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What I’ve Been Up To Lately
- 100% vegan menu. everyone over 50 looks annoyed. ris would be in heaven. 2 hrs ago
- read a portion of this, our favorite crimethinc text, during the reception (per dan's request, of course) http://su.pr/2Oy8Nk 2 hrs ago
- is at the other danarchist's wedding outside philly where the wedding photographer happens to be a @dufusmusic fan 3 hrs ago
- More updates...
Phila. Jewish Voice: Neoconservativism contrary to Jewish values
Dr. Paul Maltby writes in the Philadelphia Jewish Voice:
Compassion and justice shine out as core values in Jewish ethics. Consider the obligation of tzedakah, which in Hebrew means both charity and justice, and which, when dutifully practiced, is esteemed for its redemptive power: “Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by tzedakah;” “By tzedakah shalt thou be established” (Isaiah 1:27; 54:14. See also Genesis 18:19; Proverbs 21:3.). The injunction in Leviticus to “love your neighbor as yourself” (19.18) is understood not only as a moral precept but as a rule of conduct that yields practical benefits. (Famously, Rabbi Hillel defended this “golden rule” as “the whole Torah; the rest is explanation.”) T. H. Huxley, though Victorian England’s pre-eminent agnostic, could, with the Torah in mind, write: “The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and the oppressed; down to modern times no State has had a constitution in which the interests of the people are so largely taken into account…as that drawn up for Israel in Deuteronomy and Leviticus.” And recall the oft-cited principle of tikkun olam healing the world voiced both in prayer and in the Mishnah; a principle which may be advanced through the performance of mitzvot, and which is venerated as a force that counters social chaos.
Compassion and justice have long served as guides to action among many American Jews who, for decades, have been committed to progressive social causes: the labor struggles of the early 20th Century; the Civil Rights movement; the anti-war protests of the Sixties; the fight for women’s rights causes that helped “heal” America. Then, in the Reagan era, neoconservatism was strategically developed as a counterforce to the radically democratic trends of the Sixties and Seventies. The policies of this movement have conspicuously flouted and betrayed the very principles that have inspired the activism of generations of American Jews. Moreover, alas, neoconservativism is the creation of Jewish intellectuals and, today, the movement flourishes largely (though not exclusively) under Jewish leadership. Here, the point is to see how neoconservative doctrine deviates from the Jewish values outlined above.
great. but, please understand that there is a big difference between giving to tzedakah (or collecting for tzedakah), and knowing how it is being spent. the second half of the equation is so important, otherwise you are wasting your tzedakah efforts (not to mention that the intended recipiens aren’t getting what they are supposed to be!).
more food for thought.
arnie draiman
philantrhopic consultant
http://www.draimanconsulting.com
The interesting question is why have so many Jews left the radical left in recent years?
Jews were instrumental in many radical political and social movements as well as more reformist efforts. But after massive involvement in the Civil Rights movement Jewish reaction to the New Left (in particular the Black Power movement) was rather mixed.
Many individuals and organizations in the New Left stereotyped Jews as absentee landlords, greedy store owners, and members of the hated bourgeoisie. When you add an extremist anti-Zionist positions on top of this, I think it’s understandable why many Jews got turned off to the positions and slogans of the New Left. Instead of viewing this transition as due to some evil right-wing conspiracy cooked up Reagan or anyone else, I think it is a conscious choice that many Jews made because the radical left ceased to represent their interests. The vast majority of Jews in the U.S. still vote Democratic but many are skeptical of the progressive wing of the party for its anti-Israel sentiment.
Maltby writes that neoconservatives have “conspicuously flouted and betrayed the very principles that have inspired the activism of generations of American Jews” but where is the evidence? Maltby is simply angry that these conservative Jews have the temerity to differentiate from the radical left’s party line on affirmative action, Israel, and all the other issues he cares about. This is revealed in his use of the term “fascist” to describe the PNAC. Calling PNAC fascist displays a certain juvenility when it comes to politics. But that is what I expect from the radical left these days.
Lastly, Donald Rumsfeld is not a neoconservative and out of Maltby’s list of supposed “leading neocons” he is the only figure who was in a primary decision-making position. All of the other Americans listed were in second or third-tier positions. None of these men were the heads of any cabinet department. So what we are left with is the argument that these Jewish men, political underlings, were the people who manipulated those with the actual political and military power. It’s a very ugly argument but, again, one I expect from the rad left these days.
–WEVS1
Dr. Maltby is incorrect. Saddam did have connectons to Al Qaeda, and you don’t wait until someone actually has WMD’s if he’s seeking them and there’s a good chance he’ll get them if he waits out the sanctions that half of Europe is violating.
Also neo-cons support diplomacy. Bush has used force only when there’s been no alternative.
