Part of Barack Obama’s expressed amazement over his difficulty in attracting Jewish support is his claim to adhere to positions identical to John McCain’s on Israel and Hamas. His willingness to hold direct talks with Hamas’s sponsor Iran without preconditions–and without insisting it renounce its policy of obliterating Israel–is one big difference. But it is not the only one.
Others have noted that Daniel Kurtzer, former ambassador to Israel and advisor to Obama, has stated that it “will be impossible to make progress on serious peace talks without putting the future of Jerusalem on the table.” In response to my asking whether this approach is “identical” to McCain’s, I received this response from McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann:
It is revealing that Senator Obama’s Middle East adviser is talking about the need for Israeli concessions on Jerusalem to be ‘on the table’ while making no reference to the need for Palestinians to meet basic roadmap obligations on countering terror and providing security. Senator McCain is not going to pressure Israel into making concessions that undermine its security.
It seems there are indeed major differences between the two. Might that have something to do with the level of support Obama is receiving from American Jews?
The Jews want to take over Gaza and the rest of the world…we’ve heard it before, Mearsheimer’s Lobby book is an update of the Protocols. Quite an intellectual achievement.
This reminds me of Chuck Hagel’s claim that the Iraq war would give Israel a pretext for expelling all its Arabs. These people are projecting. They are attributing to Israelis the mind set of a rationally aggressive conqueror. They are remarkably clueless when it comes to real Jews.
The American Conservative was founded and remains a magazine that espouses White Supremacism, the philosophy of its founder, Scott McConnell, and contributors like the late Sam Francis.
Wow, you are either completely dishonest or you can’t read worth spit. I don’t even agree with the article you cite. Still, I appreciate an honest argument. And yours isn’t. For example, you write “Those tricky Jews. It’s almost as if they wanted Hamas’ rocket war, so they’d have a pretext for re-occupying Gaza. Except that after the cease-fire the IDF promptly withdrew its forces. If Israel wanted to re-occupy Gaza, why didn’t it use the recent operation as an excuse to do so? And if the long-term Israeli goal is occupation….” This is the very definition of a strawman. Mearsheimer clearly states that he believes Israel wants “control” of Palestine. He also explicitly states that Israel does not want to “occupy” the territory. You made an argument that Israel has no intent to occupy Palestinian territories, which Mearsheimer does not claim, while never addressing his assertion about control. There’s a big difference.
@ Berk:
What does “control” mean? Does the US seek to control all of North America, given that we would go to war with either Canada or Mexico if they, say, decided to shoot missiles into Detroit or San Antonio?
In one sense, yes: We want to control North America in that there are certain things we will not permit to happen there. (Can anyone dispute that?) But of course this sense of control is so weak that wanting to control even the whole world isn’t wrong — or contrary to US policy, for that matter.
Then there’s “control” in the sense clearly implied by Mearshimer in his reference specifically to Gaza, the West Bank, Greater Israel, and “what used to be known as Mandate Palestine.”
So, if you appreciate an honest argument, answer this: What true, or even remotely plausible, claim about “Israel’s leaders” — say, Netanyahu, Livni, and Barak (or anyone else who plausibly fits this description) — can be put in terms of a strategic goal of controlling Gaza, let alone all of the old Mandate?
Here’s a classic form of intellectual dishonesty: claim P, explicitly deny that you mean Q (which seems implied by P), and don’t offer any other way to understand your claim that P.
No one who believes or has ever believed in “Greater Israel” thinks you can “control” territory (ie render it fit for Jewish settlement) without occupying it. So either Mearsheimer is being dishonest when he postulates or implies such a distinction, or he believes in Jewish mind control. Ooooooo that must be it.
Berk, the sad thing is that if you read the Mearsheimer article, it’s clear that he himself really has no idea what the Israelis allegedly want to do. His piece is sloppy and rambling. One moment, they want to re-occupy; the next, they don’t, but only want to beat the Palestinians into submission; then they want “Bantustans,” etc. He does say, BTW, that Israel wants to “occupy” territory — this would be contained in the Greater Israel project, which requires more settlements/roads/bantustans/etc, right? My point is that Mearsheimer’s piece is sloppy in its definitions because he’s making them up as he goes along — and he is doing that because he doesn’t talk to any Israeli officials, as doing so would intrude on his ability to weave his narrative.
