Walt and Mearsheimer as Scholars of Jewish History
Identifying the neoconservatives as Jewish is one of those unspoken/spoken things in public life today. Two years ago, Wolfowitz was asked a question about the neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute and quipped, "Don't you mean Jewish?" He was being ironical; his point was that the identification was itself antisemitic.
This is not very straightforward. Before W&M came along, two Jewish conservative scholars wrote books that described the neocons as Jewish. The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy, by the late Murray Friedman. And The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State, by Benjamin Ginsberg.
Ginsberg's book came out in 1993 and is an important work for anyone trying to understand Jewish power, the Jewish presence in the American establishment. Indeed, though Ginsberg's politics are opposite to mine, I admire him for doing what an intellectual should do, and working to describe new social patterns. Ginsberg's historical theme is simple: Jews have risen again and again because our skills have proven essential to states trying to become modern. We made Spain what it was in the 15th century. We allowed the German and English states to rise in the late 19th century. "Jewish academics, intellectuals, and artists were the leading figures in German theater, literature, music, art, architecture, science and philosophy.... " Etc. The words "Jewish financier" appear countless times in Ginsberg's book, for an obvious reason: the Jewish genius for finance has lifted and empowered the modern state. (Yivo, which burlesqued the issue of Jews & Money by inviting the vapid Niall Ferguson to talk about it, should invite Ginsberg to make up for the lapse).
Ginsberg wrote out of trepidation. The Jewish rise had been followed by expulsion, discrimination, extermination. Thrown out of Spain, concentrated in the Pale, gassed in Germany... Ginsberg feared, and presumably still does, that the remarkable rise of Jews in the U.S. will result in a backlash.
These fears did not stop Ginsberg from talking about "predominantly Jewish neoconservatives" who had moved to the right "inexorably" because of "their attachment to Israel." During the Reagan administration these neocons had worked alongside the "Israel lobby," which was thought to be Washington's "most powerful lobby," to oppose the Soviet Union. They "used their access to the print and broadcast media..." (Including the New Republic!) They had helped cement American support for Israel by working with "high ranking Jewish officials" in government.
Ginsberg regarded this Jewish presence as a good thing, though he feared the rise of a populist backlash, evidenced by such statements as Pat Buchanan's description of Israel's "amen corner" in the U.S.
Since Ginsberg's book in 1993, it is amazing to consider that we have been attacked on 9/11, in part because of our support for Israel's humiliation of the Palestinians, and entered into one of the greatest disasters in our country's history, Iraq, in part because of concerns for Israel's security, and the pattern he described has not been raised in the mainstream, only murmured by Chris Matthews and others, till Walt and Mearsheimer landed with all four feet last March in the LRB to try and force the issue into the U.S. discourse, and were then smeared by many leading newspaper writers (who have never read Ginsberg) as antisemites.
At a time when The New Republic thinks nothing of raising Mitt Romney's Mormonism as an issue—and legitimately—it is really amazing that no leading newspaper or broadcast outlet has done the simple, honorable thing of reporting on the Iraqi neocons' attachment to Israel.
This is a great lapse. The reasons for it are twofold: 1, American journalistic culture has a strong Jewish strand. (Ginsberg on London and Berlin: "Jewish financiers and newspaper publishers were important participants in [the British imperialist power structure]... Of the 21 daily newspapers published in Berlin during the 1870s, 13 were owned by Jews and four had important Jewish contributors. All three newspapers specializing in political satire were controlled by Jews") A great number of journalists now working in powerful positions exulted, as I did in my elementary school, in June 1967 when Israel pasted the Egyptian and Syrian air forces; devotion to Israel is something we grew up with and were inculcated with, and therefore do not tend to question as being not in America's best interest. 2, Iraq is a disaster. Jews fear that Americans will blame the Jews. We have racial memory; we know that the Holocaust grew out of resentment over Jewish numbers and influence. It could happen here.
Ginsberg and my father worry about that. They are smart guys. To dismiss their fears would be foolish. The only intellectually honest response is: Of course it could happen here...
Yet it is the American way to talk about real issues, and that is, again, W&M's great contribution, to take a subterranean conversation, unhealthy for American democracy, and approach it with academic rigor. In that sense, they are scholars of Jewish history. For as Ginsberg (and the California scholars Albert Lindemann and Yuri Slezkine) has shown, the rise of Jewish elites, including thinkers and financiers, is a theme of western history, a necessary component of modernism. Charting the rise of the neocons in the U.S. is part of that historical study.
I've gotten into that study because of the debacle of Iraq, and the Jewish braintrust that played a role in the disaster. I feel engaged in this discussion Jewishly; the neocons' Jewishness has brought me back to my own. I recognize that many Jews are made defensive by the neocons' contribution to our blasted Middle East policy. "In Dark Times, Blame the Jews," the Forward reflexively dismissed Walt and Mearsheimer, and many liberal Jews feel a similar disdain for W&M. For my part, I would say that these dark times present a crisis in the identity of 21st century Jewry; there are better ways to be Jewish than to demonize Islam and support the occupation of Arab lands.
