Why Is the GOP More Jewish than the Jews?

Peter Baker had a great article in the NYT about how Republican support for Israel has become unquestioning and an essential element of any candidate's foreign policy platform.  It was pegged to former Secretary of State Jim Baker's speech to J Street, the moderate Jewish lobby, in which Baker was just slightly critical of Israel.  He was pilloried by virtually every Republican in Washington.  Jeb Bush had to disavow Baker's remarks, despite the fact that Baker was one of George H.W. Bush's most loyal supporters and had already been designated as an advisor to Jeb.  It sounds as if failure to support Israel 100% is treason against the US.  The article attributes this attitude to several factors:

- A greater sens of solidarity in the fight against Islamic extremism sinc 9/11
- A resulting increase in evangelical Christan support for Israel,
-The influence of wealthy Jewish political donors like Sheldon Adelson, and
- The GOP tendency to oppose anything Obama does, including feuding with Netanyahu.

The article points out that the current Republican attitude is much different from that of previous GOP leaders, who were more questioning of Israel, including Presidents George H.W. Bush, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, as well as Secretary Colin Powell, and NSC chair Brent Scowcroft.  Even Ronald Reagan angered Israel by selling AWACs to Saudi Arabia, and by supporting a UN resolution condemning Israel for bombing Iraq's Osirak nuclear reacator.

The article points out that traditionally Jews have supported the Democratic Party, while Protestants have been Republicans.

The article quotes George W. Bush's White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, on Bush's strong support for Israel.  It says Fleischer is now a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition's board of directors.  Fleischer said, "Being pro-Israel is a no-brainer, absolutely moral issue to take inside the Republican Party."

No Iran Agreement Likely Worse than a Bad Agreement

Tom Friedman's last op-ed, "Look Before Leaping," in the NYT laid out pros and cons of a nuclear agreement with Iran.  However, I don't think he sufficiently recognizes the downside of a possible war if we don't get an agreement.  John Bolton's recent op-ed in the NYT, "To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran," shows that there is sentiment for attacking Iran, in almost any case, deal or no deal, but the chances of a military attack on Iran certainly are higher if there is no agreement than if there is no agreement.  If there is no military attack, Iran's obligations under the standard Non-Proliferation Treaty agreements would allow it to develop its nuclear capability up to the last few steps required to build an atomic bomb.  In addition, the other parties to the negotiations -- Russia, China and the Europeans -- are unlikely to maintain sanctions if the deal fails, removing much of the pressure on Iran to bow to Western demands.

Friedman focuses mainly on whether an agreement is likely to bring Iran into the community of civilized nations and thus reduce its trouble-making in the Middle East.  He finds arguments on both sides, probably correctly.  But turning Iran into a responsible member of the international community is not the only issue.  There are also those atomic bombs to worry about.  Unfotunately, I think this makes Friedman's analysis faulty, and I worry that it is faulty for a reason.

Tom Friedman's analysis may be colored by the fact that he is Jewish.  It may simply be that he is under tremendous pressure from other Jews to support the Israeli line that any Iran deal is terrible and that the only solution to the Iranian nuclear problem is to bomb Iran.  I respect Friedman for his long reporting on the Middle East and his personal neutrality in the Arab-Israeli conflict.  He did exemplary reporting from Lebanon and Israel for the New York Times.  That's why when I detect even a little pro-Israel bias in his column, I suspect that he is under tremendous pressure.  I don't worry about Friedman so much as a do about all the other reporters and policy makers in Washington who have less integrity than Friedman.

Attacks on Anti-Semitism, the Last Refuge of a Scoundrel

I am very disappointed in David Brooks’ last column in the New York Times, “How to Fight Anti-Semitism.”  Samuel Johnson said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”  Similarly, screaming “anti-Semitism” is the last refuge of a racist Jew.  Jews are virulent racists who have created an apartheid state in Israel, but who then smear any critics with taunts of anti-Semitism.  Netanyahu won the Israeli election by race-baiting Israeli Arabs, and scaring racist Jews into believing that Arabs might actually have some power in Israel.  Israel declares itself a Jewish state, which by definition would have no Arabs.  Israel is for Jews only, and pretty much only for Ashkenazi Jews, who look down even on Sephardic Jews. 

As an Ashkenazi Jew, David Brooks is part of their propaganda machine, getting the talking points for his column on anti-Semitism from Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Dermer.  He is just spreading hatred.  Atlantic Magazine writer Jeffrey Goldberg, also a Jew who served in the Israeli Defense Forces like David Brooks’ son, got the same message from the Jewish/Israeli hierarchy: smear non-Jews with the anti-Semitism epithet.   It’s all part of an orchestrated Jewish/Israeli campaign of race hatred. 

If Jews weren’t so racist, why would they be so easy to pick out by people who are terrible terrorists?  If Jews just lived as ordinary people, they would not be so easy to identify and attack.  They don’t want to be part of a society mainly consisting of people whom they consider inferior to them.  Their contempt for other races makes them easy targets.  By playing the anti-Semitism card, Brooks and Goldberg reveal themselves as racists.  Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Dermer have both figuratively spit in the face of the President of the United States, Barack Obama.  As an American I take offense at that.  