With “occupation” there’s no peace.
Without “occupation” there’s no peace.
Whether they stay, whether they leave, ————————— there’s no peace.
And there will be no peace.
Even with Egypt and Jordan, states that Israel is supposedly at peace with, that peace obtains ONLY because the leaders in Egypt and Jordan realize Israel can’t be taken down via tanks, SPs, planes, rockets. But that realization that soaked into the leaders hasn’t “trickled down” to the populace of those two countries.
Egyptians and Jordanians haven’t grown fond of Jews.
Nor fond of the “zionist entity.”
They’re just biding they’re time, waiting for some better idea to pop up.
But there’s no PERMANENT acceptance of the state of Israel, of the NON-DHIMMI status of the Jewish people. There’s nothing like that anywhere throughout islam.
EVEN Turkey, which before had somewhat decent relations with Israel, —————— that was never something which the Turkish population shared, it was always a policy of the secular leadership, which with the ascension of the fundamentalists, is destined to end.
There’s NO peace to be had in the Middle East.
There’s just war.
It strikes me that there are two points in Prof Dr Mearsheimer’s article where he deigns to consider Hamas’s own role in the conflict, which otherwise appears as a kind of mock tango in which the all-powerful Israelis are dancing with a kind of Islamist mannequin.
At one point, in describing Hamas’ strategy, he offers the following concession:
At another point, he exhausts his examination of potential alternative Israeli strategies in one sentence:
You have to read between the lines, but Mearsheimer in effect acknowledges that the “long-term ceasefire” is, as Hamas itself has been determined to stress, would of course merely be a hudna – the timeout that warrior jihadism permits its adherents to seek before getting on with the family business. In short, the preferred Israeli strategy would be to “change [the] thinking” of the implacable, single-mindedly genocidal sworn enemy on its border even while helping and encouraging said enemy to consolidate its position and seek the development of a more favorable “balance of power.”
That is the strategy preferred by those critics of Israel who do not explicitly support Israel’s enemies (most Euros and leftists) or who pretend a lack of interest in Israel’s fate (most paleo-conservatives, libertarians, and assorted cranks). They believe (or hope) that time will heal enough wounds, or wound enough heels, to co-opt extremists like Hamas. Actually, their position is not terribly far from the Israeli grand strategy. The main differences are, primarily, proximity and timescale. As for the first, it’s much easier to argue for turning the other cheek and leaving the enemy to improve his prospects when it’s not your cheek that’s being rocketed and your own head being threatened with destruction. On the second difference, for a country still struggling to establish its existence as an irreversible fact of fact, as for a revolutionary movement struggling to reverse that fact, ten years is not the “long term.” Ten years is a moment. Israel appears to be working on a more social evolutionary time frame – generations, not decades – in the meantime merely trying to get through the next season, year, or election cycle.
The main danger to Israel in the “let them have their hudna” strategy, and the main hope for Hamas, is that it’s not Hamas’s thinking that would undergo the most significant changes, regardless of how violently, or not, Israel responds to whatever acute provocations. For that reason, Israel will seek to reduce Hamas as much as practical, to makes its real prospects seem as distant as possible, and also to re-assert its own determination to remain unchanged in its own “thinking” about its right to exist, uninfluenced on this point by the “thinking” of such as Mearsheimer.
And another thing.
What’s actually wrong with the Israelis beating the Palestinians into “submission?”
It’s what we did to the plantation South. It’s what we did to Imperial Japan, to Wilhelmine Germany, to the 3d Reich. It’s what we failed to do in Southeast Asia, {so big surprise there, we lost}. It’s what we failed to do in the Korean peninsula, which explains why we’ve continuing problems there ever since.
