Mr. Gottfried...wouldn’t you agree??....that Nationalism does not allow for such things as capitalism(which is a human condition...not an economic method) or,...democracy or, christianity...and republics do not allow for commanders-in-chiefs....

I think that Dr. Gottfried and I are of different opinions regarding the solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem in the middle east.  I prefer a one state solution with equal rights for all citizens as opposed to a two state solution.  I feel that we are in agreement however in that the problem is not the Israelis themselves but more the neo-cons in Washington.  The Israelis can no more be blamed for this lot of criminals than the average American can be blamed.  AIPAC can be blamed to a large degree but this does not leave the American people blameless for their willing ignorance.

Dr. Gottfried.  Indeed the US is a global power, and
indeed, we cannot turn our back on the rest of the
world - not until we return to the state of complete
autarchy which was Hamilton’s gift to us (which meant
that we did not depend on anyone for anything, since
we could do it ourselves).

And there are goals in the world that we should strive
for, because in the end it is in our advantage (it is
in our interest to cut down on contagious disease for
example - even poverty reduction: any one who goes fro
1 dollar a day to 2 dollars a day has twice the spending
power, and there is money to be made from that, if
you do not mind getting paid in pennies). But one thing
is to support goals, and another to micromanage how to
get to them, or to imagine that they can only be reached
one way: ours.

In other words, we have to learn how to advance our
goals without playing bull in a China shop.

I did not know that Sharansky was seen as a crackpot in Israel; certainly the media of my country (Canada) has never reported this.  Our former Liberal minister of justice, Irwin Cotler, once provided legal counsel to Sharansky as a prisoner of conscience when he was still in the USSR gulag.  Cotler himself seems to personify the divide between neoconservatism and support of Israel.  Cotler’s support for absolute human rights and democracy on a global scale is likely too idealistic for most Israelis who have witnessed the democratic victory of Hamas in the occupied territories.

Regarding the “one-state solution”:

If that geography we call “Israel” is not to be a religious state, then what does it matter WHERE it is?

The only thing that binds the Talmudists to that geography we call “Israel” is religion.  Since that religion has specific mandates regarding citizenship, etc., then how could a “one-state solution” work?  It couldn’t.  The only way for it to work would be under a secular state.  And if that were the case, what is wrong with that secular state being the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia?  There really is no argument against it, without using religion.

Dr. Gottfried:
Two facts stand in the way of your argument (trying to distance the Israelis from the “neocons") having any credibility:

1. The “Clean Break” and “Project for a new American Century” documents were prepared for Netnyahoo and the Israeli Govt. and were only put into the implementation phase after Israel’s govt blessed this approach to “greater Israel”
It follows that the war in Iraq and the planned war on Iran are to implement this Israeli agenda. The day to day “autonomy” of the neocons only proves they are all working for the pre-approved “strategic plan” as described in these 2 documents.

2. Never in History has a civilian population so eagerly participated in the ethnic cleansing and aparthied against the Palestinians as the Israeli public. Whether it is land grabbing or chopping down olive trees or stealing water and livestock or simply torturing the Palestinians, the Israeli public are its gory participants.
Even the german public could plead “ignorance” but the Universal conscript army of the Israelis proves that everyone is involved in the project to reduce another people to the status of imprisoned animals.

I wonder how come you never visit Gaza, can it be the same psychology that prevented Germany’s leaders from visiting the concentration camps, so the do not have to see what they are responsible for?
How come you never write about the injustices being perpetuated by 1 million neo Nazi Russian racialist against the jews, christians and the Palestinians? Enough Said!

