The problem is when you simultaneously argue that and emit shrieks of "racism!" when anyone points out that you're arguing that. It's a dangerous strategy that makes it harder to credibly argue against those who actually do hate Blacks for their intrinsic Blackness -- all in order to wrest some short-term advantage for the liberal agenda. More chillingly, it's frequently paired with calls for offending pundits, writers, and thinkers to be fired by their host institutions.

The experiment above demonstrates that this same technique is used daily by the far left and yet, you are silent when it furthers *YOUR* agenda.

Pot - Kettle - Black

ooh, nailed it. The most recent media firings were accomplished by the Clintons, actually. The "suspension" of Shuster, the forced apology of Matthews, and one other I forget.

many other organizations and actors who use the term "ant-semite" as a tool of intimidation

Was Woody Allen's character in Ants clearly identified as Jewish, or was it up to audiences to make the inference?

I'm not sure that this is all as calculated as you're making out Ezra, though you're a lot closer too the situation itself and have actually reported the story, which I haven't. It seems to me that to the Peretz/Kirchick/Commentary types, a day without a public denunciation of a 5th-column self-hating-Jew anti-Semite just isn't worth getting out of bed for.

The paper tiger doesn't necessarily know what it's really made of.

El Viajero,
What are you referring to?

El Viajero is referring to how RACE-BAITING LIBERALS are always crying RACISM!!! when, um, they perceive that there's racism.

Beyond that, he has no point. I like how he included in his clip these ambiguous antecedents:

"The problem is when you simultaneously argue that and emit shrieks of "racism!" when anyone points out that you're arguing that.

In the original the ambiguous antecedent can be puzzled out and isn't that confusing; in El Viajero's post the ambiguous antecedents don't seem to refer to anything at all.

Very elitist of us to point this out, however.

APS

Okay folks, this is a thread about anti-semitism, and the above post. No thread hijacking.

It is dead obvious to any sentient observer that the security of Israel is an eminent concern to American neoconservatives, and that they're anxious to attack Iran because they are anxious to disrupt a threat to Israel.

As far as the neo-cons, this may very well be the case, but as we've learned from the neo-con hyping of the war in Iraq to the rest of us Jews as "you gotta support this war, it'll be good for Israel" -- the neo-cons, as much as they themselves will say "we are just trying to do what's best for Israel and it's wonderful that we can use the goyim as tools" (but if you call them on it, they'll call you anti-Semitic), are merely tools themselves.

Over the course of over a decade, the neo-cons came up with all sorts of cute reasons to invade Iraq. But did any of them really make any sense? No. Among those reasons was "it'd be good for Israel" (which had the double effect of getting "friends of Israel" to support the war and also ensuring that war opposition could be tarred as anti-Semitic).

We are now seeing the same thing with respect to Iran (you know, the country the neo-cons secretly armed in Iran/Contra).

Never trust the reason the neo-cons will give for bombing a country. It's all about who's paying them to come up with those reasons. The whole "it's necessary for Israel" is just a way of selling a war (as well as to make sure Israel gets blamed when things go bad) waged for other purposes.

The sad part is that, given we Jews will get blamed when things go bad, the neo-cons think these actions are ones which we Jews should support?

Wait, so you're saying the people involved in planning and selling the Iraq war have gotten themselves into a fight they can't win after overestimating their own strength and the value of their reputed power?

Color me shocked.

"No thread hijacking."

Just save yourself the trouble, and ban El Viajero.

There's a relatively easy way for American jews to take control of this situation: Support J street (with a better name!), and make it painful for AIPAC and its hangers-on to play their games.

Frankly, the hard-core neocons are just using Israel, since their agenda is much much more than just one more war with Iran (or not). But to make that agenda clear, US Jews need to separate Israel clearly and definitively from the neocon program, which is more like Bolshevism than anything seen since the 1920's.

This Iran 'threat' is just nonsense since Israel is quite capable of defending/retaliating against any attack, nuclear or non-nuclear. But in case it isn't clear, we shouldn't oppose a mutual defense treaty with Israel that clearly outlines that preventative attacks are NOT part of the deal.

In the meantime, US non-jews are really marginalized in all this, since ADL and AIPAC skeetch so loudly anytime they say anything. The ONLY way this will stop is when US jews make it stop. J Street needs to get organized to make an impact. Every string needs to be pulled across the country.

And, good on Joe Klein (a statement I never thought I'd make). I'll even erase the phrase Joke Lein from my vocab.

The intent was not to hijack anything.

When discussing anti-semitism, you refer to an unfair technique of "crying wolf" in bad faith. I think this technique is as evil as you do. Those who cry "racism" when more likely explanations are obvious just to shut down discussion are just as big of assholes as the ones you wish to rail about.

Both are designed to shut down discussion and are used in bad faith.

JimPortlandOR, I think you're right to say that it's up to the Jewish community to deal with this. I'm not that wild about J Street either, but then I'm a Jew who's not a zionist and I have a hard time signing onto the J Street program as a result.

The situation politically is a bit like the old reactionary Cuban National Fund (do I have the name right?) and its political dominance over the Cuban-American community. Things seem to be changing there, but more because anti-Castroism might be losing steam as the key ideological cause of Cuban-Americans. Is there a J Street equivalent in the Cuban-American community?