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Yes, It's Anti-Semitic
By Eliot A. Cohen
Wednesday, April 5, 2006; Page A23
Academic papers posted on a Harvard Web site don't normally attract enthusiastic praise from prominent white supremacists. But John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" has won David Duke's endorsement as "a modern Declaration of American Independence" and a vindication of the ex-Klansman's earlier work, presumably including his pathbreaking book, "Jewish Supremacism."
Walt and Mearsheimer contend that American national security dictates distancing ourselves from the state of Israel; that U.S. support for Israel has led to such disasters as America's status as the No. 1 target for Islamic terrorists; and that such an otherwise inexplicable departure from good sense can be accounted for only by the power of "The Lobby" (their capitalization), an overwhelmingly Jewish force abetted by some Christian evangelicals and a gentile neocon collaborator or two, who have hijacked American foreign policy and controlled it for decades.
One of Mearsheimer's University of Chicago colleagues has characterized this as "piss-poor, monocausal social science." It is indeed a wretched piece of scholarship. Israeli citizenship rests "on the principle of blood kinship," it says, and yet the country has a million non-Jewish citizens who vote. Osama bin Laden's grievance with the United States begins with Israel, it says -- but in fact his 1998 fatwa declaring war against this country began by denouncing the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia and the suffering of the people of Iraq. "Other ethnic lobbies can only dream of having the political muscle" The Lobby has -- news to anyone advocating lifting the embargo on Fidel Castro's Cuba. The Iraq war stemmed from The Lobby's conception of Israel's interest -- yet, oddly, the war attracted the support of anti-Israel intellectuals such as Christopher Hitchens and mainstream publications such as The Economist. America's anti-Iran policy reflects the dictates of The Lobby -- but how to explain Europe's equally strong opposition to Iranian nuclear ambitions?
Oddly, these international relations realists -- who in their more normal academic lives declare that state interests determine policy, and domestic politics matters little -- have discovered the one case in which domestic politics has, for decades, determined the policy of the world's greatest state. Their theories proclaim the importance of power, not ideals, yet they abhor the thought of allying with the strongest military and most vibrant economy in the Middle East. Reporting persecution, they have declared that they could not publish their work in the United States, but they have neglected to name the academic journals that turned them down.
Inept, even kooky academic work, then, but is it anti-Semitic? If by anti-Semitism one means obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews; if one accuses them of disloyalty, subversion or treachery, of having occult powers and of participating in secret combinations that manipulate institutions and governments; if one systematically selects everything unfair, ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group and equally systematically suppresses any exculpatory information -- why, yes, this paper is anti-Semitic.
Mearsheimer and Walt conceive of The Lobby as a conspiracy between the Washington Times and the New York Times, the Democratic-leaning Brookings Institution and Republican-leaning American Enterprise Institute, architects of the Oslo accords and their most vigorous opponents. In this world Douglas Feith manipulates Don Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney takes orders from Richard Perle. They dwell on public figures with Jewish names and take repeated shots at conservative Christians (acceptable subjects for prejudice in intellectual circles), but they never ask why a Sen. John McCain today or, in earlier years, a rough-hewn labor leader such as George Meany declared themselves friends of Israel.
The authors dismiss or ignore past Arab threats to exterminate Israel, as well as the sewer of anti-Semitic literature that pollutes public discourse in the Arab world today. The most recent calls by Iran's fanatical -- and nuclear weapons-hungry -- president for Israel to be "wiped off the map" they brush aside as insignificant. There is nothing here about the millions of dollars that Saudi Arabia has poured into lobbying and academic institutions, or the wealth of Islamic studies programs on American campuses, though they note with suspicion some 130 Jewish studies programs on those campuses. West Bank settlements get attention; terrorist butchery of civilians on buses or in shopping malls does not. To dispute their view of Israel is not to differ about policy but to act as a foreign agent.
If this sounds personal, it is, although I am only a footnote target for Mearsheimer and Walt. I am a public intellectual and a proud Jew; sympathetic to Israel and extensively engaged in our nation's military affairs; vaguely conservative and occasionally hawkish. In a week my family will celebrate Passover with my oldest son -- the third generation to serve as an officer in the United States Army. He will be home on leave from the bomb-strewn streets of Baghdad. The patch on his shoulder is the same flag that flies on my porch.
Other supposed members of "The Lobby" also have children in military service. Impugning their patriotism or mine is not scholarship or policy advocacy. It is merely, and unforgivably, bigotry.
The writer is a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.
Sandstorm
A web column of commentary and analysis from Martin Kramer
Friday, March 17, 2006. Stephen Walt's World. There is much ado today about "The Israel Lobby," a long essay written by Stephen Walt of Harvard University and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and published in the London Review of Books. The bottom line is simple and familiar: the Israel lobby has taken over Washington. Within the academy, it's the sort of thing that Juan Cole and Rashid Khalidi have been claiming all along, without getting any traction. And it's what Walt himself argued in a few pages of his book, Taming American Power, which appeared last fall, and which also got very little traction.
