Thursday, August 03, 2006

Mirror Image

I see via A.C. Kleinheider, that that the Baptist-libertarian blogger Glen Dean has taken out his broad brush to tar the "world's elites," "paleo-cons" and "liberals" as anti-Semites:
Although the world's elites and America's paleo-cons may word things much differently while sober, juice them up with a little bit of fire water and they'll likely make the same types of statements made by Mel Gibson. If I am wrong please correct me, but the vast majority of these European elites and American Buchananites believe that the Iraq War, September 11, and everything going on in the middle east today is the fault of Israel and the American Jews behind neo-conservatism. . .

That's the truth, and the American paleo-cons and liberals they have aligned with, know it.

Well I would like to correct him, but his statement is so absurdly overbroad to be almost meaningless. Who qualifies as the "world's elites"? Dean further complicates matters with a comment at Kleinheider's site saying, "AC, I never called anybody an anti-Semite." Of course not, he only said that certain people, while under a Jack Daniels truth serum would drunkenly declaim their true feelings of "Fxxxxxg Jews . . . The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." And that would represent their true views.

I don't know much about world elites or liberals, but I am sometimes grouped with the paleos because I write for The American Conservative and Chronicles and many of my links are to people or organizations with some sort of paleo sympathies (some even certified). I don't know of any of them who believe that the "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" or for 9/11. There has been much criticism in paleo circles of Israel's influence on American policy, such as Pat Buchanan's Whose War? article in 2003. Substantive responses to this criticism are much more rare than charges of anti-Semitism.

Osama bin Laden made his reasons for attacking the United States clear in his 1998 Fatwah. First among them was that "for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples." Only later does he mention our desire to "serve the Jews' petty state." Pat Buchanan repeatedly pointed out bin Laden's displeasure with American presence in Saudi Arabia.

Dean's attack is only one example of how the Right is coming to resemble the Left -- nobody can disagree with them without being anti-American, anti-Semitic, etc.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Right used to be anti-interventionist, now it's all for it. It used to be accused of bigotry, now it accuses others of it. They used to be skeptical of a sentimentalist, utopian foreign policy, now they blindly praise it.

What the heck has happened to the world!?!?

Anonymous said...

Clark, I very much apologize for painting with a broad brush. I do think that there is a tinge of upsetness with Israel, which is occupied by Jews, and many hold that nation responsible for our foreign policy, which is viewed by some as criminal. The "some" I refer to is American conservatives like Buchanan and woldwide elites like those who support the UN. Again, I apologize.

Anonymous said...

"I do think that there is a tinge of upsetness with Israel, which is occupied by Jews, and many hold that nation responsible for our foreign policy, which is viewed by some as criminal."

More to the point is the fact that Mr. Dean chooses to assign the label "anti-Semite" rather than consider the truth or falsehood of the preceding assertions. Probably to do so might make his head hurt.

The assertion that US foreign policy is committed to Israeli interests is not a paranoid conspiracy-theory; it is a trumpeted in countless journals such as National Review & Weekly Standard, and very often by US policy-makers themselves.

If the good churchgoing Mr. Dean would rather insinuate ulterior prejudices to men rather than consider their observations on issues, then he has no call to complain when Leftists label *him* a bigoted homophobe.

Anonymous said...

what we really need is another jewish homeland state besides israel. maybe 'new judea'. there are plenty of 'christian' and 'muslim' states out there, and no one (either pro or con) considers any one of them the flag carrier for their whole faith. unfortunately jews have only got one state. there was an old idea for a zionist homeland in australia's far north west. maybe time to dust it off.

Anonymous said...

in case y'all don't believe me about the plan for a zionist homeland in australia's far north western kimberley province check out this transcript from an Australian Broadcasting Commission interview here.