Dr. Maltby might also be interested in knowing that Americans give plenty of tzdakah. Doesn’t he know that we’re building up the infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan? One also has to wonder what he thinks we did after the tsuinami a few years ago.
Saddam did have connectons to Al Qaeda
I guess both the 9/11 Commission and the Pentagon are liars.
~~~
The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration’s main justifications for the war in Iraq.
–Washington Post, June 17, 2004
A detailed Pentagon study confirms there was no direct link between late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda network, debunking a claim President George W. Bush’s administration used to justify invading Iraq.
Coming five years after the start of the war in Iraq, the study of 600,000 official Iraqi documents and thousands of hours of interrogations of former Saddam Hussein colleagues “found no smoking gun (i.e. direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and Al-Qaeda,” said the study, quoted in US media Thursday.
–AFP, March 13, 2008
~~~
Everything else you’ve said in your comment is as much nonsense as your first incorrect assertion. That’s okay. You share your ignorance with 41% of Americans.
Dr. Maltby is incorrect. Saddam did have connectons to Al Qaeda
No way! I knew there were people who believed this, but I’ve never actually seen one for real. Freaky.
Rachel and Mobius, I’m glad you brought that up.
This is from Jawa report 3/18/08:
“A study prepared by the Iraqi Perspectives Project of documents captured after the fall of Saddam found, per Steven Hayes, “Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda’s stated goals and objectives.”
Tom Joscelyn notes a document dated 1993 from the Iraqi Intelligence Service to Saddam detailing IIS relations with eleven terrorist groups/individuals including: (1) the Abu Nidal Organization (aka the Fatah Revolutionary Council), (2) the Palestinian Liberation Front, or “PLF” (3) Force 17, (4) an obscure group called the “Organization of AI-Jihad and AI-Tajdid,” (5) the Al-Murabitun Organization, (6) The Palestinian Abd-al-Bari AI-Duwayk (Abu Dawud), (7) Abd-al-Fattah Abd-al-Latif Fakhuri (Abu Yihya), (8) the Egyptian Islamic Jihad Organization, or “EIJ” (9) the Jamiat-Ulema-e Islam, or “JUI”, (10) the Islamic Afghani Party, or Hezb-e Islami and (11) the Pakistani Scholars Party.”
See, it’s not all that freaky after all.
every possible sunni insurgent group ≠ al qaeda.
that’s entirely misleading. your statement seeks to affirm that the bush administration was justified in its invasion of iraq because saddam hussein purportedly supported the 9/11 attacks on the united states. except none of the groups you mention had anything to do with 9/11, and neither did saddam hussein.
rather, the group that did have involvement in 9/11 has been given repeated cover by the bush administration — namely, the saudis.
it’s not like i don’t believe that islamic fundamentalist militancy poses a grave threat to our civilization — in so much as i see hareidism and christian fundamentalist militancy posing a threat to our civilization. the problem is that the oh-so-smart neocons completely screwed the pooch on this one, and were more interested in advancing symbolic regime change in iraq (while carting off with the country’s oil), than they were in truly addressing the threat of terrorism, which would have involved soiling our friendly relations with the wahabbists we’re coddling on wall street.
in that, the true supporters of terrorism continue to have us by the balls, while the u.s. runs about swinging its cock in the faces of innocent people.
if you want to stand up and be counted in the camp of idiots supporting those policies, be my guest. but keep in mind the ill effect such positions have upon impressions of zionists and jews in this country and abroad.
You missed my point. I didn’t say anything about Saddam being responsible for 9/11. That’s the only thing you addressed.
Saddam was certainly a destabilizing influence. He was a threat to obtain WMD’s even if he didn’t have them already. He had ties to Al Qaeda.
Here’s the evidence: http://news.yahoo.com/comics/0.....LSL8kD_b4F
Just a month ago Columbia University and NYU had organized a joint conference named “Jews and American Capitalism”. Nancy Sinkoff, an associate professor of history and Jewish studies, had presented at this event a historical theory, based on the neocon doctrine, according to which the Jewish socialists are “a product of the internalized antisemitic stereotypes that created the phenomenon of the the Jewish self-hate”.
What a wonderful thought! Most of the Yiddish writers, quite a few very Orthodox rabbis, most of the 20th century’s Jewish worker and even the ancient Essenes were, in fact, “a product of antisemitic stereotypes”!
First of all, this theory itself is a classic example of the Zionist self-hate. Second, it’s just as anti-historical and as the Holocaust denial. Those neocon guys are not just “a deviation from the Jewish values” and, indeed, an enemy of the working class and human freedom. They are fanatic lunatics, who somehow succeeded to gain a lot of power and influence due to the stupidity of todays’s “Society of the Spectacle”.