Netanyahu Encourages American Disloyalty

I am disappointed in Netanyahu’s election, and suspicious of how his statements were handled by American news media.  Just before his election, he said that he would not support a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.  Then after he was elected, and his comments had produced a strong unfavorable reaction in the US, he told Andrea Mitchell that he could accept a two-state solution.  First, it seems suspicious that the gave this interview to Andrea Mitchell, a Jew, who at least in this interview revealed herself as a Jew first, a journalist second, and an American third.  Netanyahu clearly chose her as a friendly means for getting his new statement out to the public with minimal questioning by the interviewer about why he completely reversed himself overnight on an  issue that fundamentally affects Israel’s future existence.  Other Jewish journalists, including the NYT’s David Brooks, picked up and defended his new statement, I believe using talking points probably circulated by Israeli Ambassador Dermer.  They explained the Netanyahu statements as not being contradictory because before the election he was saying that a two-state solution was impossible “at this time,” and later that a two-state solution might be possible at some other time, although what time he was referring to in either case was not clear.

I don’t believe that Netanyahu would ever willingly accept a two-state solution at any time, but I also believe that at some point some Israeli leader may have no choice but to accept it.  But I don’t currently see when that would ever be.  At the moment I am more concerned that many American Jews in influential positions appear to be disloyal to the United States and more loyal to Israel.  I include in this group former American Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, who is actually Australian, and no qualification to be American Ambassador to Israel, except that the moved here and headed up a bunch of Jewish interest groups.  He clearly is a Jew first, with little loyalty to either Australia or America.  And of course, the two most recent ambassadors from Israel to the US, were American citizens, born in the US, before they renounced their American citizenship to become Israeli Ambassadors.

Netanyahu and Greater Israel

I am terribly disappointed by the election in Israel.  With the victory of the right-wing, Netanyahu and Likud, Israel will become more obsessed with destroying its Muslim neighbors militarily, and it will become more of an apartheid nation as it increases discrimination against Arabs and other non-Jews in Israel.

I don’t understand the appeal of Israel for right-wing Republicans.  It may be the brotherhood of one right-wing party for another.  Republicans may hate Iranians because of the old 444-day hostage crisis, but do they also have a reason to hate Palestinians?  It may be the appeal of militarism; the Republicans want to fight somebody, and the Israelis can tell them somebody to fight.  However, these days Jews by and large don’t fight for America.  Even NYT columnist David Brooks’ son served in the Israeli military, not the American military.  So, the Republicans will be sending non-Jewish, mostly Christian, boys and girls to fight the Iranians for Israel, if it comes to that.  Of course they will say it’s for America, but right now and for years to come, Iran poses no significant military threat to the United States.  It does pose a serious threat to Israel, in part because of the millennia of racial and religious hatred between Persians and Jews.  The US is a relative late-comer to this culture of hatred.  In addition, there is the question of Jewish political contributions.  At least some of the Republicans are motivated by the desire for the huge political contributions that rich Jews like Sheldon Adelson can make, as illustrated by the pilgrimages that potential Republican presidential candidates make to kiss Adelson’s ring.  It is even more reprehensible if Republicans send Christian boys and girls to fight and die in combat in order for the candidates to rake in Jewish political contributions.  There is also the possibility of Republicans wanting Jewish votes, but it’s not a big population in comparison to the entire United States; however, Harry Truman recognized Israel so quickly over the objection of his Secretary of State because he wanted the Jewish vote, and it worked; he beat Dewey.  The main organization building the Republican-Jewish connection is AIPAC, which attracts leaders of Jewish community organizations, Christian evangelical leaders, and Republican politicians.  I don’t understand how it works, except for money.  AIPAC has tons of money, which it distributes to support right-wing Israel interests, and Republican politicians may be addicted to it.  But if they send Americans to fight and die for AIPAC money, it strikes me as bordering on treasonous.

On the other hand, there are the Jews who are Democrats.  It seems like the majority of Jewish politicians are liberal Democrats, with whom I probably agree more closely on policy issues than with my putative kinsmen, the white, Christian, Southern Republicans.  Furthermore, Israel appears (or appeared before last night) to be more evenly split between right-wing, apartheid zealots and easier-going moderates who might be open to peace with the Palestinians.  So, Jewish-American politicians and Israelis themselves tend toward being more moderate than the main Jewish political organization, AIPAC, and the main hawks in Congress, conservative Republicans.   I don’t know where Jews stand in their innermost thoughts.  Certainly the Holocaust cannot be ignored in their thinking, but if they really care about the Holocaust, how can they oppress the Palestinians the way that they do.  Gaza is not unlike the ghettos that Hitler forced the Jews into during World War II.

The Jews may not have a “final solution” to the Palestinian problem like Hitler had to the Jewish problem, but Netanyahu’s renunciation of the goal of a two-state solution is certainly worrying.  He has continued to build Jewish settlements on Arab land, and he has strongly encouraged European Jews to move to Israel.  This may indicate that Israel is still expanding; it has no intention of returning to the borders established by the UN after World War II.  Netanyahu’s goal is some kind of greater Israel.  (It sounds terrible, but does Israel desire “lebensraum” like Germany did before World War II?)  He appears to believe that Israel needs more land and more Jewish population to avoid being overwhelmed by the Jews in and around Israel.  Right now, Iran is the greatest threat to this “greater Israel” ambition.  Israel has to some extent co-opted the main Sunni states, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to support Israel.  So, the Shiite states present the greatest threat, and Iran is the leader of the Shiite states.  Netanyahu may not be so worried about Iran’s future nuclear capability as he is about taking Iran down a rung now, to limit its power in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, etc.  Screaming about the Iranian nuclear program is way to drum up support for an attack on Iran, or at least strong diplomatic pressure on it.  That serves Netanyahu’s goal of building a greater Israel by presenting Iran with an array of enemies in the West who believe they are trying to limit Iran’s nuclear program, when in fact they are mainly meant to limit Iran’s current strategic leverage on Israel.

