Home Bush administration moves to silence Jews
Home Bush administration moves to silence Jews

Bush administration moves to silence Jews

The ADL is wondering why the government is spending all this energy to prosecute two AIPAC staffers. Why use a Pentagon employee to create a sting aimed at AIPAC that exploited basic human sentiments by offering to provide information about upcoming terrorist attacks? You don't have to be Jewish or loyal to Israel for such a situation to create a compelling appeal.

The usual conclusions have involved complaining about the anti-semitic structure of the FBI but the reality is that this goes much higher up.

America has reacted all the wrong ways post 9/11 and at the heart of the assumptions of neo-cons, paleo-cons, liberals and leftists is the presumption that we must come to an arrangment with the arab and muslim world. Of these only neo-cons believe that this arrangment requires force which is why they are accused of militarism but their idea of force is only a leverage to remove tyrranical regimes and democractize the arab world. Their vision is essentially a liberal one and it requires selling America to the muslim world.

At the heart of it, though neo-cons may display contempt for liberal notions of appeasing the arab world post 9/11, their agenda requires collaboration with arabs and muslims just as much. Liberals believe the arab and muslim world is fine as it is and whatever flaws in it are produced by our actions and it is we who need to change. Conservatives believe the arab and muslim world is a mess and that it is up to us to convince them to change. With the war in iraq having ground to a halt while demonstrating the limitations of the military to impose regime change, the Bush administration is increasingly embracing an approach that appeals to the arab and muslim world. As always the first casualty is Israel.

From England's Blair to the Arab world, the first priotity has always been sold as 'Palestine' and creating 'Palestine' is what the Bush administration has been told will buy it favor and credibility on the Arab street. To that end there is an understanding that pressure must be used against Israel. Targeting AIPAC as an example is the first step to silencing any Jewish protest by returning to the nativist paleo-con slur of Jews as disloyal citizens betraying America. Like Pollard, AIPAC is meant to serve as a warning to Jews while discrediting Jewish protests against America's betrayal of Israel to Americans as a whole. In this sense it could represent another Dreyfuss case which ironically enough helped inspire Zionism to begin with.

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