The blogosphere: When it’s good, it is very good; when it’s bad, which is often, it is quite horrid, a culture of grudge, a place for malcontents to broadcast their resentments and fleetingly fantasize potency. That is why what follows is not about the blogosphere. It is, rather, about the difficulty of conducting a reasonably calm and thoughtful conversation about the Middle East without opening the door to the rabble of resentment that apparently lurks in wait for every opportunity to demonstrate that evolution can reverse direction, that pounces into frenetic action whenever it finds an opportunity to fulminate.
Case in point: The flap over the merits of Ambassador Charles Freeman’s appointment as chair of the government’s National Intelligence Committee, the agency responsible for coordinating the judgments of the intelligence community regarding threats to America’s safety and the likely course of future events. The National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative written judgments provided to the director of national intelligence and, through the DNI, to the president. (The NIC has substantial additional responsibilities, focusing especially on mid-term and long-range strategic analysis.) Freeman withdrew his name from consideration on March 10, as the crescendo of debate regarding his suitability for the job became near-deafening.
The debate over Freeman’s qualifications was, in and of itself, fascinating. Freeman is universally described as uncommonly smart, and even a cursory examination of his writing easily confirms that assessment. He is also, at the very least, intemperate, very far from the conventional image of a super-sober spook dispassionately reviewing the materials provided by his colleagues in the 16 agencies that comprise America’s intelligence community.
Thus, for example, in a lecture last April 25, Freeman observed that “The majority of Chinese appear to believe, for example, that public reaction here [in America] to the recent race riots by Tibetans and to unrest among other Chinese minorities proves the existence of a plan by the United States and its Western allies to divide, dismember, weaken, and humiliate China.” Freeman may claim, as he has with regard to other damning citations of his remarks on China, Saudi Arabia and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that he has been quoted out of context, but it is exceedingly difficult to read his description of events in Tibet as “race riots” as anything other than an expression of his own belief. He did claim, more credibly, that as our government’s chief intelligence analyst, he would leave his opinions at home. So I suppose it comes down to how highly one can regard a man who dismisses Tibetan protests as “race riots.”
I have no strong opinion, one way or the other, about the Freeman appointment. That people, even gifted people, have flaws is not a shocking observation. Sometimes, their flaws outweigh their merits, as the John Bolton case so amply demonstrated. At the same time, we have long known that the militant pro-Israel community — what Freeman calls the “Likud lobby” — is remarkably aggressive in its judgments, as if itching for a fight with anyone who deviates at all from its orthodoxies, as Freeman plainly does. I am unable to say, as Freeman does in an ill-tempered e-mail explaining his withdrawal from the NIC job, that it is the “Israel Lobby” that did him in — though there’s no doubt that the lobby celebrated his departure and perhaps even more the reckless excesses of his e-mail.
Just this afternoon, I watched a softball interview of Freeman by Fareed Zakaria on CNN (oh, how I wished Jon Stewart were asking the questions), and while Freeman was indeed critical of Israel and now and then strayed somewhat overboard, he said almost nothing that struck me as particularly outrageous. Freeman’s assertion that “I have a lot of respect for Israel and I am sorry to see it so badly corrupted by the occupation and to see its values so badly damaged by the settlement process in the occupied territories” will be familiar to anyone who follows the ongoing debate within Israel itself.
In his exit e-mail, Freeman did say one thing with which I entirely concur, this when he lamented “the controversy and the manner in which the public vitriol of those who devoted themselves to sustaining it have revealed about the state of our civil society.” Thousands of blogs attest to that, rank antisemitism by many of Freeman’s supporters, less painful but not less ugly slashing by many of his opponents.
Now and again, more learned and more sober observers, whose tone is at least superficially reasonable, have at it. As might be expected, for example, professor Stephen Walt, he of Walt-Mearsheimer, has a long posting in foreignpolicy.com, wherein he opines that “the worst aspect of the Freeman affair is the likelihood of a chilling effect on discourse in Washington, at precisely the time when we badly need a more open and wide-ranging discussion of our Middle East policy…. After forty-plus years of occupation, two wars in Lebanon, and the latest pummeling of Gaza… defenders of the ‘special relationship’ can’t win on facts and logic anymore. So they have to rely on raw political muscle and the silencing or marginalization of those with whom they disagree…. At a time when Israel badly needs honest advice, nobody in Washington is going to offer it, lest they face the wrath of the same foolish ideologues who targeted Freeman.”