If this is the case, Secretary of State Kerry may think he is engaged in the noble goal of trying to limit Iran’s nuclear program, but in fact he is an agent for Jewish efforts to limit Iran’s strategic power, with or without nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu, Iran and the NPT

The US has weakened its ability to restrict Iran’s nuclear program using the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  The idea behind the NPT when it was created in 1970 was to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.  Countries that had no nuclear weapons promised not to develop them, but they were allowed to engage in peaceful nuclear activities.  Five countries that already had nuclear weapons could keep them if they were grandfathered under the treaty, although they undertook to eventually eliminate them.  The countries allowed to have nuclear weapons were China, France, Russia, Britain, and the United States.  Although India, Pakistan, and Israel are all known to have nuclear weapons, they are not parties to the NPT.  North Korea also has exploded nuclear devices and has had sort of an on-again, off-again relationship with the NPT.  Iran is a party to the NPT. 

The giant loophole that the US created for India under the NPT the US determination not to make an issue of Israel’s nuclear weapons makes it hard to demand that Iran cease all nuclear activities, as Israel wants and as the US sometimes demands, depending on who is speaking.  In the mid-2000’s, the US under George W. Bush basically gave India an exemption from the NPT, saying that the US would cooperate normally with India on nuclear matters and India could keep its nuclear arsenal.  The US generally protects Israel’s nuclear arsenal from international diplomatic pressure.  Meanwhile, Pakistan and North Korea have successfully resisted international pressure to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.  Since America has basically given a pass to four countries with nuclear weapons, it is hard for it to say that it will go to war and destroy Iran’s nuclear program, which so far has not egregiously violated the NPT safeguards. 

Right now, today, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is a greater threat to the United States than is Iran’s nascent nuclear program which so far has not one nuclear weapon.  Pakistan is full of terrorist sympathizers in Waziristan and other territories that pose more danger to the US military in Afghanistan than to Israel.  Hence, Israel says, “Don’t worry about Pakistan; Iran is the bad country because it holds more animosity toward Israel.”  Jews want American gentile soldiers to die fighting in Iran to increase Israeli security.  Netanyahu spoke to Congress because Israel cannot defend itself against Iran and thus wants America to fight Iran for it.  Let the Jews fight their own battles. 

Furthermore, when nuclear powers have negotiated nuclear disarmament they seek mutual reductions in nuclear weapons.  Israel wants Iranian nuclear disarmament, but Israel is unwilling to negotiate over its own nuclear arsenal.  Israel says we are allowed to have nuclear weapons, but Iran is not.  What is the basis for this assumption?  Is it because the Israelis consider themselves God’s chose people, while Iran is not.  Israel is demonstrating its extreme race hatred, directed at Arabs as well as Persians.  Should the US be leading negotiations, which at bottom are fueled by race hatred?  Why should Netanyahu be allowed to spew race hatred before the US Congress and be cheered for it?  What’s wrong with this picture? 

Netanyahu's Speech

Bibi Netanyahu gave an excellent speech to the American Congress, but it was at its core full of race hatred.  Clearly Jews hate Persians, and their hatred is reciprocated.  Iran wants a nuclear program that would enable it to build a nuclear bomb sometime in the future, and Israel wants to prevent that by all means, including war.  But what Bibi really wants if for gentile American boys and girls to fight that war, rather than Israeli Jews.  Jews don’t fight for America, even with America fights Israel’s wars, as in Iraq, who “weapons of mass destruction” posed a much greater threat to Israel than to America.  High ranking American Jews like Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, and Doug Feith were happy to send Christians to fight and die for Israel in Iraq.  Now Bibi wants a new cohort of American Christians to fight and die in Iran. 

There’s nothing new about this.  Anglophile Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to join Britain in the War against Hitler, but despite his love of the British, he did not do it until Japan invaded the US.  In this case, Bibi wants to stir the US to go to war before there is any direct threat to the US.  The Iranian government hates the US, and has hated it for years, certainly since the US overthrew the Iranian government and installed the Shah.  Iran reciprocated by destroying Jimmy Carter with the hostage crisis and installing Ronald Reagan as President, illustrated by its release of the hostages as soon as Reagan was elected.  Reagan thanked Iran by doing the Iran-Contra deal, giving Iran some weapons it could not get otherwise. 

In his speech, Bibi said that Israel can defend itself.  Let it do so.  We don’t need any more American gentiles to die in Israel’s Middle East wars.  Meanwhile we have American Jews deserting America for Israel.  The last two Israeli ambassadors, Ron Dermer and Michael Oren, were born in the US and renounced their US citizenship.  Many young Jewish Americans serve in the Israeli military, two prominent ones are Chicago mayor Raum Emanuel and NYT columnist David Brooks’ son.  Netanyahu has appealed to Jews in Europe, particularly in recently attacked France in Denmark, to leave Europe and move to Israel.  He implies that Jews cannot be loyal to any country but Israel.   