To Mr Capp::the founders of the State of Israel were not Semites...they were Slavs & Mongols....the founders of the State of Israel were not followers of Moses...they were followers of Marx & Lenin & Trotski...since the founding of the State of Israel...many have apparently decided that it’s better to be P[russia]n than to be Jewish...now, one can reasonably ask...had Hitler left the Jews alone...and just waxed the Gypsies, Commies, Perverts, & other assorted & varied European(Welt) “undesirables”...would the Jews have proclaimed him the Messiah??....Hitler & his gang went to “school” on Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Dershensky et al....and the Commisariat fom 1917 on & on...were primarily Jews....the “fatal embrace” of the Jews is to have served every hegemon since Pharoah.... properly,logically...the early “Christians” wanted NOTHING to do with the Romans(Power)...their idea of power was that it was to be disposed on some garbage heap....subsequently, may of Rome’s greatest admirers have been the Jews ...since the “great democracies” of the USSA & USSR were the first to affirm the State of Israel...should not the focus of all… remain “temporal” power??...and discharge any & all other pretenses, concern o associations??...and yes, are not “unitarian” conceptions of the Divine...indeed, very dangerous to everyone’s health??

I thank Paul Gottfried for this outstanding article!

Without associating my self with “jim’s” antisemitic, racialist remarks, I take issue with Mr. Capp on Israel as a “religious society”.  Study Herzl, study the early Zionist movement, study the first Zionist Kibbutz in Palestine during Turkish rule. The motives were not religious, but ethnic and often socialist.

Didn’t the early Zionist movement say they would accept Madagascar as their homeland? If only it had been.

Sid:: maybe, if you would...elaborate & develop....the “light unto the world” theme...which would undoubtedly, be a far “superior” way to establish your remarks…

<<I take issue with Mr. Capp on Israel as a “religious society”>>

I’m not insisting that “Israel” is at all religious.  I’m insisting that it be consistent: either Israel should be based on the Tanakh, Torah, and Talmud (for you Talmudists out there), or it be a secular society, which would allow such things as “gay pride” parades.  Right now it is trying to be both.

If it were to be solely based on religion, it wouldn’t exist; there just isn’t a demand for a TRUE “Jewish” (more appropriately “Talmudic") state.  There IS, however, plenty of demand for a nationalist, socialist state with a flavour of Talmudism.

The fact that “Israel” exists, not as a religious state, but as a secular, socialist state, ruins the argument for it to be located where it is, that is, the RELIGIOUS homeland of the Hebrew people.  In reality, the secular homeland for the Jewish/Talmudic people can arguably be considered the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia.  Never before were the Jewish/Talmudic people given their own secular homeland.

The creation of “Israel” by the United Nations was nothing more than a direct undermining of Soviet/Russian authority.  “Israel” is the Jewish Autonomous Oblast of America.

But the biggest resistance to the one-state solution is it wouldn’t be a “Jewish” state, of, by, and for Jews. I worked in Israel and see faces of friends and children when I think of the place.

But they can take care of themselves without US taxpayer dollars. We extol separation of Church and State and Capitalism just rob taxpayers to give money to support religious socialist countries like Egypt and the military state of Israel.

The neo-con allied evangelicals in the US are all for the war that will wipe out most of the Jews save those who repent and convert to Christianity. Perhaps we should start inducting corn fed Christians straight into the IDF to cut out the middle man.

Grant is correct that S(c)haransky enjoyed tremendous
international support when he was still viewed as a
“prisoner of conscience.” But once he went to Israel,
he could no longer play that shtik, and it soon became
obvious that he is a nasty Jewish fanatic. In
Israel S is allied to the partisans of Meir Kahane
but in the US he plays the global democratic card.
Netanyahu is a good deal more adroit as a politician,
but is washed out in Israeli politics because of
corruption scandals. He is obviously the Israeli
politician whom the neocons like best after Sharansky
but N is not likely to take power again. Although
a one-state solution is not likely to work in Israel,
there will have to be close economic ties and flexible
borders for both the Palestinians and the Israelis
to thrive.The Israelis are now losing their
better educated and relatively mobile population,
which does not want to live any longer in an armed
camp with narrow borders.

Sid....history is not reality...history is carefully cultivated Idenity...Reality(Mystery) is that which is left when all Idenity has either changed or disappeared...God as Histoouy, Geist...just don’t cut it...unless, of course, you are attempting an end run to the top of the food chain...Sid, whether it’s You or anybody else...You are only as good as your metaphysics...no amount of bullshit or publicity will relieve you or anybody else of that “cross”..