This newest article, obviously the work of Walt more than Mearsheimer, cobbles together a lot of half-truths and untruths that have been out there on the far fringe, and gives them "academic respectability" (which, as I have shown time and again, is usually a contradiction in terms when it comes to the Middle East). In particular, the authors have put together an "unedited version," in which the notes are as long as the text, and which carries the title of a Kennedy School of Government "Faculty Research Working Paper." This is presumably intended to make the study appear even more "academic." But it's really a piece of journalistic sensationalism, reminiscent of the 1987 book The Lobby by Edward Tivnan. The Washington correspondent of Haaretz called the new article "academic garbage" in his blog this morning, and offered it as an example of "the decline of academic values and the misuse of academic titles by contemporary American pseudo-scholars." That it is, but it's got plenty of competition.
Back in the fall, a donor to Harvard asked me to counter Walt's argument that Israel is a liability. So I wrote a short rebuttal, sent it off, and filed it away. I have no idea whether it went any further, or whether it reached Walt himself. But now seems a perfect moment to resurrect it, so here it is, just as I wrote it in October. It doesn't address all the arguments made in the new essay, because Walt didn't make all those arguments in his book. But it will do for now.
Fortunately we do not live in Stephen Walt's world, where shared values with others are meaningless, and cerebral mandarins make foreign policy by fiat. We live in a real world, where real people respond to other real people who share history and values, and where foreign policy is the result of a tumultuous interaction of interests, ideas, and emotions. Walt would have the United States make its foreign policy like Syria and Egypt do. It's not going to happen.
But let's enter Walt's World, and accept its presumptions, for argument's sake
Good for Phil Weiss for getting behind walt and measheimer. People always tell muslims to "speak out" or "condemn terror". Jews similarly need to "condemn" the neo cons. war is terrorism and they are terrorists.
Ugh. The NY Observer is starting to look like the NY Sun.
As often pointed out, the mostly Jewish-pro-Israeli Straussian neo-cons are finally in power in the White House after generations(2..3?)of disciplined effort and sacrifice not to mention transfigurations, dissimulations, betrayals,and lies and all in the service of the age old agenda of 'whats good for the jews'. They got their long fought for opportunity to effect their rather anachronistic/19th century/European/racist/nationalist/socialist/Utopic/pseudo-Biblical/secularist/aggressive, dreams (in contrast to America's normative and traditional Anglo-Saxon pragmatism) and it is failing and failing MOST dangerously! Will they now bow out as chastened losers? ...after all that effort and trouble?..........NOT BLEEDING LIKELY! I fear that the 'Samson Complex'(Masada complex)is now in play. The toxic, nay, lethal brew known to us as Neoconservatism has two more years in power! This is the the last opportunity to deploy their great weapon, ie US might for their ends. They shall try again......this time by attacking Iran or more correctly, by getting America to do Israel's dirty work. If the Apocalyptical Plan works, and the world is made safe for Israel and Coke (NOT BLEEDING LIKELY!) it will prove to be 'the Wisdom of the Ages'(a Disney/Bambi promise that warms the hearts of all those dumb fundamentalist gentiles led by their dumbest leader Bush who unlike their breath-takingly brilliant jewish task masters, all seem to have shit for brains). If it fails and it all goes down catastrophically, like blind Samson at the Philistine Temple, they will at least have the biblical consolation of having brought THE WHOLE HOUSE DOWN! LET EVERYONE OF GOOD WILL, JEW AND GOY ALIKE DO THEIR UTMOST TO STOP THIS MADNESS!
rene, too many acid trips from the 1960's I presume
Rene: take a valium already,
Has a card carrying member of the LOBBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! though, I'm going to kick your name up to the elders in Jerusalem. We will find you and be afraid Rene, be very afraid. After all, next to killing Christ, the plauge, Capitalism, Communism and everything in between your not that tough, You'll never know that its us though because we can take any shape, any form, in order to sink our neferious fangs into healthy host societies. And when we go to the Samason option I'm going to vote that Israel saves at least one bomb to drop on your house
lol that eliot cohen essay is terrible. You can already see writing like that fading away. "when bin laden's fatwa clearly says" yeah because of bin ladens fatwa israel is in the clear. if that were true we would be too because we are no longer in saudi arabia. meaningless clever little arguments probably written by some jr neo cons as an assignment.
Bill, your would-be 'pithy' comments make me think you must be one of those christian fundamentalists refered to in my comment above
Lester, I know to you its all about the Jews, or should I say the kike vermin, and neo-conservative is reall just another name for zionist warmonger but what if your wrong. What if Islam isn't a religion of peace. And throwing allies over the side isn't really an honorable thing to do. Consider that possiblity when your genuflecting to the picture of Hitler that I'm sure you have on your wall
The wise king, (a title, by the way that puts one in mind of Leo Strauss' Orchard Street version of 'Platonism')is using good cop, bad cop threats!!! Quick, w.k., remove your comment , the inanity of your argument will have one believe that you too are a christian fundamentalist and get you thrown out of your zionist cell.
perlman- "Consider that possiblity when your genuflecting to the picture of Hitler that I'm sure you have on your wall"
no.