The article on David Brooks’ son refers to Aliyah, the right of return to Israel for Jews.  It says that you must have at least one Jewish grandparent.  By that standard, Bill and Hilary Clinton’s granddaughter, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky, has the right of return, although by Orthodox Jewish standards Charlotte is not Jewish, because Jewishness only comes from the mother, and Chelsea is not Jewish.  However, Charlotte’s father and his father and mother are Jewish.   So, Charlotte has three times what she needs for Aliyah.  Her grandfather, Ed Mezvinsky, a former Congressman, was convicted of 31 charges of fraud in 2001 and served five years in prison.  The Clintons are of course friendly with Jews.  Bill Clinton was roundly criticized for his pardon of Marc Rich just before Clinton left office.  Ironically Rich, a Jew, was under indictment for trading with Iran during hostage crisis.  According to Wikipedia, many senior Israeli officials, including some from the Mossad, and Dick Cheney’s Scooter Libby of Iraq War fame, urged Clinton to pardon Rich because of his assistance to Israel.  No doubt the pardon has helped the Clintons raise money from Jewish sources.  Recently there has been a lot of talk about how much money the Clintons have gotten from foreign sources; presumably some of them are Jewish.  

Anticipating Netanyahu's Speech

We will have to see what Netanyahu says in his speech to Congress.  It sounds like he will say that we must go to war with Iran if Iran does not end its nuclear program. 

Implicit in this call for an end to Iran’s program is a call for military force to destroy the nuclear program if Iran does not do so itself.  This military force seems likely to be American, perhaps aided to some extent by the Israelis, maybe some Sunni Arabs, and maybe some half-hearted Western European support.

There are a number of non-Jewish politicians who support Netanyahu, including McCain, Boehner, and a lot of conservative Republicans.  Some are legitimately concerned, but I worry that some are motivated by Jewish political contributions. In return for Jewish money these politicians are willing to send Gentile American boys (and girls) to fight and die in Iran to protect Israel. 

Iran presents some threat to the US, but not nearly as much as it does to Israel.  Pakistan probably presents more of a threat to the US than Iran does, and Pakistan already has many nuclear weapons.  Pakistan is more unstable than Iran and more opposed to American interests.  Taliban training and taking refuge in Pakistan often attack Americans and their Afghan allies in Afghanistan.  So, if we were going to send some American soldiers to die to stop a nuclear threat, it would make more sense to send them to Pakistan than to Iran.  Because of this, I worry that American Jews are incapable of judging the real foreign policy risks to America.  Jews may be willing to see America destroyed in order to preserve Israel. 

Maybe Netanyahu, or some Jewish-American politician will say something that will ease my concerns about Jews putting Israel’s interests ahead of America’s, but I am not expecting it.  I find this whole dustup over Netanyahu’s speech deeply disturbing, particularly because things seem to be heating up with Russia, but Russia is no threat to Israel; so, Jews don’t worry about a potential nuclear way, except to the extent that it may affect Jews in Ukraine.  

Nemtsov and Maidan

If Putin is behind the murder of Boris Nemtsov, it may be because he does not want a repeat of the Ukrainian Maidan Square protests in Russia.  Putin appears to have been blindsided by the speed with which the Maidan protests ousted Ukrainian Premier Yanukovych, leading to the low grade war going on now.  Putin does not want to see something similar happen to him in Russia.  By killing Nemtsov, he made sure that the Russian protests would not get out of hand. 

I don’t know whether Putin order Nemtsov’s murder, but I doubt that he was disappointed by it.  It is unlikely that it would have happened if Putin has been strongly opposed to it, or even highly concerned about Nemtsov’s safety.  Putin could have provided security for him that would have made his assassination impossible. 

The fact that Putin is so closely linked to the murder raises serious human rights issues for Russia, and security concerns for many Russians unhappy with Putin.  It will make it more difficult for the US to do business with him, in particular getting Russian cooperation on Iran nuclear matters.  There is an outside chance that Putin might be more cooperative on Iran to ease some of the pressure resulting from the Nemtsov murder.  

Curse You for Your Service

David Brooks’ column from the NYT ten days ago has been bothering me ever since.  He purports to be concerned about the PTSD that soldiers are subject to after combat.  Generally people think that soldiers suffer from PTSD because horrible things were done to them in war – they were shot, they saw their friends shot, etc.  Brooks seems to think that they suffer from PTSD because they have done horrible things in war; they return from war overwhelmed by the horrible, immoral things that they have done.  Brooks believes that America would be a better place if we just shot each veteran in the head as war criminals when they get off the plane from Iraq or Afghanistan.  Brooks’ column is based on the book, “The Evil Hours,” and therefore may not exactly represent Brooks’ personal thoughts on the subject. 

Brooks says, “[W]ar … is always a crime….  It involves … tainted situations where every choice is murderously wrong.”  He goes on, “The self-condemnation can be crippling.”  Veterans “often feel morally tainted by their experiences, unable to recover confidence in their own goodness.”   People don’t suffer from PTSD after natural disasters, but only after “moral atrocities.”  

Brooks apparently believes that self-defense is immoral.  If ISIS wants to murder his children, he should let them.  To kill the ISIS terrorist would be immoral and would subject him to the same self-hating PTSD that soldiers returning from the Middle East face.  But Brooks confounds two issues, a soldier’s individual, moral choices, and a nation’s moral choice to go to war or not.  If immoral acts were committed in the Middle East, it was because the United States waged an immoral war on rag-headed Arabs and Muslims just because they were Arabs and Muslims, not because they were a threat to the US that our soldiers needed to stop.  In Brooks’ opinion, everyone who volunteers to serve in the military is a war criminal, because war against anyone is immoral. 