Prof. Gottfried,
When I said you had called yourself a “Zionist” this was just a statement of fact or quotation actually to explain your reference to the “menace” of Islam and your apparent unease with Doctor Paul’s foreign policy positions as well as –you proceed to elaborate--your support for targeted assassinations or “extra-judicial killings” by Israelis against their opponents.
What “menace” Americans face from “Islamo-evilism” is far from clear. What is clear is that there are cause and effect relationships between American policies in the Middle East and Arab resentment of those policies rather than Manichean theological politics to best explain that resentment.
Also unclear is how, as you most recently claim, Israel can face destruction with a monopoly of nuclear weapons in the region.
In any event, I am sure you will agree that the term as well as the practice of “extra-judicial killings” marks a considerable development of the “extreme discrimination of the opponent” Carl Schmitt saw in modern concepts of the political conflict.

If it is not the case that you had identified yourself as a Zionist, I apologize for misrepresenting you.

My reading of Dr Gottfried over the years does not persuade me that he is a “Zionist” as I understand the term, although I do believe that he underplays the significance of the neocon/Likud relationship. It is less benign than he makes it out to be although I would concur that its malignency has metastacized in the US to a greater degree than Israel.

Another point on which I would take issue; there was in my recollection never a “...widespread public backing...” for this enterprise.  Polls, to the extent they are representative, showed at its highest, public support to be about 60-40%.  Most polls prior to debate were much closer. That the wars opponents lacked the courage to rally this public support to their position says more about our politicians than it does the public.

Gottfried is then quite correct in his condemnation of both political parties for their egregious unwillingness to debate the invasion, since many in the public were ready to stand with a Congress that wished to prevent this “folly”.

As to the constitutionality of the war, I am frequently reminded of Joe Sobrans famous line, “...don’t worry ladies and gentlemen, the US government will never let a little thing like the Constitution prevent them from doing whatever they want to...”.

Of course it’s unconstitutional but that unfortunately becomes simply another in a long line of confirmations that our Constitution is little more than a dead letter.

Mr. Gottfried

I’ve read most of your books and I know where you’re coming: true admiration for Western culture, wherever it flowers. Be it in Israel, be it in Europe, be it across the Atlantic.

I support Israel too, even though I’m neither Zionist (a bit too nationalist for my taste) nor an evangelical. I support them for being the only civilised culture in the whole Middle East. Amidst all the barbarity and insanity they hold their own. True, they’re not perfect—no Western country really is, excepting (boring) Scandinavia—but Israel is way better than all of their neighbours.

<<Israel is way better than all of their neighbours.>>

That is like saying Cameroon is better than it’s neighbors.

A few comments:
Zionism was a secular national movement aimed at establishing a Jewish or Hebrew nation-state. The fact that this national identity had a religious component is not so unique: Greece (Greek-Orthodox); Russia (Russian-Orthodox); Polish/Irish (Catholic); Aremenian, etc. But Zionism as a movement completed its task when the state was established and allowed any Jew who wanted to immigrate to it. Israel should now be considered—like Greece, Ireland, Armenia—as a normal nation-state and its domestic and foreign policy should be judged based on the same standards we apply to other nation-states. Jews or others who support Israel are no different than American-Irish who identify with Ireland. But unless they immigrate to Israel, it goes without saying that their allegiance should be to the U.S., France, etc. and not to Israel. From that perspective, they are not Zionists. At the same time, Israeli national identity is changing. You already have a large community of Hebrew-speaking non-Jews (I’m not referring to Arab citizens of Israel), including many of the non-Jewish immigrants from Russia. Why would anyone think that a one-state solution would work in Israel/Palestine if Belgium and Czhekslovakia or Cyprus didn’t work (and the list is long...). The problem with the neocons is that they’ve developed this axiom that American and Israeli national interests are identical, and what is good for Israel is good for America (and vice versa). And their job is to ensure that we all subscribe to this axiom. But it’s false and destructive. Both countries will be better-off “normalizing” their relations which would happen sooner or later.