When a state of war obtains between two peoples, what then is the moral course of action. Doesn’t war have as its end a more perfect peace. How can any such peace develop when there’s NOTHING but this pathetic raids and counterraids, strikes and counterstrikes, which does NOTHING but let the weaker side delude itself it can hand and bang with the IDF.
This entire thing is idiocy writ large.
Initiate a policy of depopulating the West Bank and Gaza of those who refuse to make peace with Israel, who refuse to accept that Jews aren’t dhimmis.
Which means the Arabs.
That’s what it’s all going to come to, sooner or later.
That’s where this is heading, and there’s NOTHING that’s going to stop it. Because there’s NO prospects for a permanent peace.
You could add that the Allies did not beat Germany into submission in 1918 and ended up with World War II.
it’s not american or conservative?
Israel wants to occupy Gaza, yet left Hamas intact, and withdrew.
Things are not what they seem. That’s the sheer brilliance of the Gaza withdrawal. It has everyone (except of the brilliant and erudite Mearsheimer) fooled.
also didn’t fight the war in 1967 over a blockade?
Dan, you are correct in your assessment.
“What’s actually wrong with the Israelis beating the Palestinians into “submission?”
Nothing. Everything. Everything to the left, pacifists and Islam and its supporters.
Only racial sepuku will suffice as payment for the mortal sin of being Jewish. Jewish deaths are the requisite sacrifice for the ‘exculpation of the anti-semite’s sins’…it’s beyond sick, it’s homicidal hatred and it MUST be opposed. Not to do so is to go quietly into the night.
And when the left and it’s useful idiots the liberal pacifists have thrown the last sacrificial offering to the ‘alligator’ that is radical Islam, what shall they do? Look to the Dutch and Geert Wilders for the answer; they shall start to cannibalize their own, for moral cowardice has no shame or limit. A quick death is the best that such as they can hope for but the slavery of dhimmitude will be their just due. Europe has embraced her fate, she simply doesn’t know it yet.
what’s wrong with beating them into submission? the fact that they will never ever submit
Ah yes, the palestinians as supermen.
Or perhaps as force of nature?
Noble savages perhaps?
They only reason they have not submitted is because the UN (western powers) gave them a one-off definition of what it means to be a refugee – making it a hereditary title with claims on the Jew’s newly enriched ancestral homeland, and the US, euros, and others have made sure that this genocidal weapon, this weaponized subset of egyptian and levantine arabs, masquerading as a nationality, pay no consequences for their actions (in fact, they are perpetually rewarded) and have the game board reset for them, each and every time they overplay their hand.
The arab world’s oil, and the western world’s latent (and not so latent) Jew hatred ensure this death dance around the very alive Jewish state continues.
Absent those, this murderous ‘palestinian farce’ would have ended decades ago – or never even have gotten off the ground.
Writing in the current American Conservative magazine, which one must always point out is neither American nor conservative
Coming from the house organ of the dual-citizen traitor Bund, that’s a little rich.
Thanks to the inimitably idiotic but openly Jew hating ‘John Hartland’ character for stepping in so soon to illustrate one of my points.
Michael, you overestimate the Commentary crowd. While most of them, and the neocons in general, are Jews, only a small minority of Jews are neocons. You imagine any criticism of you, your Bund and your #1 country to be prima facie evidence of antisemitism, but that’s just one of the many conceits tumbling around your fevered brain.
michael- so if it weren’t for the UN’s protection you think israel would have killed all the palestinians? whose side are you on. bro? lol
I must have missed that JH, when did dual-citizenship become traitorous?
And what’s more than a ‘little’ rich, is the ‘projection’ and unmitigated gall you show in accusing our side of what your ‘side of the aisle’ is so blatantly guilty.
Given the left’s actively traitorous behavior since 9/11 you’re in no position to point a finger. A clear case of “pluck the beam from your own eye, before you point to the speck in the other’s eye”.
Lester,
Don’t give me your straw man crap.
They would have lost the wars they started. been beaten. Moved on. Adjusted to it.
Maybe moved away if they couldn’t stand living next to the sons of apes and pigs.
The point is, their will, or their ability, to kill Israelis would have been long gone.
