tendency to cross a line in discussions of Israel. It should be the right of any person to express any opinion he wishes with respect to Israeli foreign policy. And there is much in Israeli policy that surely should be debated, even legitimately criticized and questioned. But there are lines that need to be drawn.
When Israel is singled out for moral opprobrium, something wrong is happening. When the conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians is approached in an entirely asymmetric fashion, with criticism or sanction directed only at Israel, something wrong is happening. When comparisons are drawn with Nazis or Hitler or the SS or apartheid in South Africa, something wrong is happening.
And that is why I chose the words anti-Semitic to address proposals for the large-scale divestiture of companies doing business in Israel, to address the movement in England to remove Israeli scholars from the editorial boards of scholarly journals, to address the move of Presbyterian churches last summer to divest the stocks of companies that were doing business in Israel with no action whatsoever with respect to the Palestinians. There is much else that one can point to, and however one sees the debate in the United States, the debate has shifted to a less pleasant place in Europe.
Which way are things likely to move? I wish I could be more encouraging, but the trends are not running in the direction that we would like them to run. People who become weary of a conflict inevitably seek to place blame on both sides, and that is happening with the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Our next president will face enormous pressure to achieve rapprochement with the rest of the world, and will see the court of international public opinion as a major concern. When the president asks what the United States can do to repair relations, one solution will be to pursue a policy that is seen as more constructive with respect to the peace process. And I would suggest that the definition of more constructive in Europe, the definition of more constructive in the developing world, and the definition of more constructive in the United Nations is not a definition that involves standing more strongly behind Israel.
The fading memory of Arafat walking away from peace at the end of the Clinton administration will inevitably reduce sympathy and support for the Israeli position. And so I think these are not going to be easy times.
I take some satisfaction in the fact that on American college campuses, the movement that had gained considerable support by the fall of 2002 [advocating a form of anti-Semitism] seems to have ended and these pressures seem to have ceased to exist. But as the actions of the Presbyterian Church suggest, these pressures are ever present.
These pressures of anti-Semitism come at a time when the task of Israeli foreign policy and the task of enlightened American leadership have never been more difficult. And while I would claim expertise in the economic area, I certainly would not claim expertise in this political area. But it seems to me that the complexity of the problem lies in these realities and the morality is relatively clear.
There is a very sharp distinction between the taking of innocent life with the sole objective of sponsored terror, and the response to those terrorist attacks. It seems very clear that there is one party to this conflict that is promoting violence and another party that is responding to violence. It seems very clear that there is one party that made good-faith efforts to honor the agreement reached on the White House lawn in 1993 and another party that moved fairly quickly to violate the terms, understanding and spirit of that agreement.
And yet the right morality is not always the right guide to action. The demographic reality in the Middle East is that Arab populations are growing far more rapidly than Israeli populations. One recognizes that a society will have great difficulty being Jewish and truly democratic if the majority of people who live in its territory are not Jewish. For these reasons, we have to approach these matters in a very hardheaded way and recognize that that which is morally right is not always practically compelling.
There is nothing to be said for the view that we could all live in cooperative utopia if only more concessions were made. The events in the last decade make very clear the futility of this notion. On the other hand, we must remember that we are on a path that may be justifiable but not fully prudent for Israel.
Given the incredible progress made by the Israeli economy, one might have supposed that the support we are gathered to discuss here tonight would have become less important. And yet I am convinced that it is an irony of this moment that even with Israels single economic success, even with the tremendous progress that the American Jewish community has made, that the kind of support we are here to discuss tonight, the kind of solidarity that it provides, has never been more important.
Lawrence Summers is the president of Harvard University. This article is adapted from a talk he gave last month at the launching of the 2005 UJA-Federation Annual Campaign at the Manhattan home of Alan C. Ace and Kathryn Greenberg, which raised $35.8 million.
Indyk and Ross are both Jewish.
Ross is the first Chariman of THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY PLANNING INSTITUTE (ESTABLISHED BY THE JEWISH AGENCY FOR ISRAEL) LTD.
