It’s business as usual over at the Atlantic, with bloggers Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg trading barbs over anti-semitism and the “Israel Lobby.”
I don’t usually blog about Blogger Smackdowns, since they typically devolve into endless rounds of he said/he said.
However, this is interesting: Yesterday, Goldberg posted an item titled “Answering Andrew Sullivan’s Question About Rick Sanchez.” Today, Sullivan responded with a post titled “Goldblog’s Weird Answer.”
But, Sullivan’s post has been erased. The link leads to a blank page, and the only evidence of the post is that it turns up in Google searches (for now).
Did Andrew Sullivan finally cross a line on the debate over the Israel Lobby and anti-semitism that even he realized shouldn’t be crossed? Guess we’ll never know.
UPDATE: My many thanks to readers who helped me find the full text of Sullivan’s deleted post, which can be read in the comments section or here.
Also, a recent post by Jeffrey Goldberg hints at what happened:
Andrew Sullivan, about whom I have mainly not been blogging lately, in part to keep my sanity and in part because, really, how much time can a blogger devote to fighting with other bloggers (answer: a lot!), e-mailed me earlier today, while I was traveling, to tell me that I obviously missed, or at least misread, part of one of his posts. He was right that I missed, and misread, some of it so I want to amend (partially) what I wrote earlier (The truth is, I’m not even sure I understand the post in question, but I’ll get to that).
So, it looks like Sullivan chose to take down his post to give Goldberg the opportunity to offer a more “proper” response.
Here’s a money quote from Goldberg:
Generally, I love Andrew’s blog, and I agree with most of what he writes, including on torture, Afghanistan, gay marriage (though I could always do with less on the issue of bears and their role in the environment). On Israel, and on the power of the Jewish lobby, of course, I think he is wrong wrong wrong (except on those occasions — infrequent — when he is right), and I also think he does not understand the corrosive power of his words, and of the public venting of his unmediated emotions. I think the things he writes excoriating Israel often give aid and comfort to people who truly want to hurt Jews and hurt the Jewish state. Rather than ignoring his posting on the subject, as I have been doing, I’m going to point out, whenever I can, the ways in which his intemperate language and one-sided understanding of Middle East politics and history can be used to create real damage. One of the things I don’t think Andrew understands is that Jews (and Israel) are simultaneously powerful and vulnerable. And by “vulnerable,” I don’t mean vulnerable emotionally; I mean, actually physically vulnerable to violence and discrimination. I think that singling out Israel and its Jewish supporters for special scorn aids and abets the very dark forces lining up to deny the Jewish state its legitimacy….
I think the connection between an obsession with the power of the “Jewish lobby,” on the one hand, and “self-evident anti-Semitic hooey,” on the other, is very often quite strong. For what it’s worth — and I’m straying somewhat afield here — I think that critics of the “Jewish lobby” not only demonize Jewish participation in the democratic process, they fundamentally misunderstand the way powerful lobbies succeed: Lobbies succeed (and AIPAC people will tell you this privately) when they push on open doors. The NRA (which is a more powerful lobby than AIPAC, IMHO) succeeds in large part because the majority of Americans believes in gun rights as the NRA frames the issue. Similarly, I believe that AIPAC is pushing on open doors in Congress because the majority of Americans, polls show, are intuitively more sympathetic to Israel than to Israel’s enemies. I don’t believe, as AIPAC’s critics do, that AIPAC creates pro-Israel legislation; I believe that pro-Israel feeling creates pro-Israel legislation. AIPAC organizes the feeling, buttresses the feeling, rewards the feeling, but I think it is obviously true that if Israel were truly unpopular in America, it would be unpopular in Congress.
you can see it using an RSS reader. (for now, anyway.)
It doesn’t show up in my RSS readers, except for the title.
You should check again – I just read it, using the link from Goldberg’s post.
