Michelle Goldberg’s Jewish Problem, and Ours
Michelle Goldberg, a writer for The Forward, The Daily Beast, Tablet Magazine and other publications, has emerged as one of the most significant examples of the warped leftist culture that seems to engulf some American Jewish writers and journalists. She has a Jewish problem, one that she repeats in different ways in article after article — namely, that to survive and prosper, American Jews must be true to the Left, move away from support to Israel, and above all, show their fealty to political correctness.
Writing at The Daily Beast, Goldberg penned what is perhaps her single worst and most egregious column. Purporting to be her reflections on what made Anders Breivik of Norway engage in his act of terror, Goldberg attributes his actions to none other than his supposed belief in Zionism! She makes the mistake of taking his incoherent ramblings based on a mix and match of the words of those on the Left, Right and Center, and singles out some of what he says as proof for her allegations. She does not understand, as the historian Michael Ledeen writes, that in fact Breivik,
is the sort of fascist who believes in the myth of a Golden Age that must be restored, and vaingloriously sees himself a member of the elite chosen by history to defend the mythical West.
Instead, Goldberg insists that he is a Zionist, pro-Israel to the core. “In European politics,” she writes, “fascism and an aggressive sort of Zionism increasingly go together.” This is not surprising, since Goldberg also believes that in many ways, the current Netanyahu government is itself increasingly fascist, hence the appeal to people like Breivik.
The new alliance between Israel and Europe’s neo-Nazis, she says, takes place because both the Western fascists and the Israelis are both Islamophobic, believing for some strange reason that radical Islam poses a threat to Western values of democracy and freedom (which of course, the fascists do not share, something she ignores.) “Muslims,” Goldberg claims,
have come to occupy the place Jews once held in the reactionary European imagination; they’re seen as agents of an apocalyptic conspiracy that threatens Europe’s very survival.
Is the fear at all rational? As I noted yesterday, Goldberg ignores the kind of evidence writers like Bruce Bawer have immaculately produced, showing that indeed, the threat is nothing like the fictional threat Jews held in the imagination of Hitlerites in the 1920s and ’30s.
At this point, Goldberg offers the single most perverse paragraph of all. She writes:
The specter of the coming caliphate has crowded out the old myth of the scheming elders of Zion. Naturally, the self-described agents of the counter-jihad see the enemy of their enemy as an ally. It’s the inverse of the anti-Semitic alliance between Hitler and Haj Amin el-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem.
There was, of course, no grand conspiracy as developed in the forged Protocols of The Elders of Zion, while, the wish for a restored caliphate has, as numerous scholars have shown, been a very real dream that motivates many Islamofascists. Moreover, she trivializes the meaning and import of the alliance that existed between the Nazis and the titular Palestinian movement chieftain, Haj Amin el-Husseini. As Jeffrey Herf has shown in his recent remarkable book about the Mufti and the Nazis, the ideology of the Palestinian movement was forged in alliance with Hitlerism, as the Mufti developed a blend of Koranic theology with fascism to motivate a Palestinian nationalist movement devoted to destroying the Jews.
Michelle Goldberg openly advocates on behalf of promiscuity. She is thoroughly secular. This is the number one reason why such an individual is hostile towards conservatives. All the other alleged excuses are mere rationalizations. Their embrace of a secularist agenda carries over into other areas like the defense of the West and Israel. Goldberg is also a very poorly educated young lady who obviously obtained a phony degree. Grade inflation is the norm today. The Goldbergs don’t have to earn their credentials in the softer disciplines. They just have to please their left-wing professors.
“Goldberg attributes his [Brevivik's] actions to none other than his supposed belief in Zionism!”
She does nothing of the sort. She only states quite rightly that Brevivik considered himself an ardent Zionist, although she also quotes him as warning his comrades against the “nation-wrecking multiculturalist Jew” – a phrase that RR himself might adopt, considering his views.
RR: ‘Jews should not be surprised when a candidate they vote for, like Barack Obama, moves to “throw Israel under the bus.”’
They should also not be surprised when the Right misrepresents Obama’s views. Recently, for example, I received a robo-call from the Republican Jewish Coalition, asking for my opinion of Obama’s Mideast peace plan, which the call said was based on Israel’s “indefensible” ’67 borders. Not a word about land swaps. Surprise, surprise.