In his guilt-by-association attack on Walt and Mearsheimer, Eliot A. Cohen calls himself a "proud Jew." Now if only he were a proud American.
Gene, Eliot Cohen was being attacked by Walt and Mearsheimer because he is Jewish, hence the response.
Rene, Leo Strauss, Orchard St, I guess all those I'm not antisemitic I'm just anti Israel nuances just flew out the window. By the way Leo Strauss, who I just had a seance with since he has been dead a while had to flee the Nazi's, I guess they didn't get the word that he was really at the center of the spider web.
By the way, you really do need to take a valium, or have some more sex,
Eventually, Phil, you will realise that dismissing complaints about Jewish predominance in the professions as 'populist' is a smidgeon offensive.
One of the problems is that many things can be true at once; i.e. not necessarily mutually exclusive. Let me state that I am lefty, Jewish, American, pro-Israel, two-state solution on the lines of Barak-Rabin negotiations during Clinton era, anti-occupation of west bank, yada yada yada.
1. Neocons are predominantly but not exclusively Jewish, and the Jewish ones are predominantly but not exclusively pro-Likudnik (and parties to their right) Israel, and pro-Republican U.S. They also tend to be anti-peace making by Israel (real two state solution per Israeli Labor party and those to their left).
2. AIPAC is run by NeoCon and otherwise conservative (right wing?) Republicans (U.S.) who act not as an Israeli lobby but as a Likud lobby. They opposed Oslo, opposed negotiations with Syria, opposed Camp David, opposed Israeli policy when Barak and Rabin were prime ministers and undercut their policies and negotiations for peace. I think NY Review article on W&M & AIPAC was quite good on this.
3. Jewish American on the other hand are overwhelming Democratic. Have been in the past. Still are. In fact their voting was even more Dem and anti-Republican in the 2006 elections then in 2004. Despite the NeoCons tiny loud minority, Jewish American as a whole have been from teh beginning more opposed than the average American to the Iraq invasion and occupation. So yes we are patriotic Americans... and as such we as group are STILL actually more Democratic, more liberal, more opposed to Neocon & Bush Admin. policy then the average American. Alas, we in the large majority have failed to either re-take AIPAC or set-up more powerful (commensurate with our numbers) counterweight to AIPAC and NeoCons.
4. The most senior folks in the Admin... Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, the Joint Chiefs, Tommy Franks, and many others (Stephen Cambone?), are not Jewish, and have been known to have minds & opinions of their own (ok, maybe not Rice). Admittedly Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby, Perle, etc. are Jewish. Khalizad & Chalabi are Muslim.
So, in summary, some Jews probably are guilty of having influence and double loyalty (e.g., Perle, Peretz, etc)... and also being wrong (wrong on Iraq, wrong on Israel/Palestine).
However, large majority of American Jews completely disagree with them.
And lots of non Jews were the actual senior leaders in doing Iraq, undermining peace talks, etc.
"I am lefty, Jewish, ... anti-occupation of west bank."
Steve, have you urged your congressman to cut off all aid to Israell until they dismantle the settlements?
Perhaps when people say that "the Jews" promoted the war in the Mideast, they mean the Jews who actually make their voices heard. (And as you probably know, our media has quite a few in that category.)
I want to thank you for your blog, which I very much enjoy and look forward to every day, and to your sponsorship of meaningful discussions of extremely serious issues in an intelligent and genuinely even-handed manner, which is the only way that the truth can ever be collectively discovered when dealing with highly complex issues laden with emotion.
And my compliments -- and my gratitude -- on the courage and clear thinking you display in your support of Professors Mearsheimer and Walt, and of President Carter, in the face of those give us no alternative but to conclude that they are either incapable of logical thinking or are deliberately mongering fallacies in an attempt to fill up a page and confuse those who prefer to respect authority rather than to examine the validity of the authority's arguments.
I refer specifically to the very first paragraph of the very first comment posted in this thread, written, though not posted, by Eliot A. Cohen, who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and so should naturally be familiar with basic logical reasoning. The very first paragraph of Cohen's article is reproduced here for convenient reference:
"Yes, It's Anti-Semitic"
"Academic papers posted on a Harvard Web site don't normally attract enthusiastic praise from prominent white supremacists. But John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" has won David Duke's endorsement as "a modern Declaration of American Independence" and a vindication of the ex-Klansman's earlier work, presumably including his pathbreaking book, "Jewish Supremacism." "
Let us examine this single paragraph in terms of facts, logic, and rhetoric.
First, what facts do we learn from this paragraph?