You sure? I checked the Goldberg post. It links to Sullivan’s earlier post, “The power of the pro-Israel lobby”
The pro-Israel Lobby is so awesome, so powerful, that it can make stupid media (not to mention blogging) clowns make stupid (not to mention inaccurate) remarks, which make them look that much stupider.
Now that’s power!!
What I don’t get is how his original post has the link title “http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/10/is-cnn-just-playing-it-safe.html”
and he or one of the Dish staff scratched that title and opted for the more inflammatory title:
“The Power of the Pro-Israel Lobby”
It was (w/o links)
***Goldblog’s Weird Answer
from The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan by Andrew Sullivan
1 person liked this
Maybe Jeffrey Goldberg hasn’t gotten the hang of the “Read On” button, but I answered the question about the legitimate origins of the fuss about Rick Sanchez’s comments in the post he cites:
Surely the tone and generalities about media ownership, as Hitch notes, and as I posted.
I also noted that Sanchez’s comments were “draped in self-evident anti-Semitic hooey.” (By the way, I haven’t seen any quote from Sanchez in which he stated anything about “the Jews”, as Goldblog oddly asserts. Did I miss something?)
But the fact of the extraordinary power of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington remains (the subject of my post and Hitch’s piece); and its remarkable capacity to thwart an American administration’s legitimate pursuit of what it believes are American interests in the Middle East is self-evident. The reason Netanyahu can scupper peace talks, keep building settlements, publicly humiliate an American vice-president, and still get billions of dollars in aid … is because of this lobby and its brilliant and relentless handling of Congress, financing of candidates, and persuasion of the American public (all of which is totally legal, legitimate and, if I may, kosher).
But I note – in this critical week in which Netanyahu faces the crucial test of whether to extend a moratorium on new settlement construction – that Goldblog’s latest position is that
It doesn’t work. Israel wants the settlements to be a subject of negotiation with the Palestinians, along with everything else — and not the subject of a preemptive concession – and it seems that it is during negotiations (as President Clinton showed during Camp David) that the U.S. could best make the case against settlements, just as it is during negotiations that the U.S. could move the Palestinians away from their position on the so-called right-of-return.
But what on earth does the phrase “it doesn’t work” mean? What it means, as the paragraph above makes clear, is that Israel, and Israel alone, doesn’t want it to work, and just doesn’t want to concede anything on the illegal settlements before full negotiations. And if Israel doesn’t want it to work, America has no business bringing any pressure to bear, or even incentives to coax, and if it all falls apart because of this, it will be Obama’s fault, not Netanyahu’s. There is, of course, no conceivable security threat to Israel from extending a moratorium on settlement construction for two more months, or any length of time for that matter, and the administration is offering lots of goodies to get this pathetically small concession from Jerusalem. And yet it is with this set of facts that Goldblog cites Aaron Miller:
The idea that the United States can pummel a close ally into accepting a deal that undermines its security or political interests is flat-out wrong.
“Pummel”? What conceivable “pummeling” is going on here right now? Where is any credible threat to cease aid if Israel ends the moratorium? Or withdraw the UN veto? Or any actual credible acts of real pressure? It’s all carrot and no stick so far, and there never can be a stick because AIPAC and its journalistic supporters are so brilliant at what they do – all of which is completely legitimate but has distorted US foreign policy in exactly the same way the Cuba lobby has in a different context.
But the post is so deeply conflicted, you have to read it yourself to see if you can figure out what Goldblog’s position actually is, depending on which day of the week it is and which mood he is in (his words, not mine). His readers are as bewildered as I am.
My best summary is: I am not against pressuring Israel, but we should never pressure Israel, well, it might be a good idea, but it won’t work, because pressuring Israel means it won’t work. Huh? Then, as if he senses this argument is, to put it mildly, unpersuasive, we get a weird throw-away line that
I’m also suggesting that the entire peace process won’t amount to much until the Palestinians resolve their civil war.
