Kevin MacDonald: Making the US government Israeli-occupied territory

Kevin MacDonald: Stephen Walt has a nice column on the Haaretz article showing that right wing Jewish groups make a huge amount of noise over US-government appointees. Even when they fail to get someone removed, it doubtless has the effect of making any administration be very wary of whom they appoint.

The Haaretz article shows the emerging divide within the Jewish community between the J Street liberals and the more hardline organizations. The recent nominees who have come under attack have in common an association with J Street. But the reality is that J Street is not really much of an improvement on the neocons and AIPAC. Philip Giraldi calls it “AIPAC lite” –little more than window dressing to appeal to liberal democrats. (See also Stephen Sniegoski’s piece.)

So we are likely to be treated to highly publicized wars between the old-time Israel Lobby and newer, “liberal” version–full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, or at least very little.

Of course, it’s the same in American politics where everyone’s attention is riveted on the miniscule differences between Republicans and Democrats — and for much the same reasons. Liberal democracies need the appearance of open, unfettered debate in order to live up to their ideals. As with the ADL’s assault on mainstream media figures who deviate from the ADL’s approved messages, the goal is to have an acceptably narrow range of public debate while still pretending we live in an open society.