We Get Mail

From the inbox:

I've been a reader of yours for about a year. I find your writing clear and honest (especially your economic analysis, more of that please). However I thought your comments about Israel's accidental bombing of the U.N. post were out of character. The bombing was clearly a mistake, and your implication that it was otherwise or somehow fit a pattern is something I would expect to find on a rabidly anti-Semitic forum. Not what I expect to read from you, hence this email. Please say it's not so.

It's not so. The post to which the reader refers did three things: 1) Note the language used by Kofi Annan, which was extraordinary for a Secretary-General of the United Nations, 2) Observe that the timing of the bombing was an interesting coincidence, given the increasingly active role the U.N. had been playing in the previous few hours and days, and 3) Put the incident into possible historical context, given a similar one in the past that I (and others in a far better position to know---see names and quotes here) believe strongly was not a mistake.

Supporters of Israel need to understand that reflexive insinuations of anti-Semitism do nothing to help their cause. I've dated Jewish women and been married to one, with whom I celebrated many Passovers and read from the Haggadah. I've invested in Israeli companies; one such investment was among my most profitable ever. I've long been a supporter of Israel's right to defend itself. But that support, once open-ended, has ebbed in recent years. I think Israel has far too much influence over our foreign policy, often to our detriment---abundantly clear right now vis-a-vis Lebanon. There's not only influence, there's access. I watch Israel repeatedly penetrate the most sensitive areas of our government; earlier this year, a senior Pentagon intelligence analyst received a lengthy jail term for passing confidential information to AIPAC, and Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard remains in jail---with his legal fees for the past twenty years paid by Israel. Fox News, of all outfits, did a provocative multipart report on this subject; while Fox has since removed the report from its website, it's still viewable here and I recommend watching it. Moreover, after 9/11 we learned of a group of five Israelis who danced and celebrated (and were subsequently arrested and jailed for months while the U.S. investigated their ties to Israeli intelligence) while filming the WTC from across the Hudson River as people I knew burned alive or jumped to their deaths. I listened to Benjamin Netanyahu---asked on 9/11 what the attacks meant for the relationship between the U.S. and Israel---gush "It's very good." (Call me crazy, but I've learned to be wary of any relationship in which the other party benefits from my troubles.) We're bogged down in a disastrous war undertaken at least in part to benefit Israel, with another possibly on the horizon. And of course I spend part of every workday supporting all this; inexplicably, Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid after Iraq.

In light of the above, excuse me if sometimes I wonder how the U.S. benefits from a supposedly reciprocal relationship with this putative ally.



Note: A few readers asked for more information about the "celebrating Israelis" I mentioned. In addition to this feature in The Sunday Herald and this report in the Jewish-American weekly Forward, the NYT report on it is here.