I think Brooks is dead wrong.  I have felt for years that Republicans are unpatriotic cowards, and Brooks is firmly in that camp.  It was brought home to me personally when Newt Gingrich shut down the government on the day I was being transferred as a Foreign Service officer from Warsaw to Rome.  The shutdown left my wife and me homeless in Warsaw.  Fortunately a friend in Rome worked out a deal under which we were allowed to travel to the embassy in Rome, although the Republicans had technically made it illegal to travel during the shutdown, which would have left us on the streets of Warsaw, or more likely in a hotel in Warsaw at our own expense.  I was serving the US government, and the government walked away and said in essence, “We don’t care if you die.”  I care, and I will never forgive this government for abandoning those it sent out to do its work, whether military or diplomatic.  Brooks is firmly in the Newt camp abandoning those who defend this country, and denigrating their serve.  Brooks doesn’t say, “Thank you for your service.”  He says, “Curse you for your service.”    

Reagan'sDebt

I think that President Ronald Reagan was one of the most irresponsible spendthrifts in the history of our country.  According to Wikipeida:

Spending during Reagan's two terms (FY 1981–88) averaged 22.4% GDP, well above the 20.6% GDP average from 1971 to 2009. In addition, the public debt rose from 26% GDP in 1980 to 41% GDP by 1988. In dollar terms, the public debt rose from $712 billion in 1980 to $2.052 trillion in 1988, a roughly three-fold increase.

This of course was while there was no war to fund, or even any serious economic threat.  Reagan’s Republicans hated poor people and welfare programs.  The Republicans under Reagan drastically cut taxes led by OMB chief David Stockman.  But then, Reagan turned out to be such a nice guy that he couldn’t make the cuts that the Republican budget cutters had planned on.  As a result, budget deficits ballooned; Reagan’s irresponsibility plunged the nation into a swamp of debt, from which we still have not recovered.

Obama’s deficit spending will probably be worse than Reagan’s but mainly because Republican President George W. Bush left him with a massive financial meltdown, requiring more spending to avoid a second great depression.  Obama has actually been paying Bush’s GOP debts.  

The following is a chart from the Washington Post showing the huge increase in the debt under Reagan: 

Bad News

Last week pointed out the terrible state into which American news reporting has fallen.  Brian Williams got suspended for not telling the truth about an experience in Iraq or Afghanistan, but the real problem was that the network news has deteriorated into worthless fluff.  The lead story is almost always the weather, because it is so easy to report -- no need for overseas bureaus, correspondents, language ability, etc. -- just put someone outside in the rain, the wind or the snow with a microphone in their hand, and you can fill up many minutes of time that is supposed to be devoted to the news.  The thing is, if the weather story if relevant to you, you can look outside and see what you need to know, or get a much more detailed local forecast, and if the weather doesn't affect you, why do you care enough to watch it for five or ten minutes.  As Carl Bernstein said on "Reliable Sources," it's really entertainment, not news.

The PBS Newshour does a good job of reporting the news, and now so does Aljazeera.  Aljazeera makes the US network news shows look entertainment for idiots.  ABC has even developed its own way of speaking, eliminating most verbs, and replacing them with gerunds.  Instead of saying, "Obama was peaking to the press," ABC says, "Obama, speaking to the press."  And they are very prone to saying things like "right here," or "right now."  ABC seems to be trying to speak like newspaper headlines aimed at people with a sixth grade education.  ABC believes it is speaking to an audience with no knowledge of English grammar or geography, or anything else previously taught in high school.  They clearly believe the American education system is an abysmal failure.  ABC illustrates that today a college dropout like Scott Walker has a good chance of becoming President.

It's amazing that the Muslim/Arab network Aljazeera has a higher opinion of the American public than Walt Disney (which owns ABC) does.

Bill Maher had a great editorial on "New Rules" about how bad the network news has become.  We have learned that the executives of the networks have contempt for the American people and the future of the United States.

Zbig on Morning Joe

The best thing about "Morining Joe" is when Mika's Dad, Zbigniew Brzeznski appears.  He makes more sense than almost anyone else pontificating on TV.  Today he warned that the US should do everything it can to avoid being perceived in the Middle East and remaining colonial power hated by all who lived under colonialism for the past 100 or so years.  Many in the US seem determined to take on this mantel.  Robin Wright warned against being sucked into defending the artificial Middle Eastern boundaries created by the West after WW I.  The problem with this is that tearing up old borders and creating new ones may lead to more violence than trying to maintain the old ones.  Look at what is going on in Ukraine, where the Russians are trying to establish new boundaries.

It's too bad Joe or Mika did not ask Zbig about Ukraine.  As Pole, this has got to be an issue that is close to his heart and that is perhaps more difficult for him to be objective about.  After all, western Ukraine used to be an important part of Poland.  The borders of poor Poland have moved east or west over the centuries, depending on which power was predominant (Russia or Germany), and who won the last war.

On the Middle East, Mika asked her dad about Netanyahu's address to Congress.  Zbig correctly said that this invitation was a terrible idea.  It was an attempt to undercut Obama's policy and negotiations on Iran.  It was an attack by the Congress on the President.  Joe said it was a diplomatic response; Katy Kay said it was pretty strong.  I think it was a strong rejection of the Republican effort.

