The following is taken from recent correspondence with a friend of long standing. An Andover ’55 classmate and Harvard ’59 roommate. A Jew who has taken Israel into his conscience as well as his heart and an American who stands up for Democracy and human rights. A voice for character and integrity, guided as I am by visions that seem to be fading before our eyes. Who won’t be silenced in the face of the bully. And neither will I.
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Motivated by racism
The American fascist storyline has implications for the fate of America’s Jews. Cause for concern that goes beyond Democracy to something more fundamental. To our humanity.
Jews took a terrible beating for supposedly manipulating Germany out of WWI. The storm clouds may be gathering once again, this time for supposedly manipulating another Germany-in-the-making into the Iran war.
Fascists / ‘conservatives’ rule uncontested over realities of their own making. Make-believe ‘gods’ of arrogance. Know-it-alls in command of their made-up situation and whatever story it has to tell. The storm clouds tell of a storyline-in-the-making that could be disastrous for Jews, for Israel, and for our country.
Evangelicals need Israel’s existence to validate their foundation in biblical prophecies. They’re ‘conservatives’ by accident. American mainstream ‘conservatives’, who dismissed them until their votes were needed by Bush II, aren’t motivated by Israel’s fortunes. Those at any rate who’ve abandoned principle to support the fascist in power, more beast than human. They’re ass-kissing, swastika-kissing tribalists. Authoritarians motivated by racism.
The inevitable climax
The ‘conservative’ bullies now balking at the US being bullied into the Iran war by Israeli bullies — the same lobby that angered Truman when he recognized Israel — may be something other than just another split in a political coalition. It may be American ‘conservative’ rounding to its true nature: fascism dedicated to the destruction of its made-up tribal enemies. People like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Joe Kent, and more.
Among tribal enemies none more vulnerable in a culture of ‘Christian’ tribal victimhood and infallibility than Jews. If ‘conservatives’ demand a ‘Christian’ America then it can’t be pluralistic. It can’t be friendly to ‘others’, and who stands out more as an ‘other’ to the ‘conservative’ mentality than Jews? Who can more readily link fascism to its past inhumanities? To its ‘glories’?
So long as Israel and Netanyahu can be manipulated by the fascist into reinforcing its make-believe ‘strength’ it will maintain the appearance of alliance. But when ‘conservative’-fascist opinionators twist the storyline into the appearance of weakness — being bullied by Israel — then the fascist will have second thoughts. ‘Strength’ can tolerate neither the appearance of being bullied nor being questioned, and the fascist is now getting a serious dose of both within its own ranks.
He will pivot to whatever position restores authority beyond questioning. Giving Mr. Netanyahu once again critical leverage, only this time as a scapegoat rather than a friend. He, his country, and potentially his race. The fall guy who got his comeuppance: Dolchstosslegende. A convenient whipping-boy for ‘conservative’-fascist authoritarian arrogance. Herd mentality. The beast behind the mask of ‘human’.
How the war plays out was supposed to be the only factor that Israel and its fascist ‘friend’ had to worry about. It isn’t. Another monster has grown out of Israel’s attempt to put an end to the Holocaust once and for all. The rebirth of the monster within the ranks of its ‘friends’. The beast that was always there. Mr. Netanyahu’s true legacy and the inevitable climax of ‘conservative’ make-believe: self-destruction.
Clutching swastikas
Israel’s killing of Ali Larijani and Joe Kent’s resignation got eight-column front-page headline treatment in the New York Times. In the Los Angeles Times they were lucky to break through the Oscars bullshit at all. Arthur Sulzberger’s sensitivity to the impact of Israel’s right-wing leadership on its global image could be the difference, or its irrelevance to Patrick Soon-Shiong’s entertainment-besotted readership. Or both.
What needs saying is that despite the intensity of its coverage the New York perspective is missing the story. Thoroughly identified with the architecture of American-Israel friendship that it helped to build after WWII, it doesn’t get the dynamic lurking behind it: the juxtaposition of Jewish-authoritarian victimhood with ‘Christian’-authoritarian victimhood. ‘Conservative’ in both cases. Natural allies but for one distinction: one assimilates, the other regurgitates. One attracts persecution, the other persecutes.
The Jewish chicken has attached itself to the American fascist fox for its protection. It’s just taking a while for the establishment alliance that formed in the wake of WWII to break apart, just as it’s taking a while for the 1944 Bretton Woods international monetary order to break apart. This is the story. That Netanyahu and his followers are even less aware of than Sulzberger. Unaware that the American Eagle that they’re clinging to for their salvation isn’t clutching arrows in its left talon. They’re swastikas.
An individual of character
What historians of America have gotten right about its character, going back to Tocqueville, is the dominance of religion. The positive influence of institutionalized personal morality. What they get wrong is the negative influence of institutionalized tribal morality. The Machiavellian effect. Religious hierarchy that venerates the figure on top. ‘God’. Inherently authoritarian — arrogant, combative, unjust, and cruel. Immoral.
The juxtaposition of ‘Judeo’ with ‘Christian’ in the Christian Bible was a manipulation by the tribal Church to give depth to perception of its doctrine and itself. It wasn’t for love of Israel or its people. For that it reserved something else. Tribal hate.
I didn’t bond with the church. I bonded with a Jew. An individual of character much like yourself. For whom I felt, and feel, love. And guess what — I’m not a ‘Christian’!