For over a decade now we’ve been witnessing a kind of schizophrenia within the Jewish community regarding the wisdom of admitting that the most powerful and active purveyors of neoconservativism have in fact been Jews. Initially, many prominent Jews and publications that are considered to be heavily Jewish were quite proud of the above fact and were not shy about sharing this information publicly.
As the “cakewalk” in Iraq turned sour, however, there was a concomitant turn toward silence. When respected sources such as former President Jimmy Carter or elite scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt came out with books that uncomfortably pointed to Zionist power in America, one could witness a circling of the Jewish wagons in many venues.
Such comfortable homes to neoconservatism as The Public Interest, The National Interest, and Commentary (published by The American Jewish Committee) began to ignore any connection between Jews and neoconservatism. For example, the Winter 2004 issue of The Public Interest
had an essay titled “Conservatives and Neoconservatives.” Yet author Adam Wolfson offered not even an oblique reference to Jews.
Never mind that the journal’s co-founder, Irving Kristol, is considered by many to be the father of neoconservatism, or that the other three editors over the forty-year life of the magazine have also been Jews.
Over at its more foreign policy oriented sister publication, The National Interest, Francis Fukuyama, in “The Neoconservative Moment” (Summer 2004) also failed to mention this connection. And in the October 2005 issue of Commentary, Joshua Muravchik did likewise in his article “Iraq and the Conservatives.”2 This tendency reached its most absurd point at the beginning of 2008, when neocon heavyweight William Kristol was chosen as a columnist/editor for The New York Times, and in the lengthy introductions no mention of his Jewish identity was made.
For those who might not know, Kristol is the son of just-mentioned neocon godfather Irving Kristol and prominent Jewish writer Gertrude Himmelfarb. The younger Kristol and Robert Kagan (also Jewish) co-founded the Project for the New American Century in 1997, which some have seen as providing the blueprint for our post-9/11 world.3
This ambivalence about naming neocons as Jews was obvious at The Times just before and after the beginning of 2008. In mid- December, America’s “paper of record” featured a review of a new book about neocon hawk Richard Perle written by Alan Weisman, “a world-traveled journalist and the son of Ukrainian Jews.” In the review earlier, Muravchik had argued strenuously against those who saw neoconservatives as being overly powerful in the Bush administration. See “The Neoconservative Cabal,” Commentary, September 1, 2003.
This phenomenon is also now visible at The American Conservative, which was created to resist a major neocon initiative—the war in Iraq. Pat Buchanan and Taki in particular verged on bellicosity in their comments on Jewish power. In 2007, however, Taki left the magazine and Jewish businessman Ron Unz took over as publisher. This change gives one pause when reading a cover article on Rudy Giuliani that appeared in the January 14, 2008 issue.
So far, the only controversy surrounding the appointment has been that Kristol is a “conservative.” In fact, The Times has long preferred its “conservative” columnists Jewish (as well as its liberal columnists, obviously). For years, William Safire was the in-house “conservative” voice while more recently David Brooks has taken over.
Connelly, “Israel’s Willing Executioners” were found familiar neocon names such as Elliott Abrams, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, and David Frum. The reader, however, heard not a word about their Jewish identity, not even in a casual reference or use of code words.
One month later, however, the very same Times Book Review addressed Jacob Heilbrunn’s They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons—yet another book on neocons written by a Jewish author. But this time the reviewer, Timothy Noah, could not have been more blunt about the Jewish nature of the movement: “There’s no point denying it: neocons tend to be Jewish.”
This heavily reviewed book should put to rest the arguments that the neoconservative movement is not particularly Jewish in nature or overly favorable to Israeli interests. Further, with Heilbrunn we should all agree that, “It is anything but an anti-Semitic canard to label neoconservatism a largely Jewish phenomenon.”
This accords with the claim made in these pages by Kevin MacDonald that “neoconservatism is indeed a Jewish intellectual and political movement.” With respect to Jewish involvement in the neocon movement, MacDonald concludes that, “The current situation in the United States is really an awesome display of Jewish power and influence.”
This admission comes late in the day. Further, neocons and their influence appear to have a bright future, despite premature claims about their star having set. Heilbrunn, for one, argues that the neocons have bounced back before from other seeming setbacks and will likely do so again.
