Fresnozionism - What’s good for Israel is good for the USA (apologies to General Bullmoose)

Fresnozionism.org
20 January '12

Lately I’ve been reading a lot about whether certain bloggers associated with the Center for American Progress (CAP) — an organization ‘closely linked to the White House’ — have crossed the line by using the expression “Israel-Firsters” for American supporters of Israel. Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post provides a relatively neutral summary of the controversy here.

I am beginning to think that nothing is less productive than discussing whether a particular expression or person is antisemitic. Certainly saying that “American Jews are disloyal because they choose Israel over the USA” is antisemitic. But the CAP bloggers who used this expression insist that they are only talking about specific individuals, and their being Jewish is irrelevant.

I’ll be generous and give them this. It’s unimportant (although I’ll add that the expression is quite popular in explicitly antisemitic and neo-Nazi circles).

Today the impulse to hate — at least as it affects the more sophisticated Americans and Europeans — is directed at the concrete national expression of the Jewish people, the state of Israel, rather than at ‘the Jews’.

So what? Irrational, obsessive hate is irrational, obsessive hate. Only the object is different. And the bloody results can be the same.

What is a bit ironic today is that the interests of the US and Israel are more closely aligned than ever before. Speaking for myself, I believe that being pro-Israel is part of being pro-American (if this weren’t the case, I would go back to Israel tomorrow).

If There's No Project to Engage Hizballah Why Do People Keep Telling Me They Were Contacted About It?

Thanassis Cambanis

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
05 April '10

Recently, I wrote an article about receiving a letter saying the Center for American Progress is running a project to advocate U.S. engagement with Hizballah and that high-ranking officials in the Obama administration were encouraging this as part of their own campaign to start talking with the Lebanese terrorist group that is a client for Iran and Syria in trying to take over Lebanon and destroy Israel.

The head of the project, Cambanis, a strong supporter of Hizballah, has denied it. Yes, he admitted. That's what my assistant wrote but he lied. The letter began, however, with the assistant saying the director asked him to write me. So one would think the director approved the letter.

Cambanis wrote last year

"The Islamist axis commands real power and is a force to be reckoned with. Israel has never stopped negotiating with Hamas and Hezbollah. European diplomats are quietly talking to Hezbollah officials, and looking for ways to initiate contacts with Hamas without violating European law. American intelligence services and diplomats find they have less and less leverage and understanding from their increasingly isolated stations and embassies; they’ll need to craft new channels through which to speak to groups in the Islamist axis."

(Read full post)
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