Jewish liberals have a difficult task this year in defending Barack Obama’s record. But, luckily for them, it is far easier to stir up suspicion about conservative Republicans than it is to convince liberals to connect the dots about Barack Obama’s troubling record on Israel. Convincing wavering Jewish liberals and moderates to stick with the Democrats is generally just a matter of reminding these voters that conservative Republicans are generally allied with the Christian right, a group many Jews fear more than Hamas, Hezbollah or al-Qaeda. That is often enough to overcome the fact that even liberals are aware that with the exception of Ron Paul libertarians (most of whom are not even Republicans), the GOP is uniformly and ardently pro-Israel as well as overtly friendly to American Jews. Yet that has no deterred some from attempting to try to convince Jews that despite their support for Jewish causes, these same Republican politicians are actively sending out subliminal messages to reassure conservatives they should fear and hate Jews.
That’s the conceit of a poorly conceived article by Gal Beckerman in the Forward who sets out to convince us the real intent of Newt Gingrich’s brandishing of the name of Saul Alinsky when describing Obama’s radicalism is to send out anti-Semitic “dog whistles” to the right. This is absurd for three reasons.
The first is that the idea that Alinsky’s 1971 book Rules for Radicals was a seminal work in instructing the American Left about how to gain power is hardly original with Gingrich. While Alinsky has gotten some new attention as a result of Gingrich’s attempt to link former community organizer Obama with the patron saint of community organizers, it is the left that has long held Alinsky up as a hero. Though some on the right have paid Alinsky the compliment of reading him and trying to copy some of his tactics, the truth is he has probably done more to influence radicals and their tactics than many other writers who were better known in their day. Though Democrats have fiercely resisted any attempt to get at the roots of Obama’s ideology via his associations, singling Alinsky out as such an influence has nothing to do with his Jewish origins, which are as unknown to most GOP voters as his writings.
Second, the notion that the frequent mention of Alinsky’s name is an attempt to remind Republicans his mentor was a Jew and somehow foreign is an unsubstantiated leap into conjecture that really ought to be beneath Beckerman, a writer whose history of the Soviet Jewry movement is the finest book yet written on the subject. It is a mere assertion with no argument behind it other than a claim that — like the mention of poverty and food stamps which he also takes to be a sign of Gingrich’s racism — is an attempt to get at the “subconscious” of Republicans.
Third, the whole argument is based on a fallacious assumption that most conservatives are closet anti-Semites who will vote for a candidate if they believe they are, in their hearts, against the Jews. This is, of course, an article of faith for many Jewish liberals whose heads are stuck in the politics of the 1930s when conservatism was associated with anti-Semites like Father Coughlin. While the vestiges of that old conservatism carry on in the person of paleo-con outliers such as Pat Buchanan and radical right-wingers who now support Ron Paul because of his negative attitude toward Israel, the rest of the GOP is nothing like that. Indeed, its evangelical and social conservative grass roots are largely comprised of ardent philo-Semites.
The notion that Gingrich, whose campaign has been revived by large contributions from Sheldon Adelson because of the candidate’s down-the-line backing for Israel, is somehow such a covert Jew-hater is simply a smear. Though his faults are many, he is, if anything, a more ardent Zionist than many Jewish liberals and has never done anything that could possibly link him to hatred for Jews. But even if he was such a hater, the fact is, his core audience on the right is the last demographic group in America (other than the Jews themselves), who would give a sympathetic hearing to such ideas.
Rather than seriously examine the contradiction at the heart of these assumptions, Beckerman merely nods to liberal myths and expects his readers to lap it up. Republicans back Israel not just because Sheldon Adelson and others give them money but also because sympathy for Zionism is ingrained in the political DNA of this country and is inherently popular. But it is easier to merely pander to liberal prejudices about the right than to seriously examine this conundrum.
That such arguments come now when the left is drifting closer to anti-Zionism, as we see with the Occupy Wall Street movement which will morph into an Occupy AIPAC gathering this spring, speaks to the blindness of liberals to what is happening on the left as well as the right.
People like Beckerman think Gingrich is employing anti-Semitism when he says Alinsky simply because he assumes conservatives must be anti-Semites. Beckerman’s dark fears about the Christian right are ridiculous. He clearly knows little about them. But his fears speak volumes about the unfounded and politically prejudicial assumptions so common on the left.
maybe I'm as dumb as Andrew Sullivan thinks I am. I've known about Alinsky since my own college days in the 1970s, and I never knew he was Jewish, and I'm Jewish myself! never occurreed to me. you ask 10 people what "Saul Alinsky" means to them and 9 of them (if they've heard of him at all) would probably say "Obama's community-organizer model." n nI don't care for Newt Gingrich. I think the Republicans will lose if he is the nominee. but he has been nothing but right on the Middle East, and his support for Israel is obvious. to call him an anti-Semite just shows us, again, how they plan to do the 2012 campaign–personal and dirty.