Mr Hader.....with all due respect..."their allegiance”...should be due to their Creator...not their “created”....personality precedes property and spirit precedes personality....nation states are nothing more in[corporations] to secure the most recent land “heist”, then leverage it & everybody on it to infinity...the corporation is in place for only two seminal reasons...to tax or to axe… to protect the tax...that’s what they mean by pax, which quickly turns to pox...nobody had more Lockean rights than the “indians”...and yet they never even made the 14th Amendment...Locke, like Smith & Paine was a “mask” to return to Hobbes...once the “title” had transferred…

Dr Gottfried:

What do you make of this?

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7127

Are these the actions of a friend or foe?

@Andrew Capp

You probably assume Israel and Cameroon are morally equivalent—they’re not.

- Is Cameroon a “normal” democracy? No
- Does Cameroon offer rights for minorities? No
- Is Cameroon’s standard of living better than its neighbours? A bit, but it’s still a hellhole.
- Is Cameroon threatened by its neighbours? No
- Is Cameroon as militaristic as Israel? Well, okay, no.

You may feel some true compassion for the Palestinian cause. That’s normal and healthy, nobody wants to see their fellow human beings in a struggle for survival on a daily basis. My concern for the Palestinians is lost, however, when I see them becoming violent.

It’s disappointing to see Palestinians often turn radical when they don’t get their way. Innocent Israelis—people who are guilty of being born Israeli—are targeted. Therefore, I can’t blame Israel for staying in power. Most peoples would do the same, just look at South Africa, Zimbabwe or the Pied Noirs. Out of fear we commit immoral acts. It’s as banal as it is human nature, Israel is no exception.

You know, I hate “the wall” or any wall separating people for that matter. Up untill now, I haven’t heard a better alternative for stopping terrorists coming into Israel. Please give me another solution.

Leon Hadar is correct. If Belgium, Cyprus, Czechoslavakia and Yugoslavia can’t get along, what’s going to be the situation in the dualstate Israel-Palestine? There’s never going to be one.

And he’s also correct to state that criticism towards Israel is normal, every nation-state will experience it. So should Israel, it’s beneath them to think otherwise. If idiots only see antisemitism, when they read Walt/ Mearsheimer’s these or Jimmy Carter’s book, I have a perfect remedy: laugh your ass off.

Blaming just one party in this particular conflict is still nonsense though.

Dear Paul,
To quote my favorite U2 song, “Acrobat”: Don’t let the bastards grind you down!

@Maciano

No, my point was:

Compared to it’s neighbors, there are a lot of basket-case countries out there that “look good” when compared to their neighbors.  Israel and Cameroon are two of them.

As far as whether or not Cameroon or any other country is a “democracy” - who gives a flying fuck?

Seriously, why do you people continue to worship at the “Altar of Democracy”?

It’s sad, really really sad.  Pitiful.  Then you go on to mention “rights” for “minorities”.  I feel sorry for you, Maciano.

“I feel sorry for you, Maciano.”

Well, don’t pity me. Why should you? Except for my shitty job, I’m pretty happy. I refered to minorities in Israel, not the Palestinian refugee camps.

And hey, I don’t like democracy so much either. It seems like I have to get excited about A) voting for some corporatist Big Business-Labour-Government idiot who’s hot for war or B) some anti-Western PC socialist, who’s also hot for war. If you don’t like that--don’t vote.

We’re surviving though. Can’t say that about much of the rest of the world or most of history either. Seems like democracy is, at least, doing something right.

PS I’ve noticed your comments on this blog quite often. You seem perpetually angry. Watch out with that shit, think of your blood pressure.

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down!” That’s a fascinating—and telling—attitude.  I was eagerly looking forward to an objective, unemotional, rational exchange of evidence-based arguments—i.e., just the kind of scientific approach that Russell Seitz advocates in his posts.  Is it too religious to the current takimag team to remind them about the old Christian principle of practising what one preaches?

RE: Mr. Konkola,
My little note of encouragement to Dr. Gottfried was intended as a response to several commenters who seemed to me to take an unduly hostile tone towards him--as others have on some of his articles. I will not speculate as to their motives.

