{"id":6005,"date":"2009-08-10T17:53:39","date_gmt":"2009-08-11T01:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=6005"},"modified":"2009-08-12T10:37:56","modified_gmt":"2009-08-12T18:37:56","slug":"jj-goldberg-disappoints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/10\/jj-goldberg-disappoints\/","title":{"rendered":"JJ Goldberg Disappoints"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Forward<\/em> editor in chief J.J. Goldberg has a fairly positive reputation among progressive Jews, and although he has never been a radical about Israel or the Middle East, neither is he a reflexive hawk or neoconservative. Hence it is particularly disappointing to read his recent hit piece<\/a> on Roger Cohen in the Forward<\/em>, a piece that is long on condescension and sanctimony but short on any real engagement with the issues. Goldberg’s thesis is that Cohen is cynical, or naive, or both \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that his writing on Iran has been motivated fundamentally by a careerist desire to “sound provocative,” but that he is an amateur “in over his head.” It is not clear whether this analysis applies equally to anyone else fighting back against the alarmism of the “bomb Iran” crowd. Does he feel that Cohen’s anatagonists \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Abe Foxmans and Jeffrey Goldbergs of the world \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are models of subtlety and expertise? Last I checked Foxman was defending East Jerusalem settlements<\/a> and (Jeffrey) Goldberg was arguing<\/a> that Iran is the new Amalek<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I won’t try to respond to (J.J.) Goldberg’s arguments, principally because he does not see fit to make many actual arguments as opposed to ad hominem dismissals. I would, however, just like to highlight one passage that was immediately picked up by some of the usual<\/a> suspects<\/a>, in which he discusses Cohen’s treatment of Obama Middle East advisor Dennis Ross, known as the administration’s foremost Iran hawk:<\/p>\n

\n

Ross\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role in the administration raises many questions in Cohen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind, but the one that comes up over and over throughout the article, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a recurrent issue with Ross, who embraced his Jewish faith after being raised in a non-religious home by a Jewish mother and a Catholic stepfather, has been whether he is too close to the American Jewish community and Israel to be an honest broker with Iran or Arabs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In the crisis atmosphere following the Iranian election, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Can this baggage-encumbered veteran\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 overcome ingrained habits and sympathies?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Indeed, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Will the Iranians be prepared to meet with Ross?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reasonable question given Ross\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s well-known ties with the American Jewish community.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

That, in effect, is the dilemma facing American policy toward Iran at this pivotal moment: Is there too much Jewish influence? We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard the question before in Hamas sermons, in Al Qaeda videos and on some left-wing blogs. Now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been incorporated into the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s newspaper of record.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course, Roger Cohen is far from the first person to question whether Dennis Ross is too closely associated with Israel to be an effective Middle East policymaker. It was Aaron David Miller, Ross’s former colleague on the Clinton administration peace process team, who famously claimed<\/a> that the U.S. had been acting as “Israel’s lawyer” under Ross’s leadership. Another Clinton administration colleague, former ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer, published a book containing complaints from both American and Arab participants in the peace process that Ross was “biased towards Israel and not ‘an honest broker'” (as Time<\/i> magazine put it<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Are Aaron David Miller and Dan Kurtzer fomenting propaganda cribbed from “Hamas sermons” and “al Qaeda videos”? Could Miller and Kurtzer be closet al Qaeda sympathizers? Goldberg is off in Commentary<\/em>\/ZOA territory here, and it is beneath him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Forward editor in chief J.J. Goldberg has a fairly positive reputation among progressive Jews, and although he has never been a radical about Israel or the Middle East, neither is he a reflexive hawk or neoconservative. Hence it is particularly disappointing to read his recent hit piece on Roger Cohen in the Forward, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-6005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6005"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6023,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6005\/revisions\/6023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6005"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}