Why are we still wasting our time discussing Mearsheimer’s ramblings? Any hope in his intellectual integrity has long be lost. Let’s move on. There are many better scholars with different views and opinions than ours with whom it is still interesting to debate.
Hartland – Please keep spewing your nonsense – it only helps Israel’s cause.
TO Herr Adolf Hartland; What’s makes a white trash loser like you anymore American than any Jew. Is it your loser, total failure status? Are Jews less American because they have saved millions of American Christian lives by using their well-known high IQs to develop the atom bomb which saved one million American military men. Or was it discovering the 2 polio vaccines, that probably saved you from being confined to a wheelchair. Or maybe it was Admiral Rickover ,developing the nuclear submarine which is the single most powerful weapon ever, which protects all Americans.?
The US benefits from it’s Jewish population infinitely more than from any other segment. So back to your trailer.
“Anti-semitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind…So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently anit-semitic, and ever will be so.”
–Martin Luther King, Jr.
Do we really need to dignify the Mearsheimers, Gore Vidals and “John Hartlands” of the world? If the Jews were defending left defending four sqaure bolck in downtown Tel Aviv, they would be spewing this stuff out.
These can say what they want, but we all know what’s going on here.
back to the mearsheimer point:
he doesn’t HAVE to do interviews…he has tenure…that should be enough
If you look at where many of the biggest American anti-semites were educated as Mearsheimer , they attended West Point. Jimmy Carter attended Annapolis. I read a book “The Jewish Threat” which chronicles the incredible anti-semitism in the US military during the 20th century. The US military was so anti-semitic ( no exaggeration), Hitler had more people of Jewish descent in high positions in the Nazi military than the US which had many times the number of Jews. The famous very overrated, mentally ill George S. Patton, upon witnessing the survivors of a liberated concentration camp, exhibits his trademark “compassion” by referring to these pitiful survivors as “lower than animals”. I believe the US military is in many ways a waste basket for the losers of society. These “losers” can’t compete in civilian society. US Grant and the overrated manic depressive William T. Sherman were total failures in Civilian Life. Those who can’t compete in civilian life, are also more likely IMHO, to be adherents to hatred of Jews due to their inevitable envy. Jimmy Carter, the incompetent fool, was given a tremendous career boost by the famous Jewish Admiral Hyman Rickover. Carter was accepted by Rickover into the most prestigious program in the US Navy, the nuclear submarine program. In Carter’s warped mind, and due to anti-semitic Christian teachings, instead of being grateful, service in the prestigious branch of the navy made him hate Jews even more, since he had to be subservient to a “Christ killer”. Many of the American Nazis who pretend to be intellectuals actually are encouraged in their Jew -hatred by overwhelming funding of many universities by the most vile people in the world The Saudis. Michael Scheuer an alleged Professor described Israel one week ago as a cancer on the world. It’s no coincidence Herr Oberfuhrer Scheuer is on the “faculty” of the University most infested by vile Saudi influence : Georgetown . There are many perks to being a pseudo-intellectual hater of Jews.The Saudi “cancer” has infected most of the major Universities including the two faculties Mearsheimer and his partner Walt are members of : Harvard and U. of Chicago.
Great posts, jaywhite.
‘Back to your trailer’ – LOL. I love it.
As for carter, nothing much to say, except Y’mach Shemo.
“The US military was so anti-semitic ( no exaggeration), Hitler had more people of Jewish descent in high positions in the Nazi military than the US … I believe the US military is in many ways a waste basket for the losers of society. These “losers” can’t compete in civilian society…”
Well. So Hitler, who wanted to exterminate the Jews, had Jews working in high positions? To what do you attribute the contradiction?
And pray tell, how do these ‘losers’ manage to field the finest military in the world?
You dispute that after discharge from the military, these former losers manage to compete quite well in civilian society…please provide the evidence.
Your extreme bias against the military is writ large across the entire face of your comments. Given your deploring of anti-semitic bias, your categorical bias against the military is truly ironic.