At the inauguration Ambassador Ross said: "It is necessary for the Jewish people to develop thinking that will help anticipate and respond to future developments. The purpose of the Institute is to develop innovative thinking, assess future problems, and offer possible methods of action. The Institute will make recommendations to various governments including the government of Israel and Jewish organizations." In response to a question, Ross said: My activity on behalf of the Jewish people does not contradict my past or present activities in promoting peace in the Middle East. The will to be a proud Jew does not conflict with my political activities," he said.
THE Washington Institute for Near East Policy (Winep) was established in 1985, and soon became the most influential thinktank with effects on the United States governments Middle East policy and US mass media reporting about the region. The institutes founding director, Martin Indyk, was previously research director of the leading pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac).
I would consider Ross and Indyk to be pro-Israel.
Maybe.....I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
However, the following excerpt is intriguing. It implies that the authors knew that they would be suspected of making common cause with discredited anti Semites. And sought to inoculate themselves from it.
----snip----
The authors attempt to distinguish their argument from that of classical anti-Semites, writing at one point, "there is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway U.S policy towards Israel. The Lobby's activities are not the sort of conspiracy depicted in anti-Semitic tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion." At another point, the authors distance themselves from the president of Iran by writing, "Israel's survival is not in doubt - even if some Islamic extremists make outrageous and unrealistic references to 'wiping it off the map.'"
Most people have motivations for what they say. Whether or not they are conscious of them. It's a cause (motivation) and effect (their words/actions) situation.
My point is that if you only take the words on their merit while ignoring motives you will not fully understand the argument.
With regards to the Harvard paper in question I suspect their motives aren't a knee jerk anti-semitism. I think it's based on fear. Fear of a broad drawn out war in the middle east. If we can dump little Israel and the Jews we can appease "them" and thus remove the threat of a war without end and in the process our fear will be alleviated and we will achieve "peace in our time". i.e. appeasement.
.Why save little Checkoslovokia when we can have "Peace in our time"
By that definition, 90% of the American public could be described as "pro-Israel."
Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk-regardless of their religion-were typical State Dept. bureaucrats.
In other words, they bent over backwards in order to appease the Arab world, while doing everything in their capacity to convince Isreal to give up even more of its land in futile "land for peace" negotiations.
I'm not saying they're necessarily bad people, only that your description of them-and the implications of this study-are not accurate representations of the political beliefs these men hold.
OK, we're not gonna see eye to eye on this one.
At his peak he was an attractive figure
To you, maybe, and to his fifteen followers (with thirty-two teeth between 'em). I always figured that a telegenic jerk wasn't anything special cause he was telegenic.
and was one of the more effective spokesman for the radical right with a skill unmatched by any other extremeist of the right or left.
Which is why he went on to great success as... what did he succeed at? Nothing yet. He didn't even succeed at tax evasion, he went to jail.
Duke was no Aryan Nazi but he once wore a Nazi-style uniform to protest the speaking at Louisiana State University by the late William Kuntzler, a radical far left attorney who supported the communist line in America. Duke's father was fighting in Vietnam at the time and Duke protested Kuntzlers being able to speak in defense of the communist position and against the war in Vietnam.
Duke's father was a civilian worker, not a soldier. It's "Kunstler" and Duke was at the time recruiting for the American Nazi Party. He later tried the Klan, and he tried running for office as a Republican (which he liked best, as he got Federal funds, which he skimmed).
"Wanted to protect white Christian values..."
Last time I looked, there was no race test for Christian values. With Duke, "white" has always come before everything.
Duke will, rightly or wrongly, probably never outlive the racist taint attached to him.
Well, you know, dressing up in white hoods and/or swastikas gives folks an impression, don't it? At least Sheets Byrd, Grand Kleagle and Exalted Octupus that he was (whatever the devil that is), had the good sense not to pose for the media in his Klan regalia.
David Duke probably is the nearest thing that the "radical right" as you call it had to a genius. But then, in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king. In the kingdom of idiots a half-wit can rule.
That there are black racists does not excuse Duke. I suppose people may legitimately differ on whether he is more repulsive than they, or as repulsive, but I can't work the equation in any way that makes Duke look good.
But then, I don't believe that someone's automatically better or worse because of the continent most of his ancestry came from. I have this weird notion that you have to take individuals as indiiduals.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.