Take the Frum Test

by | Feb 3, 2011

Former Bush speechwriter David “Axis of Evil” Frum, the neocon who today poses as a “moderate” Republican, writes:

“There’s a lot of heady talk in the US media right now, from both liberals and conservatives, about the possibilities in Cairo. We all share those hopes. But we all also ought to recognize that popular protests in the Middle East do not typically generate stable democratic regimes, and that even free elections can bring very nasty people to power.”

Very nasty people like Avigdor Lieberman, Foreign Minister of the state of Israel, who, as Christopher Hitchens points out, is “a thug and a demagogue who has called with relish for the execution of elected Arab members of Israel’s parliament if they meet with Hamas, who has demanded the drowning of Palestinian prisoners in the Dead Sea, whose supporters chant “Death to the Arabs” at their rallies, and who has materialized the worst fears of those Arabs who have made the longest-lasting accommodation with the Jewish state.”

Frum wants Western journalists to interrogate anti-Mubarak protesters as to their attitude toward Israel — a “test,” he calls it. And if they don’t pass the test, according to Frum, then this will “warn” us that the protesters are “very nasty people,” and, by implication, inferior to the dictator they want to topple. Of course, one’s attitude toward Israel is the litmus test for Frum and the Israel Lobby. In his new disguise as a “moderate,” this is the one area where he hasn’t moderated: Israel first, always.  Even if it means supporting a dictator.