My impression is that he and his partner got riped apart for their shoddy initial article and working paper. Rather than acknowlege the criticism and perhaps the shortcomings of their work they decided to double down with The Israel Lobby. Having commited themselves so completely they have now tied their entire prestige to being part of the anti-Israel lobby. This in turn requires constant reinforcement of the alleged justice of their initial thesis every chance they get.
I believe the US military is in many ways a waste basket for the losers of society. These “losers” can’t compete in civilian society.
Well, then I’m sure you won’t mind if the U.S. military turns its back on your #1 country, you Bund traitor.
My impression is that he and his partner got riped apart for their shoddy initial article and working paper. Rather than acknowlege the criticism and perhaps the shortcomings of their work they decided to double down with The Israel Lobby.
The smear job on Walt and Mearsheimer was reprehensible, but all too typical of The Lobby’s tactics against anyone who dares cross the dual-citizen AIPAC traitor Bund‘s path. There is no lie you won’t tell.
John H can’t give up his admiration for W&M. Their book is really propagandistic drivel that has no scholarly merit. It has been taken apart by so many reviewers for so many reasons that you would think that the scholarly rejection of the book would percolate down even to John H. But not so.
Here below is a link to my own contribution to debunking w&m.
http://hnn.us/articles/56698.html
“The point is, their will, or their ability, to kill Israelis would have been long gone.”
I see you aren’t a student of history. neither are the israelis apparently. yeah, that’s not how it usually goes.
27- “Do we really need to dignify the Mearsheimers, Gore Vidals and “John Hartlands” of the world?”
the question is do they need to dignify you? neo cons are out realists are in. even maniacs like boot will ackowledge that
Neocon this, neocon that.
Come out and say it, man. Jews, Jews, Jews, that’s what you mean.
What a load of bull.
It is when the neocon advice was not followed, or watered down (Rumsfeld’s idea to fight the war on the cheap, with minimal troops, afterwards bringing in the incompetent imperial Consul Bremer to manage Iraq with no set plan), and the neocons jettisoned from the Bush Admin, that things got really bad.
The surge was, in effect, a necon revivial, and guess what, it worked.
The choice of Iraq as the battlefield, given its history as the cultural center of the arab world, was an inspired one.
Bring back the neocons, and this time, LISTEN to EVERYTHING they say.
I am not sure a paranoid, Jew hating fantasist like Mearsheimer should be called a ‘realist’.
Unless it is considered ‘realistic’ to throw Israel and Jews overboard in an attempt to stay a few feet ahead of, and avoid engaging, the islamic juggernaut right behind us.
Maybe ‘realist’ means ‘coward’?
michal- on yahoo’s search page commentary is described, by commentary, as “the home of neoconservatism.
“Rumsfeld’s idea to fight the war on the cheap, with minimal troops, afterwards bringing in the incompetent imperial Consul Bremer to manage Iraq with no set plan), ”
the neocons supported all of that. it was wolfowitz who said the war would be quick and easy.
“The surge was, in effect, a necon revivial, and guess what, it worked”
the surge was a repudiation of the neo con philosphy of “more force”. instead they offered big piles of moneys to guys and got zarqawi that way, instead of torture.
“Unless it is considered ‘realistic’ to throw Israel and Jews overboard in an attempt to stay a few feet ahead of, and avoid engaging, the islamic juggernaut right behind us.
Maybe ‘realist’ means ‘coward’”
no, giving in to the israel lobby and going against our own right to self preservation is the cowardly move. IN fact, it’s the easiest possible route. any senator could talk about bombing iran and not be effected or lobbied or smeared in the least. talk about disengagement from a conflict that doesn’t concern us and you get called an anti semite not just by “maine’s michael” but the media as well. ask ron paul
and there are plenty of jews who agree with me. paul gottfried, phil weiss and others.
Self preservation?
You mean you want the crocodile to eat you last?
Or perhaps you will only agree that fighting the crocodile is appropriate when it’s your ass he’s after.
Perhaps ‘realist’ simply means ‘selfish’, then.
Extreme selfishness, in the sense that you will not allow others to defend themselves if it means inconveniencing you.