So it’s the Palestinians’ fault now again! Thanks for clearing all that up.***
Full Post
Maybe Jeffrey Goldberg hasn’t gotten the hang of the “Read On” button, but I answered the question about the legitimate origins of the fuss about Rick Sanchez’s comments in the post he cites:
Surely the tone and generalities about media ownership, as Hitch notes, and as I posted.
I also noted that Sanchez’s comments were “draped in self-evident anti-Semitic hooey.” (By the way, I haven’t seen any quote from Sanchez in which he stated anything about “the Jews”, as Goldblog oddly asserts. Did I miss something?)
But the fact of the extraordinary power of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington remains (the subject of my post and Hitch’s piece); and its remarkable capacity to thwart an American administration’s legitimate pursuit of what it believes are American interests in the Middle East is self-evident. The reason Netanyahu can scupper peace talks, keep building settlements, publicly humiliate an American vice-president, and still get billions of dollars in aid … is because of this lobby and its brilliant and relentless handling of Congress, financing of candidates, and persuasion of the American public (all of which is totally legal, legitimate and, if I may, kosher).
But I note – in this critical week in which Netanyahu faces the crucial test of whether to extend a moratorium on new settlement construction – that Goldblog’s latest position is that
It doesn’t work. Israel wants the settlements to be a subject of negotiation with the Palestinians, along with everything else — and not the subject of a preemptive concession – and it seems that it is during negotiations (as President Clinton showed during Camp David) that the U.S. could best make the case against settlements, just as it is during negotiations that the U.S. could move the Palestinians away from their position on the so-called right-of-return.
But what on earth does the phrase “it doesn’t work” mean? What it means, as the paragraph above makes clear, is that Israel, and Israel alone, doesn’t want it to work, and just doesn’t want to concede anything on the illegal settlements before full negotiations. And if Israel doesn’t want it to work, America has no business bringing any pressure to bear, or even incentives to coax, and if it all falls apart because of this, it will be Obama’s fault, not Netanyahu’s. There is, of course, no conceivable security threat to Israel from extending a moratorium on settlement construction for two more months, or any length of time for that matter, and the administration is offering lots of goodies to get this pathetically small concession from Jerusalem. And yet it is with this set of facts that Goldblog cites Aaron Miller:
The idea that the United States can pummel a close ally into accepting a deal that undermines its security or political interests is flat-out wrong.
“Pummel”? What conceivable “pummeling” is going on here right now? Where is any credible threat to cease aid if Israel ends the moratorium? Or withdraw the UN veto? Or any actual credible acts of real pressure? It’s all carrot and no stick so far, and there never can be a stick because AIPAC and its journalistic supporters are so brilliant at what they do – all of which is completely legitimate but has distorted US foreign policy in exactly the same way the Cuba lobby has in a different context.
But the post is so deeply conflicted, you have to read it yourself to see if you can figure out what Goldblog’s position actually is, depending on which day of the week it is and which mood he is in (his words, not mine). His readers are as bewildered as I am.
My best summary is: I am not against pressuring Israel, but we should never pressure Israel, well, it might be a good idea, but it won’t work, because pressuring Israel means it won’t work. Huh? Then, as if he senses this argument is, to put it mildly, unpersuasive, we get a weird throw-away line that
I’m also suggesting that the entire peace process won’t amount to much until the Palestinians resolve their civil war.
So it’s the Palestinians’ fault now again! Thanks for clearing all that up.
Thanks. I also found the text of the full post at this site:
http://southcapitolstreet.com/2010/10/07/goldblogs-weird-answer/
Still can’t find it on the Daily Dish. What compelled Sullivan to take it down?
Conceptual flaws and misreading combined with frantic defensiveness and recklessly empty charges — including wanting the peace?…
Telepathy about what Goldberg’s readers think?
correction: “including that Goldberg wants the peace process tanked”
I think Sullivan withdrew the blogpost because it blatantly misrepresents what his colleague Goldberg has written.