Academics Who Attack Israel are Brave if Brave Means "Doing Things All Your Collegues Who Agree With You Will Tell You That You Were Brave for Doing"
Two specific comments about Juan Cole's predictable reaction to the Mearsheimer and Walt anti-Semitic sounding article (which we'll have a couple more thoughts on in the very near future - not to ruin it for you, but we don't think they're anti-Semitic so much as pathetic):
Political scientists John Mearsheimer (U of Chicago) and Stephen Walt (Harvard) bravely take on the issue of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington and the way it distorts US foreign policy in the Middle East. Most American Jews deeply disagree with the policies advocated by the American Enterprise Institute, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, etc., But a sliver of the political spectrum, falsely insisting that it represents all American Jews, manages to skew US politics and reporting on the issue of Palestine.
First, let's all stop pretending that it's somehow brave to talk for academics to talk about how AIPAC controls US policy. For a liberal academic to darkly insinuate that "neoconservative lobbies" control the Bush administration is about as brave as a Hollywood film-maker creating a movie about homosexual love. There is literally less than zero cost to the academy for striking a pose against pro-Israel US policies, and even less to sounding sophisticated by implying that "lobbies" have something to do with it.
Second, has anyone else noticed that while all other ethnic groups are attacked by the Left for acting against their "ethnic self-interest", articles are being published about how evil the "Jewish Lobby" is? More to the point, of all ethnic groups, it seems like Jews - who really are categorized ethnically by many of their enemies - are the first attacked when they appeal to ethnic self-interest. For instance, over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh is getting dinged for suggesting that blacks might have political interests - stopping abortion, shrinking the government, etc - that trump their "black identity". The discussion began when some solid (and, we presume, very brave) liberal at the Los Angeles Times suggested that being a black conservative was analogous to being complicit in slavery:.
Here is a man who, like most black conservatives, has had to do an awful lot of personal and political rationalizing to pay dues, which included apprenticing with then-North Carolina senator and habitual racist Jesse Helms and opposing the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday... That has unfortunately, but not always unfairly, invited comparisons to slave times, when the most loyal blacks were those who worked in closest proximity to their white masters.
Let's assume that there is something that can be objectively defined as being in "the self-interest of African-Americans". And let's assume furthermore that Republican policies are that opposite of that. It would still be condescension bordering on racism to assume that all blacks should have to support Democrats because of that one issue. It would be predictable - witness the horror with which liberals greet libertarian homosexuals who allow their full political ideology to trump single-issue Republican opposition to gay marriage - but it would still be condescending. And yet Jews aren't afforded the same luxury. Quite the opposite - they're attacked for even the merest suggestion that they have some sort of collective interest in the security of the Jewish State. Or worse, they're paternalistically celebrated when they eschew that interest ("most American Jews deeply disagree with the policies advocated by the American Enterprise Institute).
If Jews - who actually are being attacked worldwide based on their ethnicity - were treated like other groups, the Los Angeles Times would be publishing articles like this:
Here is a man who, like most Jewish liberals, has had to do an awful lot of personal and academic rationalizing to pay dues, which included apprenticing with then-MLA President and habitual anti-Semitic-sounding loudmouth Juan Cole and opposing any UN efforts to recognize the Holocaust as a crime which disproportionately impacted Jews... That has unfortunately, but not always unfairly, invited comparisons to Nazi Germany, when the only good Jews were those who worked in closest proximity to the German state.
That would be as stupid as when the same paragraph is written, mutatis mutandis, about African-Americans. But at least it would be genuinely brave to write.
Political scientists John Mearsheimer (U of Chicago) and Stephen Walt (Harvard) bravely take on the issue of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington and the way it distorts US foreign policy in the Middle East. Most American Jews deeply disagree with the policies advocated by the American Enterprise Institute, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, etc., But a sliver of the political spectrum, falsely insisting that it represents all American Jews, manages to skew US politics and reporting on the issue of Palestine.
First, let's all stop pretending that it's somehow brave to talk for academics to talk about how AIPAC controls US policy. For a liberal academic to darkly insinuate that "neoconservative lobbies" control the Bush administration is about as brave as a Hollywood film-maker creating a movie about homosexual love. There is literally less than zero cost to the academy for striking a pose against pro-Israel US policies, and even less to sounding sophisticated by implying that "lobbies" have something to do with it.
Second, has anyone else noticed that while all other ethnic groups are attacked by the Left for acting against their "ethnic self-interest", articles are being published about how evil the "Jewish Lobby" is? More to the point, of all ethnic groups, it seems like Jews - who really are categorized ethnically by many of their enemies - are the first attacked when they appeal to ethnic self-interest. For instance, over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh is getting dinged for suggesting that blacks might have political interests - stopping abortion, shrinking the government, etc - that trump their "black identity". The discussion began when some solid (and, we presume, very brave) liberal at the Los Angeles Times suggested that being a black conservative was analogous to being complicit in slavery:.
Here is a man who, like most black conservatives, has had to do an awful lot of personal and political rationalizing to pay dues, which included apprenticing with then-North Carolina senator and habitual racist Jesse Helms and opposing the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday... That has unfortunately, but not always unfairly, invited comparisons to slave times, when the most loyal blacks were those who worked in closest proximity to their white masters.
Let's assume that there is something that can be objectively defined as being in "the self-interest of African-Americans". And let's assume furthermore that Republican policies are that opposite of that. It would still be condescension bordering on racism to assume that all blacks should have to support Democrats because of that one issue. It would be predictable - witness the horror with which liberals greet libertarian homosexuals who allow their full political ideology to trump single-issue Republican opposition to gay marriage - but it would still be condescending. And yet Jews aren't afforded the same luxury. Quite the opposite - they're attacked for even the merest suggestion that they have some sort of collective interest in the security of the Jewish State. Or worse, they're paternalistically celebrated when they eschew that interest ("most American Jews deeply disagree with the policies advocated by the American Enterprise Institute).
If Jews - who actually are being attacked worldwide based on their ethnicity - were treated like other groups, the Los Angeles Times would be publishing articles like this:
Here is a man who, like most Jewish liberals, has had to do an awful lot of personal and academic rationalizing to pay dues, which included apprenticing with then-MLA President and habitual anti-Semitic-sounding loudmouth Juan Cole and opposing any UN efforts to recognize the Holocaust as a crime which disproportionately impacted Jews... That has unfortunately, but not always unfairly, invited comparisons to Nazi Germany, when the only good Jews were those who worked in closest proximity to the German state.
That would be as stupid as when the same paragraph is written, mutatis mutandis, about African-Americans. But at least it would be genuinely brave to write.
