By Ezra
When the topics turns to Jews and their usury horns foreign policy clout,conversations become truly bizarre. Jonah:
one point that occurred to me afterwards is that Yglesias' position is very reminiscent of Charles Lindbergh's. Now, while no fan of Lindbergh's myself, I've nonetheless criticized the cartoonish demonization of the guy as well (see here and here for two recent examples). So, Yglesias shouldn't take too much offense, at least when I make the comparison. Regardless, Lindbergh believed Jews were pushing American foreign policy in an unhealthy direction, and so does Yglesias and, more significantly, so does Wes Clark. The merits and motives of the arguments surely differ in important respects, but they are similar in important respects too.
Jonah sort of tosses off that final aside about "the merits" differing, but isn't that rather important? Look, there are two claims here, either one of which can be argued with.
1) That Jews exert an outsized influence on American foreign policy. From AIPAC to The Weekly Standard to Karl Rove's admitted intent to siphon off donations from the Jewish community through unblinking support of Israel (which may also have been ideologically congruent for the administration), I tend to think this is a fairly obvious, even non-controversial point. Jews, after all, are rather overrepresented in the upper echelons of American politics. Take this conversation between such writers as Jon Chait, Matthew Yglesias, Jonah Goldberg, Ezra Klein, and Spencer Ackerman. Not a goy among them. In most contexts, this heavy representation in influential positions is something Jews are very proud of. Talk to my grandfather. Suggest that an effect of this political success is influence over foreign policy questions, however, and everyone blanches and calls for Abe Foxman.
2) That their influence is negative. This one's slightly more complicated. Depending on where you fall on the question of, say, invading Iran, you may think AIPAC's influence is just peachy. Or you may not. Or you may think it's unclear. Or you may think the Jewish community's influence lacks direction. But the merits are actually the point here, they're not just an interesting aside to be mentioned amid a lot of hand-wringing over the claim that Jews have a lot of foreign policy influence, hand-wringing being conducted largely by prominent Jews with outsized impact on the foreign policy debate.
On a somewhat related note, folks may be interested in this article I wrote on AIPAC's thuggish press control strategies and the outsized fear many in the journalistic community have of their reprisal powers.
