Good Jew, Bad Jew. U.S. culture today is dramatically and bitterly split between the vicious selfishness of the rich, self-contented Right and the ardent enemies of selfishness and complacency who remain true believers in the conception of the United States as a society devoted to "liberty and [socioeconomic] justice for all" — who are not the Left but all the rest of us.
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Not surprisingly, American Jews are now also bitterly split, between the liberalism and tolerance that characterized the Jewish community in the U.S. for the bulk of the 20th Century and a new, mean, selfish, radical conservatism completely at variance with historical Jewish behavior in this country — but absolutely typical of Jewish behavior in Palestine.
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We on the liberal left have long appreciated the powerful support and even leading role of Jewish liberals in areas like civil rights and worker's rights. But there always were Roy Cohns.
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Today, the traditional liberalism of American Jews might best be seen in Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's Daily Show and Barbra Streisand, who has raised millions of dollars for liberal causes. The newly prominent retrograde conservatism of Israel-identified Jews might best be seen in people like Paul Wolfowitz and New York Post columnist John Podhoretz. In some matters, even more moderate conservative Jews take stances wildly out of keeping with American Jewish tradition. Know your enemy.
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In the past two days, two rightwing Jewish columnists of the New York Post (a) defended arbitrary and unconstitutional searches of bags in the New York subways (Arnold Ahlert) and (b) attacked people in Hollywood who dared to suggest that the United States is not blameless in the conflict with Moslem militants (John Podhoretz). I sent the following emailed letters to the Post about those columns.

[1] Arnold Ahlert ridicules concerns about civil liberties in our ever-enlarging police state by claiming that "War changes everything." But we are not at war. A war is declared, but Congress refused to declare war. Against whom are we at war? A war has a specific enemy, and when you defeat that enemy, the war is over and wartime restrictions on rights are ended. The only wars the people approved, albeit without a declaration of war as the Constitution requires, [were] against the Taliban government of Afghanistan and the Hussein government of Iraq. Both have been ousted. But Ahlert says we're still at war. Against whom? For how long? When will we know the war is over? And if it is never over, then our rights can be ever more tightly restricted, until they are all gone, all in the name of safety.
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(Responsive to "The Right to Live in Safety", column by Arnold Ahlert in the New York Post, July 28, 2005)
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[2] Why isn't John Podhoretz in the Israeli army? He is stridently, viciously anti-Arab, and wants the U.S. to wage world war against Islam, but he won't put his own life on the line for his extremist views. Rather he, like so many other Israelis and pseudo-Israelis — those couch soldiers in the United States — is willing to fight for Israel to the last Christian. Well, America's Christians are starting to wonder why on Earth we are fighting for the Jews. Let the Jews do their own damn fighting and leave us out of it.
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(Responsive to "Hollywood Hell", column by John Podhoretz in the New York Post, July 27, 2005)

As a courtesy, I sent Mr. Ahlert copy of my comment on his column, and he sent this reply:

I didn't "ridicule" anything, Congress authorized the use of force in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the United States Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit approved the use of military tribunals to try "enemy combatants."

We're at war against terrorist organizations and the countries and constituencies that aid and abet them — for as long as it takes. Hope that chills your conspiratorial fever — but I suspect you would prefer to "roll the dice" riding on a subway. Good luck selling that idea to New Yorkers, Mr. Chairman.

(Ahlert may be right about New Yorkers. New Yorkers put up with more s**t than people in the next 10 largest cities of the United States put together. They are sheep, perhaps in part because so many of them aren't Americans at all but immigrants from places where dictatorial government is the rule.)
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Look carefully at this portion of that reply: "We're at war against terrorist organizations and the countries and constituencies that aid and abet them — for as long as it takes." Hmm. What does he mean by "constituencies that aid and abet them"? I guess that means anyone who disapproves of endless war, police-state restrictions on our liberties, discrimination against Arabs in Israel, a global war for Zionism — pretty much anybody who disagrees with the "permanent war" launched by (Paul) "Wolfowitz & Co.", the Zionists in the U.S. Government who will kill as many people as it takes to make the world safe for Israel — Moslem and Christian without distinction, in the millions if need be.
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I happen to be one Christian who does not care to die for Israel. And I don't want to kill for Israel either. Nor have my liberties taken away for Israel. Nor be taxed more than need be so Dubya can send billions to Israel.
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Plainly searching knapsacks in New York City subways is not the full extent to which crackdowns on those "constituencies that aid and abet" "terrorist organizations" might go. As Ahlert's cohort Podhoretz plainly indicates, everyone who so much as utters a word of criticism of the "war" is aiding and abetting terrorism, so must be silenced. If they (we) won't be intimidated out of criticism, by aspersions on our patriotism or decency, or by being fired from our jobs (as I was), then something more draconian must be employed. What might that be?
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Let's look at Ahlert's original article for clues.

Every war America has engaged in has led to the diminution of certain rights: Habeas corpus was suspended during the Civil War, the Espionage Act of WWI provided penalties for interfering with the recruitment of troops, Japanese were interned during WWII and the Patriot Act has given the government greater powers to monitor individuals.

Democracy is flexible. Habeas corpus was restored, no one gets arrested for advocating an anti-war agenda, the Japanese were freed and the Patriot Act has a "sunset clause."

But rightwingers are trying to eliminate that "sunset clause". The Washington Post reported 6 days ago that:

Within hours of a second attack on the London transit system, lawmakers in the House and Senate pushed ahead yesterday with starkly different bills to extend the controversial USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law.

[Tho a Senate measure was inclined to restrict some of the wider powers of the present law,] After a day-long debate, the House voted 257 to 171 last night to extend or make permanent the most controversial provisions of the law while adding a handful of new restrictions on the FBI. Forty-three Democrats joined 214 Republicans in approving the Patriot renewal bill. Other proposals for sharper limits were rejected.

Permanent war, permanent "Patriot Act". And if terrorist attacks continue abroad — note that the House action came within hours of an attack 3,000 miles away, in a foreign country — or, far worse, return to the U.S., then what? Plainly the measures we have already taken will be said not to be working, so we'll have to do something more, won't we? And maybe those measures will be enforced by "internment" and "military tribunals" for all those "enemy combatants".
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Well, we will indeed have to take more draconian measures if terrorism continues if we accept the idea that we should be at permanent war against a billion Moslems for Israel!
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But what happens if we end support for Israel? What if we publicly announce that we were seized with madness for a while, but have returned to our own country's revolutionary first principles — equality under law, no expropriation of Arabs for Jews, no preference for one religion over another — so cut off all relations with Israel, cut off every cent of U.S. public and private aid to Israel, apologize to Palestinians for the crimes committed in our name by the Israeli government and prior U.S. governments, recognize the Palestinian Authority as the sole legitimate government not just of present "Palestinian" areas but of all of historic Palestine, and lavish it with billions of dollars of aid of all kinds to help it build a united, multiethnic and multireligious, secular Palestine? What if we declare victory in Afghanistan and Iraq and bring our troops home? What then?
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Well, maybe the John Podhoretz's and Paul Wolfowitz's will then have to move to their beloved Israel and join its army, and Jews faithful to the United States can return to their traditional liberalism.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,788.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 12:46 PM