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Young Jewish Bloggers Love Wesley Clark |
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 by Beth Gottfried, March 22, 2007 |
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So why didn't AIPAC come down like a ton of bricks on Wesley Clark for his attribution of Jewish "money people" to a conceivable war in Iran? The American Conservative Editor Scott McConnell sees young Jewish bloggers coming to Clark's defense as the critical reason why Clark came out with fewer reputational scars and avoided any serious career damage.
But things took a different course, for significant reasons. It hasn’t yet been established that the blogosphere has changed the nature of American politics in any fundamental way...But blogs may foment serious debate about difficult subjects and change the climate of opinion in meaningful ways. In the aftermath of...the Clark episode, it seemed as if this was actually happening.
For within a day or two, one could read in the blogs some surprising assertions that amounted to a truth defense of Wes Clark. It seemed to come primarily from young, or comparatively young, Jewish bloggers. Observations that had been bandied about for years in private seemed to burst forth where many people could see them. This was welcome and suggests a broadening and deepening of the peace movement that so notably failed to stop the Iraq War. Suddenly there were Jewish voices talking about the Israel lobby as an established fact and, to be frank, as a bit of a problem. Significantly, these were not voices from an older and more alienated Chomskyian Left but from an American Prospect-like liberal mainstream.
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Beth Gottfried Lisogorsky is a professional blogger whose work has appeared on numerous sites from Rotten Tomatoes to PopMatters. She loves film, TV (yes "the boob tube"), and music and has critiqued on all three. In 2004, she published a book More... |
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Anonymous
In a speech some time ago, Wesley Clark indicated that he was descended from a long line of Rabbis. Regardless of this background he is a practicing Christian (just like John Kerry). I have a strong antagonism to people with this background! They don't seem to care about how many generations of Jews they come from. It is only about taking the easy way out and becoming not only part of the mainstream (Christianity) but also ignoring much of their family history. John Kerry even claimed that he did not know his Grandparents were Jewish. Come on John, you are not an idiot, or are you?
How can Wesley Clark talk about his proud Jewish heritage, while ignoring his pratices today; and at the same time speaking in a manner typical of Antisemites?
Wesley needs to come clean, and talk frankly about his ancestors and his thoughts today.
Thank you,
Jeffrey Levine
drexpert@xemaps.com
hf jai
It's against Torah to attack someone's reputation unjustly, and Jeffrey is going off on Clark based on misinformation and false assumptions.
First off, Clark has spoken "frankly" about his Jewish ancestors many times, so it's not like they're any secret. In fact, Clark's father's family played a major role in his 2004 campaign and I'm sure they will again if/when he runs in 2008.
But you can't reasonably blame Clark for being a practicing Christian. Right or wrong, it's how he was raised, with the acquiescence of his father and his father's family, so it's what he believes. It doesn't mean he has no respect for his Jewish roots, or that he "chose" Christianity to join the mainstream. He was only 4 when his father died and his mother moved him back to Little Rock. Cut him some slack that he didn't grow up in a Jewish home.
That said, Clark does not ignore his Jewish history, nor has he said anything that is anti-Semitic. He didn't even say "Jewish money people" as Beth quotes him above. He said "New York money people" by which he meant rich New York Republicans -- mostly the AIPAC folks, I suspect, but also Wall Street where Clark works. Many of them are Jewish of course, but certainly not all or even most. And what he criticized wass not even that they support Israel, but that they promote Likud policy for a US confrontation with Iran -- he was specifically commenting on a UPI interview with Bebe Netanyahu.
Wes Clark has been a strong defender of Israel, even when it cost him points with many on the far left. But surely every American should understand by now that supporting a nation or a people is not the same thing as approving of everything its government does.