It makes perfect sense that you empathize with Ron Paul.
The facts are that the post war world created by the US gave us a United Nations where certain countries have veto power.
Israel requires help in its self defense by the US veto, or it is subject to crippling sanctions available to the Security Council as a tool of coercion.
The US can and should cut Israel loose, telling the world :
‘We do not control Israel- if you have a beef with them, take it up with Jerusalem, not Washington. We accept no responsibility for Israeli action, whatsoever, and have zero control over Israel.’
That would be ideal, but in the real world, where there is a UN, the link with ISrael cannot be broken without severely damaging or destroying Israel.
A precondition, in my mind, to an American Israeli divorce (from the point of view of the US perceived as having a control of sorts of Israel) is a weakening of the UN.
so we should keep sending billions to isreel and be knee deep in a problem in another part of the world that was going before we existed and will continue to go on after we are long gone, because of the UN.
that’s nuts. the UN is not going to sanction israel and if they do it will achieve nothing. they’ve sanctioned them hundreds of times. no one cares about the UN.
the UN is a ridiculous organization, at least we appear to agree on this.
what are these sanctions that the UN will allegedly cripple israel with?
Security Council resolutions are binding, unlike General Assembly resolutions, from where the hundreds of resolution you speak of come from.
The 2 billion a year Israel gets is peanuts to Israel, never mind teh USA. There are political reasons this still exists, not economic.
Anyhow, the US gets excellent return on that investment.
The fact that Israel exists for the US to pressure, bit by bit, extracting concessions to reward the arab world for acquiescence to American machinations elsewhere in the mid east is invaluable.
Israel’s dismantling, or shrinking (to be generous about it) in preciously doled out increments, is of tremendous value to the US.
Were Israel gone, the US would have nothing (no Jewish blood or land- the most precious commodities in the eyes of the Arab world) to trade . . .
Anyhow, you seem singularly ill informed on how the world works. Well, not singularly, actually. You have many fellow travelers.
“Security Council resolutions are binding, unlike General Assembly resolutions, from where the hundreds of resolution you speak of come from.”
so how would these binding resolutions affect israel?
“The 2 billion a year Israel gets is peanuts to Israel, never mind teh USA. There are political reasons this still exists, not economic.”
lol. yeah, they don’t need the money. that’s why we give it to them. and the include also the money we give to egypt and jordan, which are the results of peace deals involving israel. and the military stuff we aren’t allowed to sell to those countries because of israel. they’ve cost us a trillion over the years and that doesn’t even count the iraq war.
“Anyhow, the US gets excellent return on that investment.”
yeah, 9/11!
“The fact that Israel exists for the US to pressure, bit by bit, extracting concessions to reward the arab world for acquiescence to American machinations elsewhere in the mid east is invaluable.”
not to me. I could care less if any arab state aquiesces to our government. I think everyone shold tell washington to take a hike, including the american people.
“Israel’s dismantling, or shrinking (to be generous about it) in preciously doled out increments, is of tremendous value to the US.”
Israel has expanded greatly since it’s incpetion and continues to expand via the settlements. any “concessions” they’ve made are purely cosmetic. they have more room than they need
“Were Israel gone, the US would have nothing (no Jewish blood or land- the most precious commodities in the eyes of the Arab world) to trade .”
so we wouldn’t trade with the arab world. who wants to trade with them? not I
I’m done schooling you.
neocon died like 5 years ago and now I’ve got one “schooling me” are you going to show me how to do the hustle as well? you need to get with the times man. no one buys into this spreading democracy, world as chess board stuff anymore. it’s last century. went out with kissinger
Neocon this, neocon that.
Come out and say it, man. Jews, Jews, Jews, that’s what you mean.
Is is you, not your “antisemitic” opponents, who arrogate. Fact is, only a small minority of Jews in this country are neocons. To be against the neocons is a bit like being against the Mafia or against foul-mouthed hiphop music, the former not representing the majority of Italians and the latter not representing the majority of blacks. You think neocon = Jew, but actually neocon = neocon, just as the original Bund equally only your model, the German-American Bund as opposed to all German Americans.