Friedman on Turkey

I like Tom Friedman.  Despite his being Jewish, he is usually very evenhanded in his treatment of Middle East issues.  However, I have a problem with his column in today’s NYT.  He starts off by criticizing Turkish President Erdogan for anti-Semitism, which is a valid criticism.  Erdogan probably is anti-Semitic, but he also probably has some reason to be concerned about Jewish animosity toward him.  Friedman, jokes about the lack of a real Jewish threat to Turkey, “So few Jews, so many governments to topple.”  

Then Friedman proceeds to cite statistics from Larry Diamond at Stanford about how democracy is failing all over the world.  He says that Putin and Erdogan are the poster children for this trend, concluding, “Rule of law in Turkey is being seriously eroded.”  I couldn’t find out anything about Larry Diamond’s personal background, but Larry Diamond is a typically Jewish name.  The closest connection I could find was that Diamond lectured at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2013.  So, it seems that despite Friedman’s claim that Jews have no interest in Turkish politics, a man who is probably a Jew is fiercely criticizing Erdogan.  Of course many Gentiles are also fiercely criticizing Erdogan. 

I wouldn’t worry so much about this if I didn’t think there were more to it.  Friedman’s posturing that there’s nothing to worry about from us Jews -- we’re just sitting here in Jerusalem minding our own business – rings hollow.  A French Jew, Bernard-Henri Levy, led the campaign to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, plunging Libya into chaos, which is terrible for everyone from the Libyans, to the Americans, to the Italians, but not for the Israelis, who rejoice when Muslims kill Muslims (or Christians).  Jews win without fighting.  But there is fighting going on, fomented by Jews in Israel, America, France, and probably other places. 

Of course the argument is that the Muslims are to blame, and they are.  But they have had a lot of help stoking the fires of their animosity, from the creation of Israel in the 1940s to the invasion of Iraq in the 2000s.  Turkish-Israeli relations were not helped by Israel’s 2010 attack off the coast of Israel on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, part of the Gaza flotilla raid, in which the Israelis killed eight Turks and one American.  

Putin and the Jews

The op-ed “Save the New Ukraine” in the New York Times by Bernard-Henri Levy and George Soros (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/opinion/bernard-henri-levi-george-soros-save-the-new-ukraine.html) makes me wonder what prominent Jews are up to regarding Ukraine and Russia.  Levy, who is supposed to be a French philosopher, was the man behind the ouster of Kaddafi in Libya, which has led to much chaos and bloodshed.  He no doubt relished the humiliating death of Kaddafi and the ensuing Arab on Arab bloodletting in Libya.  So, now what violence and chaos does he want to create in Ukraine and Russia?  Soros, an extremely wealthy and powerful Jew, lends his name to this enterprise, whatever it is.  To the extent that Ukraine separates from Russia and joins the West, it weakens Russia.  Putin realizes he is in trouble, but is being pressed on so many sides that he is having difficulty dealing with the situation. 

There is clearly a Jewish issue in Ukraine.  Ukraine has the third largest Jewish community in Europe and the fifth largest in the world, more than 250,000.  Before World War II there were over one million Jews in Ukraine.  (http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/communities/show/id/91)  So, it makes sense for Jews to concern themselves about Ukraine, not just from an international relations perspective, but from a Jewish racial perspective. 

Meanwhile, Jews played an outsized roll in the creation of the Communist state back in the early 1900s.  Then 75 years later, many (about half) of the billionaire oligarchs created by the destruction of the Communist state were Jews.  It’s these Jewish oligarchs who I think are a thorn in Putin’s side and likely to be shoved out in favor of KGB and old party types who are closer to him.  In 2007, the Guardian wrote (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jul/02/russia.lukeharding1)

…in a country where anti-Semitism is still rife and openly expressed, nationalist rabble-rousers have made much of the fact that of the seven oligarchs who controlled 50% of Russia's economy during the 1990s, six were Jewish: Berezovsky, Vladimir Guzinsky, Alexander Smolensky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Friedman and Valery Malkin. 

The 2007 Guardian article goes on to say that some of the Jewish oligarchs were replaced by Slavs who were closer to Putin.  The 2007 oligarchs included Roman Abramovich, Oleg Deripaska, Mikhail Khodorkovsky (a Jew who ended up in jail), Boris Berezovsky (a Jew who lives in London as Putin’s enemy), Mikhail Prokhorov, Viktor Vekselberg, and Mikhail Friedman (a Ukrainian Jew then on decent terms with Putin). 

A 2012 Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/At-Putins-side-an-army-of-Jewish-billionaires) article, “At Putin’s Side, an Army of Jewish Billionaires” described the unveiling of the Red Army monument in Netanya, Israel.  With Putin were Mikhail Friedman, Moshe Kantor, as well as several other wealthy Russian Jews who now live in Israel. 

A January 2015 Bloomberg article (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-22/putin-said-to-shrink-inner-circle-as-ukraine-hawks-trump-tycoons)

 said: 

Businessmen who have long been close to Putin are “on the periphery now,” said Sergei Markov, a political consultant who helped monitor the referendum in Crimea that led to Russia’s annexation of the peninsula in March.

The core group around Putin is led by Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, Federal Security Service head Alexander Bortnikov, Foreign Intelligence Service chief Mikhail Fradkov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, according to Markov.