Poppycock. I have not noticed that Walt’s views are ignored in Washington. Rejected, by and large, yes. But ignored? Hardly. Nor does it seem to me that Israel “badly needs honest advice,” of which it in fact has a surfeit, most of which it chooses to ignore. I fervently wish that were not so, but the fact that it is so is overwhelmingly the product of disarray within Israel rather than the stifling of independent thinking in Washington.
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Leonard Fein has had a long history of animus towards fellow Jews who happen to believe, as he doesn't, that the Jewish people have a right to settle wherever they wish in Eretz Israel. And Eretz Israel, contrary to Leonard Fein and his friends in J Street, MoveOn.Org, Israel Policy Forum and the National Jewish Democratic Committee does include Judea-Samaria.
A truly honest discussion would involve Jews being allowed to stay on their land, in their homes, but a Fein, who like the Freemans of the world live on occupied Native American soil will never stick up for that right, just as they will never vacate their homes and do the right thing for peaceful Native Americans. But for violence-prone Palestinians, hey, its the world.
Which leads me to Freeman and his ally Walt. Freeman's associations and beliefs, in cozying up to both Saudi Arabia and China made him totally unfit to handle sensitive Intel, and that was the bottom line. His comments about Jews also left me cold as he wouldn't dare say the same about the Saudis who refuse to return American children of American mothers abused by Saudi fathers back to the mother. He knows that damn well. As for Walt, he is an anti-Semite, plain and simple. He writes of the "Israel Lobby" as if it were the Elders of Zion and that is totally unacceptible. In fact, Walt should be fired from any collegiate position for Intellectual dishonesty.
And finally back to Fein. Fein accepts the Walt-Freeman view of the "pummeling of Gaza" as he has always seemed to accept the Palestinian viewpoint even when there has been genocidal bombing, deliberate targeting of Jews because they are Jews, kidnapping, and continuous rocketing. Israel, under the pliant lammacles Olmert, Livni and Barak finally resorted to retaliation ONLY after three years of non-stop bombardment of Sderot and a refusal of Hamas to not only return the kidnapped Shalit, but to make peace. To accept Walt and Freeman, and by extension Fein is to accept that dead Jews are ok, dead Arab Muslim terrorists aren't. And that too leads to a very slippery slope indeed.
Alan Rockman
Freeman has neither been misunderstood nor misquoted. A telephone interview article with the Forward has him quoted as:
“Americans need to be clear about the consequences of continuing our current counterproductive approaches to security in the Middle East,” he told his audience. “We have paid heavily and often in treasure in the past for our unflinching support and unstinting subsidies of Israel’s approach to managing its relations with the Arabs. Five years ago we began to pay with the blood of our citizens here at home. We are now paying with the lives of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines on battlefields in several regions of the realm of Islam, with more said by our government’s neoconservative mentors to be in prospect.”
and
“You have to be fairly obsessive to read that into it,” Freeman said of the charge that he blames American support of Israel for 9/11. “What it means is that our relationship with Israel, given what Israel has done to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, has helped to create an atmosphere first in the Arab world and now through all of Islam, in which anti-Americanism flourishes."
What part of "unstinting support of Israel's approach" and "pay with blood of our citizens at home" in his own words, does Freeman not understand? That is pretty clearly a claim that support of Israel is a cause of 9/11. I understand the English language; it is my mother tongue.
Either Freeman is blind to his own views, or he is a deliberate liar. Let's hope that if he ever is considered for a policy position, it is the former, which as at present is more easily detected. Meanwhile, his current attempts at a lateral arabesque (no pun intended) fail to persuade.
Freeman has neither been misunderstood nor misquoted. A telephone interview article with the Forward has him quoted as:
“Americans need to be clear about the consequences of continuing our current counterproductive approaches to security in the Middle East,” he told his audience. “We have paid heavily and often in treasure in the past for our unflinching support and unstinting subsidies of Israel’s approach to managing its relations with the Arabs. Five years ago we began to pay with the blood of our citizens here at home. We are now paying with the lives of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines on battlefields in several regions of the realm of Islam, with more said by our government’s neoconservative mentors to be in prospect.”
and
“You have to be fairly obsessive to read that into it,” Freeman said of the charge that he blames American support of Israel for 9/11. “What it means is that our relationship with Israel, given what Israel has done to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, has helped to create an atmosphere first in the Arab world and now through all of Islam, in which anti-Americanism flourishes."