Sheikh Hassan Mearsheimer?
Huummm…obviously you want a war with Americans who disapprove of Israel, which is about 71% of the American public.
We’ll take those odds. Bring it on.
To Geoffrey Britain
“Well. So Hitler, who wanted to exterminate the Jews, had Jews working in high positions? To what do you attribute the contradiction?” Many of the finest commanders in the German army had some Jewish ancestry. They were in the military while Hitler was a nobody molesting his niece. Hitler and the military needed these Germans with some Jewish ancestry to fight their war. Erhard Milch the de facto head of the Luftwaffe was Jewish on both sides. Those with Jewish ancestry in the German military served in Hitler’s regime for several reasons. A major one was they wanted to protect their families. There were no Germans of Jewish descent in the SS which was responsible for the Holocaust.
As for the US military; I wish what I stated about anti-semitism in the US military wasn’t true.
In poorer areas of the US , whites enlist in the military at an incredibly high rate. They themselves refer to such high enlistment rates as “The economic military draft”. Obviously the US is by far the richest country in the world. The US has the best military because of it’s combination of incredible resources and a large relatively well-educated population . There are enough very capable individuals who enlist for other than economic reasons. This is definitely true about the leadership i.e. those who attend West Point, Annapolis, and The Air Force Academy.
“You dispute that after discharge from the military, these former losers manage to compete quite well in civilian society…please provide the evidence.” I’m not in court. This is a just an opinion.
“Your extreme bias against the military is writ large across the entire face of your comments. Given your deploring of anti-semitic bias, your categorical bias against the military is truly ironic.”
I am not biased against the military in any manner. I’m against anti-semitism.What do you attribute the military having such obvious anti-semites as the icon of the US Army George Patton ? I just wonder why, other than academics in Middle East Studies departments ,which should be renamed “Israel haters” departments, 3 of the leading anti-semitic academics attended the same “college” which is not known for producing many civilian academics.. It just appears more than coincidental that many of the leading anti-semitic academics attended West Point.
Dear Commentary: I just want to send you all an email saying that my good friend John Mearsheimer is in no way an anti-semite. I spent several months in Israel in the 1970′s doing research on its policies against terrorism, I did some investigative work for the ADL in the 1980′s under the direction of the late Irwin Suall, and over the years I have regularly worked with Israeli academics and government officials to fight terrorism against the Israeli population. So, I know full well that there are a lot of anti-semites out there–and that they are very dangerous people. Dr. Mearsheimer’s book can legitimately be criticized on scholarly grounds, but he is in no way an anti-semite. I do not know Dr. Walt very well, but having known Dr. Mearsheimer for over 30 years I cannot believe that he would collaborate with an anti-semite. Sincerely and Respectfully, Ernest Evans
‘Hassan Mearsheimer’?
It’s quite possible you’re right, Noah Pollak, though you’re not producing direct evidence for your assertions. I have the feeling you’r right about Israel vis-à-vis Gaza.
Which makes it all the more inexplicable why you’d make a foolish, ad hominem attack on Mr. Mearsheimer because you don’t agree with what he sees as Israel’s ultimate goal, or his views on the Palestine question in general.
Play fair with your argument, Mr. Pollak. No one needs offensive sarcasm to drive home a point reason and right are readily at their disposal.
And I meant to say, ‘…a point WHEN reason and right…’
The response to Mearsheimer here is a little silly.
It is not a question of whether Israel is trying to reoccupy the Gaza strip. The occupation never ended, but merely continued through other means. Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of Gaza, but maintained complete control of the airspace and the borders and the sea of Gaza, and sends its troops in whenever it likes.
It is quite logical to think that one reason why Israel does this (though not the only one) is the unwillingness of its politicians to completely let go of the Zionist vision of a Jewish state throughout the entirety of Biblical Israel.
A genuinely independent Palestinian state would be a betrayal of this Zionist vision, and that is why Israel will never let it happen, even if the Palestinains become a nation of pacifist Ghandhis.