It will be interesting to see how Putin’s relationship develops with Russia’s Jewish oligarchs as he comes under increasing international pressure from the West.  Will he trust the Jews to continue to support him?  The Jews close to him will come under increasing financial pressure from Western sanctions, which may make them rethink their support for Putin. 

 Meanwhile, what to powerful, influential Jews like Levy and Soros have in mind.  Jews play an important roll in financial activities throughout the world.  They will be very involved in sanctions on Russia, and thus on at least some of their fellow Jews.  If Putin is making it more difficult for Jewish oligarchs in Russia, will the Jewish financial community act together to try to force him out.  If he perceives that they are trying to do that, how will he react?  If they were trying to do something sneaky to Putin, they would hardly call attention to it by writing an op-ed in the New York Times. .  But Putin must know that Levy succeeded having Kaddafi killed and throwing Libya into bloody chaos. 

  

The Moneychangers

I just finished reading The Moneychangers by Upton Sinclair, and was surprised by how little the financial industry has changed in the 100 years since he wrote the book.  Sinclair is best known for The Jungle about tainted food and general poor living conditions of immigrants in America, which resulted in the creation of the Food and Drug Administration.  Since he wrote The Moneychangers, the US has created the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, but the main difference is that the unscrupulous bankers and traders are now billionaires instead of millionaires, and the old trusts are now called hedge funds.

The 2008 “Great Recession” was very similar to the Panic of 1907 that Sinclair wrote about.  Lehman Brothers went down in bankruptcy in 2008 as the Gotham Trust Company did in The Moneychangers.  One of Sinclair’s main points was that Wall Street tycoons made their money by using other people’s money, usually leaving the little guys exposed to the loss if anything went wrong.  In the housing meltdown, it was the homeowners and retiree pension funds that suffered most of the losses, while the fat cats got bailed out by the government.  The nation can endure thousands of small individual foreclosures and bankruptcies, but not one huge one.  Lehman was just small enough to let die.

Relating to my obsession with the involvement of Jews in the financial industry, The Moneychangers only mentions the word Jew once, when a cleaning woman tells the main character that a man who looked like a Jew had paid her to go through his trash.  Presumably all the stock market manipulators were Episcopalian Christians, who perhaps had not paid too much attention to the sermons.  They all loved the show of money in their elegant town houses, their massive Newport beach “cottages,” their yachts, etc.  It sounds like the titans of Wall Street today.  And the banking practices still sound almost the same.  They have made some changes to get around the regulations designed to protect the public, but the results are pretty much the same, and as 2008 showed, the public is still not protected.

The Charlie Hebdo Terrorists Won Something

The Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack aftermath showed serious problems with democratic institutions and  national security among western nations.  By publishing a cover that was a challenge to Muslim terrorists, Charlie Hebdo put the West on the spot after all its protestations that “We are Charlie.”  Clearly we were not Charlie.  Only CBS TV news initially began showing the new Charlie Hebdo cover, and after all other major news outlets turned out to be absolute cowards, CBS began showing only pieces of the cover, like everyone else.

Certainly there are restraints on free speech.  Just ask anyone remotely controversial who has tried to speak on a college campus recently.  Colleges are the leading centers of censorship.  Students abhor free thought and college administrators let them have their way.  Certainly there should be limits on free speech, but we find free speech much more restricted than it was fifty years ago.  Big brother is here and monitoring what you say.  Surprisingly, it is not so much NSA or the FBI, but your friends, neighbors and fellow students, who stand ready to attack you for anything you say that they think is “wrong.”  America is less free than it used to be.

In addition, there is the national security issue.  News organizations do not believe that the various levels of government (national, state, local) can protect them from terrorism.  They are afraid that if they show the Charlie Hebdo cover they will be killed on the way to work, or at work, like Charlie Hebdo.  They have some good arguments.  The best is probably that they have Middle Eastern correspondents in the region and that showing the cover would put those correspondents lives in danger.  But there is also the implication that the network anchors and newspaper editors are afraid for their own lives and refused to show the cover out of cowardice, which means that the terrorists won.

I think on balance you have to say that the Charlie Hebdo terrorists won something.  They did not significantly change the societies they attacked, but they did illustrate the moral and security weaknesses of those societies.  France claimed to be a home for unfettered free speech, but then restricted the free speech of those criticizing Jews and some others.  These restrictions may be reasonable but they do not correspond to the high ideals enunciated after the attacks.

Israeli Dishonor of the Holocaust

I am disappointed that there has not been more of an outcry from the Jewish community about the terrorist killings of thousands of civilians by Boko Haram in Nigeria.  This is exactly the kind of indifference that the Jews accuse America of during the World War II Holocaust.  Many Jews disparage Roosevelt (and Churchill) for not acting sooner to end the Holocaust by invading continental Europe sooner to reach the death camps.  The Jews believe that millions more Christians should have died in order to save millions more Jews in the camps.  Roosevelt and Churchill insisted on waiting until the invasion had a better chance of success.  Of course the reason it had a better chance of success was that something like 11 million Soviets died fighting Hitler in Russia along the Eastern Front softening up the Germans for the D-Day invasion.

If they are not racists, Jews in general and Israelis in particular need to speak out about the atrocities in Nigeria,  Ideally, Israelis should come to the aid of the Nigerians, if not, at least they should lead a worldwide campaign to protect the Nigerians from Boko Haram.  It’s a Holocaust issue.