1. David Duke has endorsed "The Israel Lobby."
2. Well, unfortunately, there aren't any more facts.
I can see that Cohen is trying to say something more in the last sentence, but I can't quite figure out what it is. Is he saying that Mearsheimer and Walt have written "The Israel Lobby" in order to vindicate one of David Duke's earlier works, which Cohen, unfortunately, doesn't name? This would make sense if Cohen provided us with information as to whether either Mearsheimer or Walt ever said that "The Israel Lobby" was written to vindicate David Duke's writings. Does such a statement exist? No. It might also make sense if Mearsheimer or Walt ever joined one of Duke's organizations. But this has never happened either.
Does Cohen mean that David Duke thinks "The Israel Lobby" vindicates Duke's earlier thinking? Cohen, regrettably, provides no Duke source, but even if he did, it wouldn't matter. A point by point comparison of Duke's work with Mearsheimer and Walt's is necessary to decide whether "The Israel Lobby" vindicates anything Duke wrote about. Cohen does not do this. In the absence of such a study, what David Duke opines about "The Israel Lobby" has no more credibility than the opinions about Jesus Christ of the three people I have met in my life who believe they ARE Jesus Christ. Which is zero. Nada. Nichts.
Or is Cohen saying that HE thinks "The Israel Lobby" is a vindication of Duke's earlier work? But he can't be saying that either because the indefiniteness of his remark: "presumably including his pathbreaking book, 'Jewish Supremacism.'" Now "The Israel Lobby" either IS like Duke's book, "Jewish Supremacism" or IS NOT like "Jewish Supremacism." I haven't read "Jewish Supremacism", so I can't tell you. And if Cohen hasn't read it, then he can't say either. And if he has read it, then why the "presumably"� We'll get to why I think Cohen brought in "Jewish Supremacism" in the rhetoric section.
Logically expressed, the article looks out like this:
If David Duke endorses "The Israel Lobby," then "The Israel Lobby" must be anti-Semitic (from the title of the article) / pro-Klan.
Formally, the argument is:
If Duke endorses X, then X must be anti-Semitic / pro-Klan.
This is easily seen to be false by a substitution for X:
If Duke endorses Nathan's Hot Dogs, then Nathan's Hot Dogs must be anti-Semitic / pro-Klan.
or
If Duke endorses "The Fiddler on the Roof," then "The Fiddler on the Roof" must be anti-Semitic / pro-Klan.
Duke's endorsement of "The Israel Lobby" tells us nothing about "The Israel Lobby." Duke may be lying. Duke may be crazy. Duke may be trying to get some cheap publicity. Duke may have never read the paper at all. Duke may have been out drinking all night. We just don't know about the relationship until we make the point by point comparison of the professors' work with Duke's.
But Eliot A. Cohen's bringing up David Duke in the context of "The Israel Lobby" tells us a great deal about Eliot A. Cohen. Which leads us to the rhetoric section.
The attentive reader will notice that I have spent all this time discussing the first paragraph of the article that forms the first comment of this thread. This was deliberate. Some rhetorical effects must be used at the beginning to be effective.
The following quotations are all taken from "The Hasbara Handbook: Promoting Israel on Campus." It is produced by the World Union of Jewish Students. I have some reader of this blog to thank -- when I find your name again, I'll publicly thank you -- for making a cryptic reference to "hasbara" which I had never heard of and had to look up, and have since profited so much from it that I now refer to it, in turn, for the benefit of others. We're going to take a quick peek at it now, and then we're done. Beginnings. What's so special about beginnings?
http://www.middle-east-info.org/take/wujshasbara.pdf
Hasbara Handbook page 6. Being Proactive and Promoting Israel
"...However it is important that Israel activists are proactive too. Proactivity means taking the initiative and setting the agenda. It means being on the attack."
Please note, there is nothing here (or anywhere else in the 131 page Handbook) about a fair and open discussion or a rational debate. There is nothing here about getting at the truth. The Hasbara Handbook is, pure and simple, a book of instructions on how to promote a certain agenda -- Israel. I make no claims -- because I have no knowledge -- as to whether Eliot A. Cohen or anyone else promoting Israel has ever read this manual. I only urge the objective reader to make comparisons for him or herself, and draw their own conclusions. If their conclusions are along the lines of "if the shoe fits..., then don't let them pull your leg," I won't be too surprised.
Hasbara Handbook page 6. Being Proactive and Promoting Israel
"Why Be Proactive? Agenda Setting.
The Person who sets the agenda will usually win the debate....However by setting the agenda Israel activists get to determine what to talk about, and can therefore discuss the things they feel help promote the pro-Israel message. Being proactive keeps the right issues in the public eye, and in the way Israel activists want them to be seen."
["Why Be Proactive"] People Believe What They Hear First.
Uncritical audiences believe something if they hear it first and hear it often. People tend to believe the first thing they hear about a certain issue, and filter subsequent information they hear based on their current beliefs. Once people believe something, it's hard to convince them that they were wrong in the first place."
And one last quote for today, which also relates to beginnings and to motivation.
Hasbara Handbook page 8. "Point Scoring and Genuine Debate.
"Point Scoring. Point scoring is a method of communication that prioritizes making certain points favorable to the speaker, and attacking opponents of the speaker by trying to undermine their positions. POINT SCORING COMMUNICATION OUGHT TO GIVE THE APPEARANCE OF RATIONAL DEBATE, WHILST AVOIDING GENUINE DISCUSSION." my emphasis.