What part of "unstinting support of Israel's approach" and "pay with blood of our citizens at home" in his own words, does Freeman not understand? That is pretty clearly a claim that support of Israel is a cause of 9/11. I understand the English language; it is my mother tongue.
Either Freeman is blind to his own views, or he is a deliberate liar. Let's hope that if he ever is considered for a policy position, it is the former, which as at present is more easily detected. Meanwhile, his current attempts at a lateral arabesque (no pun intended) fail to persuade.
Freeman has neither been misunderstood nor misquoted. A telephone interview article with the Forward has him quoted as:
“Americans need to be clear about the consequences of continuing our current counterproductive approaches to security in the Middle East,” he told his audience. “We have paid heavily and often in treasure in the past for our unflinching support and unstinting subsidies of Israel’s approach to managing its relations with the Arabs. Five years ago we began to pay with the blood of our citizens here at home. We are now paying with the lives of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines on battlefields in several regions of the realm of Islam, with more said by our government’s neoconservative mentors to be in prospect.”
and
“You have to be fairly obsessive to read that into it,” Freeman said of the charge that he blames American support of Israel for 9/11. “What it means is that our relationship with Israel, given what Israel has done to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, has helped to create an atmosphere first in the Arab world and now through all of Islam, in which anti-Americanism flourishes."
What part of "unstinting support of Israel's approach" and "pay with blood of our citizens at home" in his own words, does Freeman not understand? That is pretty clearly a claim that support of Israel is a cause of 9/11. I understand the English language; it is my mother tongue.
Either Freeman is blind to his own views, or he is a deliberate liar. Let's hope that if he ever is considered for a policy position, it is the former, which as at present is more easily detected. Meanwhile, his current attempts at a lateral arabesque (no pun intended) fail to persuade.
Sorry about the multiple posts; my browser shot me in the back.
DS
I am proud to count myself among the many friends of Leonard Fein. Not only is he the founder of Mazon, but Dr. Fein has always acted with a sober and energetic concern for the honor of Judaism and the welfare Jewry.
As to Mr. Freeman, speaking of Israel he is quoted in the present issue of The Forward as saying that: “It’s a foreign country, and while maybe 40 years ago many of its values were convergent with ours, I think there’s been a divergence of values,….” I agree. Though they are not always governing, among America’s central values are equal justice for all, intolerance for corruption and the legal conduct of government and its agencies toward all of its citizens. The Israeli government often mouths their allegiance to these values, but decades of Israeli actions give them the lie.
On the other hand, in the same issue we find:
“But while Freeman has spoken at length and often about the causes and motivations for Arab, Palestinian and Muslim extremism — a function, he notes, that is central to the kind of analysis his job would have required — he was blunt about his lack of interest in expressing similar “analytic empathy,” at least in public, with regard to Israel. “I think I understand Israel’s view of itself and its neighbors,” he said. “Israel has multiple voices in the United States explaining it and its motivations. It doesn’t need me to do so. In fact, Israel’s viewpoints dominate our understanding of its dispute with the Palestinians and its consequent estrangement from its other Arab neighbors…. Frankly, I don’t see that need.” And I have difficulty understanding how a man of Mr. Freeman’s broad education and wide experience can hold such an opinion, since most of the picture of Israel to be found in the American media is propaganda that makes no attempt truly inform Israel’s society is exceedingly complex. There are the early-settler Ashkenazim, the newcomer Russians, the Sephardim, the Mizrachim and the Ethiopians, frequently with different needs and interests and each group with some antagonism toward the others. There are the workers, the industrialists and the bankers. There are the Gush Emunim and their heirs, who believe that they can bring the messiah by pushing the Palestinians out, the right wing secular devotees of a Greater Israel, who agree about the Palestinians but not about funding the Haredi, the peace and justice advocates like B’Tselem, Shalom Achshav and Rabbis for Human Rights, and the bulk of the Jewish population, who don’t seem to care all that much.
Jewish-Israeli society divides into very many ethnic, economic, religious and other functional groups, and there is no way to advance peace and prosperity in the Middle East without a thorough understanding of these divisions.