Readers should also take note of the following in RR’s blog:
“What if the ban on circumcision introduced as legislation in San Francisco had passed? … Would turning Jews into criminals because they had their children circumcised get Goldberg to accept the very real threat to Jews that comes from the precincts of the Left?”
Of course, the “real threat” of this legislation was also aimed a Moslems, but including them would dull the point of RR’s attack.
The November 2009 Clinton statement in its entirety said:
“We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.”
Hence, the President’s statement fairly can be read as only adopting the “Palestinian goal.”
These are Palestinian goals? Then what do you imagine are Israeli goals? No land swaps? Actually, if these were indeed the goals of the Palestinians, peace would have been achieved a long time ago.
Joseph: The proponents of the San Francisco circumcision ban issued a propanganda comic book, which portrayed “Captain Foreskin” defending baby boys from “Monster Mohel”. So tell me again how this was “also aimed at Moslems”.
Well y’see, Rich, Moslems also circumcise their male babies. So maybe a comic book doesn’t tell the whole story.
the proponents knew that, y’see, that’s why their comic book does tell the whole story
Well, y’see, that’s why the comic book does tell the whole story.
Hard to counter comic book arguments. Maybe this will make it clear: The proposed law would have criminalized circumcision regardless of the religion of the child and regardless of any comic book. Period.
Even had a ban on circumcision become law, Jews and Muslims alike would not have obeyed it.
However, enforcement of the law — arresting offenders, trying them in court, punishing them — to the extent it were possible at all, would have been confined to Jewish offenders exclusively, for two simple reasons:
1. San Francisco would be scared shitless to arrest and prosecute Muslim offenders.
2. The law couldn’t say so, but was aimed at Jews, as the propaganda cartoon brazenly showed.
In any case, San Francisco would soon learn to be be scared shitless to arrest or prosecute Jews also.
Even if a ban on circumcision did become law, Jews and Muslims alike would not have obeyed it.
However, enforcement of the law — arresting offenders, trying them in court, punishing them — to the extent it were
possible at all, would have been confined to Jewish offenders exclusively, for two simple reasons:
1. San Francisco would be afraid to arrest and prosecute Muslim offenders.
2. The law couldn’t say so, but it was aimed at Jews, as the propaganda cartoon brazenly showed.
“… enforcement of the law … would have been confined to Jewish offenders exclusively….”
Nothing like a little crystal ball gazing to buttress your argument – an argument that doesn’t get stronger by being repeated twice (although it was a good idea to remove the threatening sentence).
Ronnie: it would be well to remember that seder’s (if not the first) have been celebrated in the White House during the Obama administration. Not only is this intrinsically significant, it is noteworthy because of the (legitimate) irredentist sentiments of the Passover celebration.
Hey Hank: Given Obama’s unprecedented anti-Israel history why isn’t it more reasonable to assume that this “seder” in the White House was either a cheap PR ploy or part of the movement by leftist Jews to capture the symbol of the seder on behalf of their causes?
When I saw pictures of Obama “celebrating” the seder I thought, “hmmm … Pharaoh gives a seder”.
Hank, perhaps you can give your thoughts as to how Obama interprets the prayer and vow, “Next Year In Jerusalem!”? In the event you have never been to an authentic seder, it is the climax of the evening.
Since some readers may have taken RR at face value and neglected to read Goldberg’s piece, I think it’s important to emphasize the following:
‘While Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s ultraright Front National, is a Holocaust denier, his daughter and successor, Marine Le Pen, is working to cleanse the party of its reputation for Jew hatred, telling the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that it “has always been Zionistic.” In the early 1990s, the British National Party organized a violent neo-Nazi gang called Combat 18. In 2009, the party’s leader, Nick Griffin, boasted that his was the only British party to support Israel’s war “against the terrorists” in Gaza.
‘Earlier this year, Newsweek ran a story about this phenomenon titled “Europe’s Extreme Righteous: Far-right European politicians find love—and common cause—in Israel.” It opened with three politicians, “a Belgian politician known for his contacts with SS veterans, an Austrian with neo-Nazi ties, and a Swede whose political party has deep roots in Swedish fascism,” visiting the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. They met with members of the Knesset and signed something called the Jerusalem declaration, which affirmed, “We stand at the vanguard in the fight for the Western, democratic community” against the “totalitarian threat” of Islamic fundamentalism.’
If RR sees fit to make common cause with Geert Wilders, the British National Party, Le Pin’s party, etc., that’s his business. But most Jews will understand that sometimes my enemy’s enemy is also my enemy.