"When to Point Score
Point scoring is the correct method of communication to use when the audience is likely to be only partially engaged."
The beginnings of a discussion, article, speech, etc., is just such a time.
Finally, let's use all this to summarize Mr. Cohen's paragraph's rhetorical flourishes.
1. "Yes, It's Anti-Semitic." (the title, the very first thing you see. "People Believe What They Hear First.")
2. David Duke, a Ku Klux Klan member, is thrown into the first paragraph along with Mearsheimer and Walt, even though there is no logical connection between the professors and the Klansman except the Klansman's statement, and no affiliation or admiration or anything whatsoever. ("Point scoring is the correct method of communication to use when the audience is likely to be only partially engaged.") This is how one sets up the "Guilt by Association" fallacy, or the observation that if you throw a lot of mud, a little will inevitably stick.
3. "The Israel Lobby" is a vindication of Duke's book, "Jewish Supremacy." Point scoring again. To the "partially engaged" and not well-informed, jewish supremacy sounds like it might have to do with the Israel lobby, even though "Jewish Supremacy" by David Duke has nothing to do with "The Israel Lobby" by Mearsheimer and Walt.
This is the agenda that Eliot A. Cohen sets. There is no truth in it whatsoever; but it's quite a good agenda for concealing the truth and promoting Israel. The use of such means speaks most eloquently about the Zionist cause. For were it legitimate, there would be no need for such means. The truth, when permitted to be heard, is always chosen over lies.
Awesome take down Kobold!
Cohen is a subtle sophist. His words make you fume but you can't say exactly why. You just know something isn't right.
There's something forced about his outrage. You'd think the Zionist's side of the story wasn't getting heard:
"if one systematically selects everything unfair, ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group and equally systematically suppresses any exculpatory information"
Sounds like he's saying there's a "system" that's shutting out the 'po Jews from getting a fair hearing.
Not credible.
Alan Wherever You Are -- Thank You!
Thanks to a little help from my friends, I found it.
Alan December 10, 2006 4:39 PM wrote: [he's speaking to Mr. Pearlman]
As your Hasbara manual declares, when out of your depth and when exposed as a bigot, it's better to leave quietly.[...]
Nicely written, Kobold.
Public discourse is the the bloodstream of a democracy. By intentionally thwarting and distorting honest communication, and getting away with it, the Zio-lobbyists delegitimize our democracy. People sense that the discussion is not about truth, and they tune it out. The price we pay for the lobby is not confined to a distorted foreign policy in the Mideast. It corrodes the values of our society.
Bravo Kobold!
Poetry in motion!
or if you prefer...
Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee!
That was thoroughly enjoyable and informative reading. My sincerest thanks.
Duke left the Klan in 1978.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke
Kobold,
Thank you, thank you. I haven't been very active lately on this blog because I felt disheartened. I felt that there is nothing we can really do about these issues, that we will have to let history take its course and let the Zionist agenda proceed and self-destruct, with Israel, ordinary Jews, Americans and millions of Arabs ultimately paying the price.
But it goes even deeper than that. Studying Judaism and Zionism, the concept of self-fulfilling prophesies comes to mind:
******
"The resurgence of Orthodoxy in Israel in recent years, and its attraction for many secular Israelis, is a function not only of the contemporary crisis of secular values that has led to a return to traditional religion in many parts of the world but also of Israel
Kobold, I'm not going to make this long because I actually have a job and a life, and not being the obsessive mainiac that you are but what it really comes down to is this. David Duke is a principal in the KKK. Walt and Mearsheimer wrote a polemic outlining the insidious and neferious zio/nazi control of our foreign policy. ( although to people like you the nazi's had the right idea ) We pull the strings and everybody dances. Clearly we travel to healthy host societies, take different shapes and form, and bend them to our evil ends. Duke loved it. What is so complicated about that.
Its not about arriving at a settlement or anything to you people. Its about the JEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
It always has been.
Pearlman, suppose the fact that you consistently attack and insult others here makes people dislike you.
Could it be that this is because of your behaviour?
Of course not! You create the perfect alibi by believing that this is because you are a JEW!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's the very psychological process someone described above.
You might also want to look up what the concept "projection" means in psychology...
Here is how it works with you:
1) You are a racist who thinks Arabs are animals. That makes you a racist and an anti-Semite as well since Arabs are Semites. Then you project this to us by naming us anti-Semites and racists, even though it is you who is one!
2) You see that the Palestinians and Arabs are the roadblock to your biblical fantasies of the Greater Israel you crave, so you want to destroy them (actually, you want America to destroy them). Then you project this to us and accuse us we want to destroy Israel, even though the only one here who wants to destroy anyone is you!
3) You hate Mr. Weiss and Carter and anyone who stands up to this Greater Israel lunacy. Again you project those feelings to us and accuse us that we hate Jews, even though the only one here expressing any hatred is you, towards all of us, repeatedly, every day, insulting us.
