Rosenbaum writes:
Forgive me if I forgo the argument over whether The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, the controversial new polemic from John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, should be called anti-Semitic.
But then he goes on to argue just that, offering several arguments without offering refutations:
Set aside David Duke's enthusiastic endorsement of their thesis as vindication for his ravings.
A logical fallacy. Stalin and Churchill were both pleased by the fall of the Nazi regime -- does that equate them in moral terms? In any terms?
Set aside the fact that the book, in its account of the insidious influence of supporters of Israel, calls to mind the fantastical, string-pulling Jewish conspiracy for world domination one finds in that century-old fraud The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Here Rosenbaum attempts the old conflation -- that criticism of Israel is identical to criticism of "the Jews." Thus zionists co-opt the Jewish people, claiming to speak for them all, except those Jews who criticize Israel and thus must be "self hating Jews."
Even more amusing is that this argument means that those who detest Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, or the rabid Christian Right, are thereby antisemitic! Because all of them are staunchly pro-Israel, and part of the lobby.
To me, the real problem is not ... the one-sidedness of its depiction of Israel and its supporters,
An interesting critique which I don't recall Rosenbaum making with respect to, say, The Case for Israel.
The new book suggests that the lobby for the Jewish state—unlike the lobby for, say, ethanol—is not just another successful interest group but somehow illegitimate because of its success, and that its influence on American policy has become so powerful and malign that no one dares challenge it (except, well, them, and a good number of Jews).
Perhaps because the supporters of ethanol are not putting the interests of a foreign nation ahead of the interests of the United States, with the result being the dispossession and occupation of millions of people. Ethanol supporters, as far as I know, do not propose that the US squander resources to pay for the predations of an oppressive power, causing thereby much harm of the US, much anger against it -- and who can truly blame the Muslim world for being angry about it?
They describe Israel as brutally oppressive (unlike, say, our heavily subsidized Arab allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia)
We do not subsidize Saudi Arabia. We subsidize Egypt so that it will not be at war with Israel, so payments to Egypt are essentially further payments to Israel. This (a pacified Egypt) is what freed Israel up to attack Lebanon in the early 1980s.
Eliot A. Cohen characterized the double standard of the Mearsheimer and Walt thesis in this fashion:
Cohen's "arguments" of a double standard are ridiculous. The USA does not subsidize Syria or Iran, so it's Cohen who is establishing a double standard. And the old canard about the menacing Arabs is, as any military man will tell you, ludicrous. Israel holds all the cards from a military perspective, and has for decades. It is Israel that has been the aggressor in every war from 1948, other than 1973, which was an attempt by Arab powers to regain the territory seized by them in 1967.
And considering the constant drumbeat of anti-Arab propaganda in America by Zionists in the media (see, for instance, Debbie Schlussel, who never found a tragedy she couldn't blame on a Muslim), why is it so shocking to Cohen that anti-semitism would arise in Arab countries? At least in the case of the Arabs, they have something to be enraged about -- constant attacks on their countries, and a brutal colonialism committed against Muslims.
so it's hard to imagine his being pleased with the gold star they pin on his attack on his fellow Jews.)
Ah, so they are marking people with gold stars? So much for Rosenbaum's protestations that he's not absurdly inflammatory. One gets the impression that Rosenbaum needs to read The Jewbird over again, as he sounds disturbingly like the avian character in that story. Rosenbaum does a disservice to the dead of the Holocaust by invoking them against everyone who forgets to pack the potato salad with his order.
They quote several American Jews talking about a rise in anti-Semitism here in America and then quote me saying, "There is likely to be a second Holocaust." Period. End quote.
Considering the falsehoods and propaganda that Rosenbaum perpetrates upon his reader to support his beloved other country, please excuse me for not crying my eyes out that he was ... misquoted! It is amusing when intelligent people completely fail to see the irony in their outrage.
Fairytales about the imperiled Jews of Israel are no more plausible that German-Americans being anxious that the evil Poland was about to overrun Germany in 1939.
Israel has squarely brought, and continues to bring, the hatred of its neighbors upon itself, due to its ghastly behavior. The Arab League has repeatedly promised to recognize Israel and normalize relations once Israel establishes viable nationhood for the Palestinians, but the Israelis invariably cold should this proposal -- any why shouldn't they? They want to continue to steal the Palestinians' land, and they greatly benefit from the emnity of the Arabs, as Rosenbaum's transparent propaganda makes clear.
I had understood that Rosenbaum was a praised author, but I'll never read one of his books now. This brand of Zionism is a poisonous fascism (recall that Ariel Sharon referred to himself as a "judeo-Nazi") which taints everything the perpetrator does.
