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Entry: A Chosen People without God--The Rise of the Neocons Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/a_chosen_people_without_god_the_rise_of_the_neocons#20125 Post contents: Thanks for the intelligent and provoking review of a mediocre book. You raised a point that needs to be developed: Jews as a people and Judaism as a religion never pretended to provide a global/universalistic message. In fact, that has been one of the main differences betweeh Judaism and Christianity. The notion of the Chosen People is nationalist, if not tribalist, and assumes particularism and a sense of isolationism. Hence there have never been Jewish missionaries and the Jews who played a leading role in the universal political "religions" in the West -- liberalism, socialism, communism -- were all secular and assimilated Jews. From that perspective, neoconservatism is really not very different in a sense of being a secular political religion that promotes a universal democratic revolution, or Wilsonianism, led by a Universal America (as opposed to a nationalist one); indeed, if anything, Wilson was a secualr missionary (as opposed to TR who was a nationalist). Moreover, not unlike the socialists who challenged the ruling elites in Europe and who helped arouse the anti-Semitism of the masses, "democratizing" the Middle East is bound to give rise to radical Islamic movements who are more of a threat to Israel than the current status-quo in the region (re elections in Palestine). The point is that the secular intellectual figures in the neoconservative movement doesn't represent long-term "Jewish interests," but the interests of a small political-intellectual group that benefits from the rise of the American Global Crusading State. Most Israeli leaders regard Washington as nothing more than a ad-hoc partner (not unlike Moscow in the early late 1940's and France in the 1950's)and not as an long-term ideological ally. Sent at: 2008 10 06