Get it?
Get a grip. Look in the mirror!
I have enjoyed reading many of the posts on this thread, but I just wanted to thank Steve for speaking up. I found your post enlightening and reassuring. I'll try to remember that there's a silent majority of Amerucan Jews who don't feel well represented by AIPAC.
Of course Iraq is a complicated issue, and of course the USA didn't go there just to serve Israel's interests. No government on earth operates that way. The administration had to be convinced it was in the USA's interests, somehow, or it would not have happened.
People sometimes over-simplify things. It's easier that way. But it isn't necessarily correct.
"The administration had to be convinced it was in the USA's interests."
Well, "the administration" is just a group of individuals, each with their own motivation. Are you sure Douglas Feith, to pick just one member of the administration, had to be convinced it was in the USA's interests before he stovepiped misleading intelligence into the White House? And that Scooter LIbby had to be convinced it was in the USA's interests before he promulgated that misinformation to the media? Different individuals have different motivations, but the neocon's motivations never stray very far from Israel.
Alan wrote: "...I haven't been very active lately on this blog because I felt disheartened...."
There's an old Lower Slobovian folk saying that goes something like:
If you take a ride on a merry-go-round with the Devil, don't complain about being dizzy.
There's also this variant found in some mountainous districts:
If you go riding on a merry-go-round with the Devil, don't ask why you're not merry when you get off.
Alan -- you are the same 'Alan' who pointed out Hasbara in this blog, aren't you? (and please don't get all Heraclitean on me and say that you can't step twice into the same blog...)
Patient: Doctor, it hurts whenever I do this.
Doctor: So don't do that.
If you're not the same 'Alan', please accept my apologies and go watch something restful on TV, like the new season of '24'.
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Still here? OK, you ARE the same Alan then.
Sometimes there are simple solutions to painful problems. Perhaps this may be of value to you -- and I don't mean for you to stop participating in this blog. I mean just the opposite. You are far too valuable and knowledgeable a participant and we don't want to lose you.
I mentioned those folk sayings because the word "disenchanted" in Lower Slobovian is expressed by a compound of "dizzy" and "not merry."
Since you are "dizzy" and "not merry", I feel that drastic measures are called for.
What are the rules of this blog?
Mr. Weiss, our generous host, puts near the top of the page:
"COMMENTS
We welcome anonymous, pseudonymous, and most other comments."
Thus, by explicit statement, Mr. Weiss structures this blog minimally -- like the area set aside for chess / checkers in some public parks, where there are stone or metal tables with an 8 X 8 pattern of light and dark squares carved on them and chairs or benches to sit upon. There are no signs saying "Chess played here", and there are no rule books of chess posted, nor any police around to enforce the rules of chess. You just "know" that chess is what gets played here. And you know the rules.
In addition to his explicit statement above, Mr. Weiss, by his example in each opening piece, demonstrates that he values logical, referenced, unbiased, and thoughtful statements. From his examples alone, I'm sure that Mr. Weiss has firmly in mind a specific set of rules of discussion to which he personally abides.
When I enter a discussion, I too expect it to be conducted in a certain way, just as I expect the King to be moved only one space at a time and the Queen to galavant around any way her sweet heart desires -- as long as she sticks to the straight and narrow. One such list of rules I personally have found helpful, is from "Attacking Faulty Reasoning" by T. Edward Damer :
A CODE OF CONDUCT FOR EFFECTIVE RATIONAL DISCUSSION
FALLIBILITY
TRUTH-SEEKING
CLARITY
BURDEN OF PROOF
CHARITY
RELEVANCE
ACCEPTABILITY
SUFFICIENCY
REBUTTAL
RESOLUTION
SUSPENSION OF JUDGMENT
RECONSIDERATION
FALLIBILITY
When alternative positions on any disputed issue are under review, each participant in the discussion should acknowledge that possibly none of the positions presented is deserving of acceptance and that, at best, only one of them is true or the most defensible position. Therefore, it is possible that thorough examination of the issue will reveal that one's own initial position is a false or indefensible one.
TRUTH-SEEKING
Each participant should be committed to the task of earnestly searching for the truth or at least the most defensible position on the issue at stake. Therefore, one should be willing to examine alternative positions seriously, look for insights in the positions of others, and allow other participants to present arguments for or raise objections to any position held with regard to any disputed issue.
CLARITY
The formulations of all positions, defences, and attacks should be free of any kind of linguistic confusion and clearly separated from other positions and issues.
BURDEN OF PROOF
The burden of proof for any position usually rests on the participant who sets forth the position. If and when an opponent asks, the proponent should provide an argument for that position.
CHARITY
If a participant's argument is reformulated by an opponent, it should be expressed in the strongest possible version that is consistent with the original intention of the arguer. If there is any question about that intention or about implicit parts of the argument, the arguer should be given the benefit of any doubt in the reformulation.