And I think it’s pretty silly to expect rhetorical debates about politics to be “objective, unemotional” “rational” “evidence-based” and “scientific.” You begin to sound like some Leninist ideologue, frankly.

Liberal democracy is nothing to crow about. It enthrones ignorance at the expense of intelligence. It holds public policy captive to crude media driven popularity contests. Why is democracy considered such a great system of government? Imagine the sort of chaos “democracy” would create if we ran the medical profession that way. Instead of licensing qualified professionals, we could elect physicians on the basis of their ability to raise large sums of money, look good on television, and flatter idiots by giving lip service to their favorite myths. Charlatans would quickly run wild again. People would lose their lives and money from malpractice. It is only the field of government where incomptence is not considered a disqualifier for higher office.

@Prozium

Well for one thing: what’s the alternative? There is no alternative for democracy.

Liberalism instead of what? (communism, nationalism, fascism or socialism)

Democracy instead of what? (anarchism, aristocracy--which democracy in practice de facto leads to-- or dictatorship)

I agree that democracy is not something to brag about. It’s flawed; it gives us leaders like Blair, Bush and Chirac; it can only forbid things or restribute wealth; it’s sensitive for lobbies and populist idiocy; long term policies are impossible, because of the short term mindset of career politicians et al. All bad, but the alternatives are worse. I rather not live under any different circumstances. Call me a fatalist.

Btw, I think “we"--the West--have introduced democracy to the masses, because it tends to pacify angry mobs. If some people want to change certain things in public life, they can try to change that by means of democracy--Ofcourse, that’s a farce for 95% of the time. Nothing ever changes. Abortion is a classic example. As a matter of fact, most elites need the abortion-carrot in front of the Christian Right to keep them loyal--in their voting block.

Democracy reduces the risk of violent mobs and reduces the threat of masses to the elites, who have always been responsible for the course of history. The aristocracy (nobility and church) have just been changed for privileged Ivy Leaguers and (mostly) secular intellectuals.

There’s really nothing new under the sun. Never was, never will be.

Dr. Paul:

Bringing us back to the subject.
These Bastards will definitely “grind you down”

How does it feel to find yourself defending a fifth column?
This shows that loyalty to the Israeli agenda may be treason against the U.S.

http://www.antiwar.com/rep2/MemorandumtotheCommissionandSelectCommitteesbold.pdf

Three cheers to Dr. Gottfried!  The lesson here is:  before self-described paleocons criticize neocons for imposing “orthodoxy,” take a look in the mirror.  Whenever “one of their own” steps out of line, many paleocons turn rigid.  Whatever the faults of Bush, the neocons, and Israel, a fanatical and instant rejection of anything and everything Pres. Bush, the neocons, or the Israelis say and do is simply irrational.  Did hatred of Clinton “dumb down” the right?  Yes, just as hatred of Bush/neocons/Zionists/Israel (none of them my favorite sources of policy, btw) “dumbs down” their critics.  A critic needs to be just that—critical.  Dr. Gottfried does this successfully.  Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, on the other hand, does not (just to provide an example).

As Dr. Gottfried’s last comments make clear, Ron Paul has learned the lesson that every other right-wing populist has learned anywhere, whether it is Buchanan, Le Pen, or Manning.  The people of the West are not terribly conservative.  The Rousseauvian faith in the “General Will” has yielded to masses who are easily manipulated by slick and shallow demagogues (hello Barack).  Is it time for Spenglerian fatalism?

The West managed to get by just fine without democracy for a thousand years. What is the alternative to liberal democracy? To be perfectly honest with you, I really don’t care. Nothing could possibly be worse than the sick, degenerate, materialistic farce of a culture we have today which holds up 50 Cent and Britney Spears as role models. It doesn’t even have the will to reproduce itself! If that were not bad enough, these democratic politicians are literally giving our lands away to alien settlers.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I would rather have Communism or Zmirak’s theocracy than that. As for my own ideal, I think government should be run like any other profession, so my ideal is a sort of caste based technocracy. I would be for republicanism provided it doesn’t degenerate into democratic conditions. Is a military coup too much to hope for? Whatever it takes to haul these f****** politicians before a firing squad has my support. A boot stomping on Larry Kudlow’s face for a thousand years for a thosuand years sounds nice. What do you think?