While it did not point out the Jewish hypocrisy on the matter, a recent op-ed in the Denver Post pointed out the worldwide hypocrisy in reacting so strongly to the Charlie Hebdo killings in France and so weakly to the killings in Nigeria.

Hoothis Take Over Yemen

The situation in Yemen appears to be a mess.  We don’t really know who is in control of the country.  That’s not unusual.  For a long time, Yemen was more or less divided into two countries, North and South Yemen, with Sanaa and Aden as its respective capitals.  The Hoothis who are taking over the country in Sanaa, are a relatively unknown group, described to some extent by the NYT  

They are Shiites getting help from Iran, but apparently not your ordinary Shiites. And they are fighting al Qaida in Yemen (which sponsored the French terrorist attacks), as is the government that they are overthrowing.  Again we find the US allied with Iran against al Qaida, while Israel is killing Iranian generals in Syria.  

Strange world! 

Yemen would have been a mess in any case, but did we make it worse by intervening in the Middle East in Iraq and Afghanistan, and encouraging government overthrows in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and other countries?  We certainly did not have a beneficial effect. 

Yemen borders on Saudi Arabia.  Does the instability in Yemen bode ill for Saudi Arabia, especially if the Shiite Hoothis take over?  Although their border is mostly desert, it can’t be a good thing.  

Who Should I Worry About?

The attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris presents the question of whether I should be worried about Jews taking over America and transferring its wealth and power to Israel, or whether I should be worried about Muslim terrorists attacking Western institutions, or whether I should be worried about the increasing Hispanic nature of America due to the Hispanic influx.  Or maybe something else, like the decline of religion in America.  Things change, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.  People fight, sometimes because they have to in order to survive, sometimes because the choose to overthrow the status quo.

The fact is that I agree with the Democratic side of the Jewish establishment on most issues.  I just worry that they love Israel more than America.  Jews tend to consider Israel as a 51st state, and people in the Middle East perceive it the same way.  They see Israel with its occupation of Palestinian land as an extension of America.  They tend to see Israeli hatred of Arabs as an extension of American hatred of Arabs.  Israeli and American Jews bear a significant responsibility for Muslim hatred of the West.  It's hard to say which came first Arab hatred of Jews before Israel, or Arab hatred of Jews (and the West) due to the creation of Israel and resulting displacement of millions of Arabs.  Israel was created first, then the Arabs stated the first war.  

The Israelis have faced Arab and/or Muslim terrorism ever since the creation of Israel.  Of course the Israelis also stooped to terrorism in order to create Israel.  Now terrorism has spread to the whole world, in part thanks to cheaper, easier transportation.  The first step was high jacking airliners.  The world responded pretty well to these hijackings and now we have moved to a new tactic.  It is pretty cheap and easy to get from Yemen to Paris, much easier and cheaper than it would have been 50 years ago.  Or over the Internet you can recruit someone in Paris to do your dirty work without having to travel.  The increasing homogenization of populations another factor favoring terrorists.  A couple of generations ago, a Muslim in Western Europe would have stood out and been easy to track, but not so today.  Muslims make up a significant percentage of the French population, partly a result of a long war in Algeria, which brought many Algerians to France under unpleasant circumstances.

All of that is no excuse for the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians.  If Muslims want to prevent unpleasant depictions of the prophet Mohamed, they should go about it like everybody else in democratic countries.  They could try to get a law passed outlawing such depictions.  Hopefully they would not get such a law, but that is the way you go about it in democratic societies.  We have laws against certain types of pornography and other things that offend most of the population.  If many people are offended by certain characterizations of Mohamed, then they could be outlawed or restricted.  But violence is not the way to do it.  If some Muslims are not going to act in a civilized manner, then Western society must take steps to protect itself from them.  The problem, of course, is to take steps that do not destroy the very civilization that we are trying to preserve.

That is the attack from the top, by rich Jews and militant Muslims.  What about the attack from the bottom, the increasing influence of Hispanics, who have recently arrived, and blacks, who have recently begun to acquire political and economic power.  As a while Anglo, I am sorry to see our traditional power eroded.  Rich Anglos may have been as bad as rich Jews, but I always had hope that culture and religion would be some restraint on them, which has been lost in recent years.  Rich, white bankers may have been a inwardly greedy as Jews or others, but they had to sit through Sunday services in main line Protestant churches which held them to Jewish and Christian standards set out in the Bible in the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and many other places.  They at least had to publicly subscribe to these teachings in order to do business and maintain their place in the community.  That no longer seems to be true.  Thus there are fewer restraints of the worst impulses of human nature.  I often thought that blacks, especially black women, had a sincere religious faith and decency that surpassed most everyone else in society.  Much of that seems to be lost, as so many black women today end up as struggling, single mothers.

The Hispanic influx is probably much like the earlier influx of Poles, Germans, Irish, Italians, and so on.  One difference is that the influx has been so large, at least until recently, that there are not the same pressures to assimilate as there was on the previous immigrants.  They could always live in small communities where they could speak their native language, but with Spanish, they are not restricted to small communities.  You can pretty easily live a normal, active life in America speaking only Spanish.  You are hardly restricted at all.  There might be some grocery or department stores that are not Spanish friendly, but there are many that are.  If you compare Spanish immigrants to Asian immigrants, there appears to be a big difference.  Asians don't bend the community to their ways, but Hispanics do.

I guess I have to accept change, but I'm still resisting.