Hey, Ezra, could you consider that last paragraph an Assignment Desk suggestion?

El Viajero (I'll get back to the thread soon don't delete me)

Is there any reason that Ezra Klein might find it more natural to denounce abuse of the accusation of anti-semitism than abuse of the accusation of racism (hint look at the photo in the upper right corner) ?

Oh and maybe you want another metaphor. I favor "the snow calling the sand white" but, in context, you could try "the elephant calling the tapir ... uhm large and vegetarian.

Reading the article it does look like you endangered your career. Accusing AIPAC of dominating Washington is one thing, but accusing them of being weak is quite another.

However, you could say it was just a youthful indiscretion. Speaking of which how youthful were you when wrote it ? I mean were you legally an adult ?

"Israel is, of course, our ally, and so it's perfectly fair to argue that America should go to war in order to preempt an attack against Israel. "

This implies that arguing for an atrocious war crime is "perfectly fair" so long as it is not attended with accusations of antisemitism, as if murdering thousands of innocent people on the flimsiest of pretexts is a legitimate policy debate, while harrassing a journalist is out of bounds.

To argue that black is white is "fair", I suppose.
To argue that preemptive war is ever justified puts one in the same class as war criminals.
To argue that the US should support ANY foreign country in preemptive war is anti-American.
You need to step back and re-think this post.

Vocabulary:

"Preemptive war" means starting a war when the other side is about to strike. No one is advocating that. The neoconservatives are advocating a war designed to prevent a long-term threat to Israel; the correct term for that is "aggressive war."

Ezra,

in that NYT piece you link to, from Jeffrey Goldberg, he says this:

"John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, in their polemical work “The Israel Lobby,” have it wrong: They argue, unpersuasively, that American support for Israel hurts America. It doesn’t. But unthinking American support does hurt Israel."

That seems to be a rather clear difference between W & M and Goldberg, does it not?

The statement, Ezra, of yours that prompted my post was this:

"and spurred other writers to make almost identical arguments."

I'm not sure I see how that's true of Goldberg's piece.

Was Woody Allen's character in Ants clearly identified as Jewish, or was it up to audiences to make the inference?

The Woody Allen character in Ants was not so much Jewish as he was . . . Woody Allen. "Woody Allen is Jewish; therefore all Jews are Woody Allen" doesn't work well as an inference. Actually, few Jews of my acquaintance are neurotic funny losers.

"Years ago, when I initially came to DC," says Ezra. Man, I must be getting old.

Ezra,

It is dead obvious to any sentient observer ...

that if Ahmadinejad crossed the Supreme Leader of Iran, then Ahmadinejad would be no more.

So you could state all you want that he doesn't run the country. But please, give one iota of evidence that Khameni disagrees with him.

I'm waiting.....

"So you could state all you want that he doesn't run the country. But please, give one iota of evidence that Khameni disagrees with him."

Nice job using weasel words. First of all, A-jad was taken off the nuclear program. Secondly, Iran has no active nuclear weapons program. Third of all, it was the mullahs who extended an olive branch to the US in the early days of the war in Afghanistan by providing us with good intelligence.

Reality Man,

Yea right. I'm sure from your perch in Sh*ttown, USA, you access your "sources" in Iran who feed you such bunk. Fact is, the left is so fond of saying that Ahmadinejad doesn't speak for Iran or control policy -- yet the "Supreme Leader" doesn't reign him in, get rid of him or have someone state something different.

That doesn't sound like a "supreme" leader to me.

Unless, of course, he agrees with Ahamdinejad, which he does...

Is there any reason that Ezra Klein might find it more natural to denounce abuse of the accusation of anti-semitism than abuse of the accusation of racism (hint look at the photo in the upper right corner) ?

And that's the problem with much of the left. There is no objectivity. Things are what they are. It's not one set of rules for one group and another set for a different group. With the left, it's all relative and everything is viewed through the ugly lens of 'racism', even when it doesn't exist.

As for looking at the upper right hand corner, what are you trying to say? Am I supposed to look at Ezra and say "My, he looks like a Jew"? Isn't *that* racism?

First, in pluralist America, many people are always testing the boundaries of taste and external constraints, so if AIPAC and so managed to restrain public debate it's much more likely to be because they were in fact able to do so, rather than because they had a only reputation with little or nothing behind it.

Second, to say that Walt and Mearsheimer got away with it, so the constraint must not have existed, is rather bizarre: these were two of the best insulated individuals in the country on this issue, absolutely top scholars, in the most prestigious universities, doing a double-team act to provide a bit of mutual support. They still got personally nuked in the press again and again, even though their book was larded with half-accommodations of their opponents positions, surely at least some of them tactical in nature. Walt and Mearsheimer took a bullet for the team and opened up the discourse a very little bit.

Third, the opening of the discourse has also been much assisted by the interweb, which has partially de-gatekeepered opinion journalism. If the web didn't exist, Spencer, Matt and you would all still be working for TNR and a real constraint on allowable views of Israel/Middle East policies surely exists there (among many other outlets - see Alterman on this).