'For a practical application of the principles governing good argumentation summarized in this chapter and addressed throughout the book, see the detailed critique of several popular points of view, including those of Shirley MacLaine and Ronald Reagan, in Lawrence L. Habermehl's The Counterfeit Wisdom of Shallow Minds: A Critique of Some Leading Offenders of the 1980's (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1995).
RELEVANCE
One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to set forth only reasons that are directly related to the merit of the position at issue.
ACCEPTABILITY
One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to use reasons that are mutually acceptable to the participants and that meet standard criteria of acceptability.
SUFFICIENCY
One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to provide reasons that are sufficient in number, kind, and weight to support the acceptance of the conclusion.
REBUTTAL
One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to provide an effective rebuttal to all serious challenges to the argument or the position it supports and to the strongest argument on the other side of the issue.
RESOLUTION
An issue should be considered resolved if the proponent for one of the alternative positions successfully defends that position by presenting an argument that uses relevant and acceptable premises that together provide sufficient grounds to support the conclusion and provides an effective rebuttal to all serious challenges to the argument or position at issue. Unless one can demonstrate that these conditions have not been met, one should accept the conclusion of the successful argument and consider the issue, for all practical purposes, to be settled. In the absence of a successful argument for any of the alternative positions, one is obligated to accept the position that is supported by the best of the good arguments presented.
SUSPENSION OF JUDGMENT
If no position comes close to being successfully defended, or if two or more positions seem to be defended with equal strength, one should, in most cases, suspend judgment about the issue. If practical considerations seem to require an immediate decision, one should weigh the relative risks of gain or loss connected with the consequences of suspending judgment and decide the issue on those grounds.
RECONSIDERATION
If a successful or at least good argument for a position is subsequently found by any participant to be flawed in a way that raises new doubts about the merit of that position, one is obligated to reopen the issue for further consideration and resolution.
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As this is not my blog, I cannot require anyone else to abide by these rules -- nor can you. But they ARE very useful for immediately identifying those who have NOT come here for a rational discussion (or to play chess), but for some other reason, whatever that might be. (We'll leave off specifying just what THAT activity might be for a future blog, when we will offer incontrovertible proof.)
For example, if I come across someone who thinks they're infallibly right, or is uncharitable and calls other people bad names without any proof, or refuses or neglects to prove a statement but just asserts it, or who is constantly filling the air with irrelevant remarks -- irrelevant to the theme article provided by our host Mr. Weiss -- I know they're like somone who wants to eat lunch on my chess pieces in the park while I'm using them, and I deal with them accordingly.
If this set of rules, or a set similar to them, aren't being used and aren't firmly etched in your mind, no matter what you call it, you're not engaging in a rational discussion; you're doing something else, perhaps a verbal "Fight Club", perhaps dog wrestling, I don't know. Just don't come show me your cuts and bruises or whine about your new acquisiton of a wardrobe full of fleas. You will be getting what you asked for, whether you realize it or not.
Another way to look at the situation is that you are not "disheartened" at all, but rather suffering from a form of disorientation caused by cognitive dissonance: YOU are playing "have a rational discussion" [playing chess] but your partner in this match is playing "pin the tail on the donkey" -- he's winning, and guess who the ass is?
The fact that he's winning is proof that you are also playing pin the tail on the donkey, because he can't play pin the tail on the donkey by himself.
How do I know he's winning?
Because meaningful rational discussions do not dishearten but refresh and uplift you. Truth vivifies, inspires. You can put that in the bank, baby.
And it is independent of circumstances, whatever they may be, and no no matter how grim.
There now, I'll bet your no longer either dizzy or unmerry.
Bon chance, mon ami.
Kobold,
Hmmmmm. Yes, this is the same Alan who has posted here Rabbi Weissmandel's and Grand Rebbe Teitelbaum's anti-Zionist polemics and terrible accusations regarding the Zionist organizations' actions during the holocaust, has given a lot of information on many many topics regarding Judaism, Israel, Zionism, and quite frankly, I didn't like the tone of your response.
Chances are, if you hadn't known about the Hasbara manual you are pretty new at this. So spare me your patronizing tone and advice and allow me to decide for myself, after endless hours of studying and debating these issues, whether I should feel disheartened or not. Consider the possibility that I might have a better idea of what we are dealing with here than you.
And if you think that when dealing with the likes of Zionists and religious fanatics, that Edward Damer's recipes will achieve anything other than pointless point-scoring (pun intended) as far as THEY are concerned, think again. This is NOT the point.
I'm only here to pass information to others and let them research things further and decide for themselves. I will continue to do so. I may have my doubts regarding the ultimate effect of this, but I haven't given up yet. It won't change anything as far as the Zionists and their worldview goes, because believers never care about facts or rational argument (see Bill Pearlman and others), but it might help educate others who'll hopefully oppose them once they understand what is going on and at their expense as far as Americans go. This is the only reason I occasionally engage in debates with hopeless fanatics, and it was indeed in one such debate that you learned about Hasbara. I couldn't care less about Pearlman or whoever I debate and whether I will end up being "bruised".
P.S. Being a good chess player, I have to inform you that the queen sticks to the straight and diagonal.