John,
My concern about emotions making objectivity and rationality impossible has a pedigree much older than Leninism.  Since you are in Rome, do look up late medieval and early modern writings on sins (often called “sinful passions"), such as hatred, greed, envy and pride.  You will find repeatedly in those texts an observation that English writers translated as “passions extinquish the light of reason.” This observation denoted the belief that emotions create such a powerful bias as to make rationality impossible.  Paradoxically, the fear of dumbing/ blinding hatred, that many takimag commentators have recently warned about, was something repeatedly taught from pulpits in 17th-century England.  (Catholics would have received the same psychology of emotions in the confessional.)

In modern literature, Daniel Goleman’s bestselling “Emotional Intelligence” contains an appendix titled (I’m writing from memory) ‘Hallmarks of an Emotional Mind.’ That appendix provides a summary of the old religious psychology because it largely rediscovers the formerly well-known dangers of emotions. 

Old theologians defended their concern about emotions’ irrationality by arguing, not only that passions were dangerous, but that the ability to do objective, rational reasoning was the special capability that distinquished humans from animals.  This looks like a good idea to keep in mind both when writing one’s own comments and when reading those of others.

@Prozium

Well, evidently, something has to change in our Western culture, it’s uninspiring and offers young people nothing but a me-now-here mentality.

That’s bad. I can’t be proud of Britney and Fiddy as role models. As a matter of fact, I find them both perverted, if not inverted, forms of role models. In any other culture, they’d be deemed clinically insane. So, from one man to another, I don’t know either.

I asked a friend of mine of couple of years ago and he told me to de-politicise myself. So, improve your own and family life as much as possible. I read a lot, work hard, spend a lot of time raising a family and I moved to a city I liked better—the multicultural enrichment didn’t do it for me.

Personal happinees, that’s for me, what the West is about and should be about. I leave the madness—war, politics, greed—for the madmen. So maybe, it’s not just democracy, what’s bad. Politics, that’s what’s bad.

Very well said, and I agree on all points.

“If my respondent means by “Zionist” that I have kind feelings toward the Israelis and would not want to see their Arab neighbors destroy them...”

Here in the UK the Left calls anyone with this viewpoint, which I share, a Zionist.

“the world is a dangerous place not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."-Einstein

This Maggot Kristol is towing the official Israeli Government line as he tries to embroil the U.S in another even greater disaster with Iran.

The Israeli Government has never once tried to distance itself from the neocons nor has it criticised the neocon manifestoes “a clean break” and the “project for a new American century”
Here is what Kristol the maggot is saying now, along with reactions from the U.S. public. A backlash is on the way:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/24/kristol-politics-of-fear/

Dr.Gottfried,
How do you defend this comment you made
in the running comments of your previous
article?:

“I think a certain amount
of security protection may also be necessary to deal
with this threat and I don’t really mind seeing Muslim
terrorists getting mysteriously blown by Israeli
agents.”

Does that “certain amount” include no fly lists,
denial of habeous corpus, secret trials, warrantless
searches and the rest of the nightmare that has been
created to find your elusive boogey man, the islamo-
fascist threat to western civilization?

Also from your comment, I guess it is ok with you
that government agents and henchmen murder persons
without civil due process? You trust them to use
unrestrained deadly force on the civilian population
based on their own good judgement and motives?

You are a fool.

Tell them all goodby. Cut off aid to everybody. Let them fight if they wish. And check back with them in 5 years to see who won!.....NONINTERVENTIONISM!

Maciano,

So then if a one state solution won’t work then by default the two state solution must be working and then what the heck are we all worrying about anyway?  Sounds like the neo-con version of reality to me.  You may say that a one state solution will not work but it the only thing that can work.  Or are you saying that 60 plus years of apartheid is working just fine?  In case you didn’t know, when the area was known as Palestine Jews, Christians, and Muslims all existed in one state.