What? dog whistle? Sheesh. Not even the pooches can hear that one. Left wing Jews not only are desparately attempting to cover for the anti-Zionist trolls in their own base but prisoners of the need to be first out of the gate with the intellectually arresting and startling paradox. As if the whole world doesn't know that the Newtsters is (yes, rhetorically) ready to storm the ramparts on behalf of Zion, laying about him to smote the "invented people" of Palestine hip and thigh and a 1995 sponsor of a House bill to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the U.S. embassy there.
otoh the Newtser is doing a full Glen Beck and proposing a full-bore Marxist-revolutionary subtext for Saul's organizing that probably misses the point of where he was going with his act-locally commitments–the talk radio/Fox/Beck universe is heavily invested in a Manichean revisionist demonizing of all and every left-wing figures who are basically mashed together into a proto-Elders of Zion conspiracy. Trying to locate Newts intentions in his enthusiastic pandering to the fringes of today's distaff alienated (Obama as a Kenyan anti-imperialist, taken, what? from Ponoru, no?) is likely doomed to failure. Was Tiny Tim a put on? Who cares? Pass the popcorn!
Just because Newt didn't intend the comment as a "dog whistle" doesn't mean that it isn't perceived that way by Ron Paul types,and others. ….When Paul is bounced out,if Newt gets the nomination,whom will the Paul supporters vote for ? I'd suggest that their anti-black feelings might outweigh their anti-Jewish feelings-so that there will be certain anti-Semites voting for the good Zionist Newt in order to defeat Obama….. What I found most shocking about Mr. Tobin's posting is the line"now when the left is drifting closer to anti-Zionism"…The American left has been anti_Zionist since the '67 War…And if you don't think that the name Alinsky conjures up anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jewish communists ,I think you're seriously misunderestimating the residual nature of the disease.
Newt is a phony; this is what he wrote in 2005: Newt is a phony; in 2005 he wrote the following: "The desire of some Israelis to use security as an excuse to grab more Palestinian land should be blocked by Washington even if that requires employing financial or other leverage to compel the Israeli government to behave reasonably on the issue of settlements. It is vital to our credibility in the entire Middle East that we insist on an end to Israeli expansionism."
Evil Jewish communists, evil Jewish capitalists, evil Jewish media types. n nIn the minds of Jew haters, you will find the Jew wherever you care to look. n nAny Jewish name in the public domain is a Rorschach test for the person hearing it, which tells more about the listener than any Jewish plots. n n'dog whistle' will be the theme of the 2012 election contest. n nDog whistle racism will be everywhere, according to the Obama fans. Just wait. n n n n
Here's what you idiots don't get. n nAn increasing portion of America, including Jewish liberals, is increasingly frustrated by the manner in which the GOP puts Israeli interests ahead of America's and at the flagrant disrespect shown by Israelis towards the policies and decisions of this country. n nAs the Israelis get more demagogic over the past decade, GOP support has only increased. You are onto a losing ticket but I guess at this point clasp all straws.
Thanks uzi for posting that comment by Gingrich.I wasn't aware of that ,and it does make me change my opinion of him.I would no longer characterize him as a "good Zionist"-only an opportunistic one-which still puts him miles and miles ahead of the leftist Democrats,and the isolationist anti-Semites of all varieties………………. When the Saddam Bear talks about "the flagrant disrespect shown by Israelis towards the policies and decisions of this country",it's clear that he's really describing the Left's attitude towards Israel. A case of political dyslexia ,if you will, which has also apparently manifested itself in his salutation.
Well firstly Father Coughlin was not a conservative – actually he was a hard line leftist (as reading his publication "Social Justice" will confirm) who spent his time attacking business and denounced Roosevelt (who he at first had supported) as not statist ENOUGH. n nAs for Newt Gingrich – he has a supporter of Israel (and so on) all his life. To smear him as an antisemite is as absurd as to pretend that opposition to the ever growing Welfare State is "racist" (of course Mr Beckerman played that game also – very Frankfurt School, perhaps he will now denounce conservatives for having "authoritarian personalities" and denounce any opposition to the left as the "paranoid style in American politics"). n nIf people are told they can not oppose far left Obama mentors because that is "anti semitic" and can not oppose ever growing government because that is "racist", then just get rid of the First Amendment and accept that the United States (and civil society in general) has come to an end.