“Heilbrunn achieves one important chore: a forthright social narrative of the neocons as a Jewish movement.” See “The Long Fuse to the Iraq War,” The American Conservative, January 28, 2008. Jacob Heilbrunn, quoted in Evan R. Goldstein, “Fight Makes Right,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 18, 2008; Kevin MacDonald, “Understanding Jewish Influence III: Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement,” Jacob Heilbrunn, “5 Myths About Neoconservatism,” The Washington Post, February 10, 2008
In an article in The American Conservative, a reviewer delivers the same verdict:
They are in it for the long haul; they have been at this for decades. None of these people are going away. They remain energized. This is not a movement that is on its heels. And though the professionalization of the neoconservative movement was in part its undoing as a vibrant intellectual force in American life, the very fact that it has been so institutionalized in Washington guarantees that it will remain an influential force well beyond Iraq. Needless to say, neocon power and its links to what is generally known as the Jewish Lobby have generated resistance.
Opinions about this Lobby and Jewish neoconservatives range from pungent to calm and reasoned, with a pundit like Pat Buchanan representing one end of the spectrum and former President Carter or scholars Mearsheimer and Walt the other.
Carter, of course, has raised the hackles of many because of arguments he makes in Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. For instance, he claims that the United States exhibits “undeviating backing of Israel”; that “because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the United States, Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned”; and that “voices from Jerusalem dominate in our media.” This echoes the thesis of Mearsheimer and Walt, whose The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy has powerfully critiqued the existence and goals of what they define as “a loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to steer US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.
Buchanan adopted a far more belligerent tone in his seminal cover story in The American Conservative back in early 2003. Entitled “Whose War?” it answered that the pre-planned attack on Iraq following 9/11 was instigated by a “neoconservative clique.” Ratcheting up the rhetoric, Buchanan went on to write, “We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interests. We charge them with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars.” These remarks remain consistent with his position prior to the first Iraq War.
Jimmy Carter, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" ; John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt," The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"; Connelly, “Israel’s Willing Executioners”
Now we have the entry of an eminent American scholar who gives Buchanan a run for title of most strident anti-neoconservative: James Petras, the retired Bartle Professor of sociology at Binghamton University. A well-known Lefist, he is the author of the 2006 book The Power of Israel in the United States. How his approach compares to that of Carter et al. is of some interest.
Petras adopts a tone similar to that of Buchanan but expands Buchanan’s arguments into a book-length exposé, arguing persuasively that the Zionist project to subvert American sovereignty has succeeded, much to the detriment of many non-Jews: “The tyranny of (the Jewish lobby) over the US has grave consequences for world peace and war, the stability and instability of the world economy, and for the future of democracy in the US.”12
A theory of Jewish power will help to more fully understand Petras’s specific arguments.
JEWISH MOVEMENTS
In essence, Petras is discussing a concrete instance of a Jewish movement, in this case one that benefits Israel, but not divorcing it from other aims and functions of the movement. The theoretical background for understanding such Jewish movements can be found in On the McLaughlin Show, he said: “There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East—the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States.” “The Israelis want this war desperately because they want the United States to destroy the Iraqi war machine. They want us to finish them off. They don’t care about our relations with the Arab world.”
The work of Kevin MacDonald, the evolutionary psychologist who has written a trilogy on the Jewish people. Macdonald's perspective reflects his evolution rising from unavoidable and disquieting realities seldom addressed in his own area of studies; not long pursued familiarity with political, global and historic interests. Hampered by ethnic and political parochialism, he more than makes up for it with his explorations on the topic of ethnocentrism and psycho-social behavioral patterns grounded in his own discipline.
MacDonald's assertion- Jewish populations have always had enormous effects on the societies in which they reside because of several qualities that are central to Jewish ethnie as a group evolutionary strategy:
"First and foremost, Jews are ethnocentric and able to cooperate in highly organized, cohesive, and effective groups. Also important is high intelligence, including the usefulness of intelligence in attaining wealth, prominence in the media, and eminence in the academic world and the legal profession. I will also discuss two other qualities that have received less attention: psychological intensity and aggressiveness..."
MacDonald finds that Jewish movement leaders are highly intelligent Jews who persist in their efforts to attain group goals: These groups may therefore be conceptualized as secular versions of historical Jewish groups not only because of the high levels of Jewish identity characteristic of group members, but also because these groups retained the essential characteristics of Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy. Because of these characteristics, these groups were extraordinarily effective in achieving their aims. . . . [H]ighly disciplined, cooperative groups are
able to outcompete individualist strategies. Indeed, an important thread . . . is that Jewish intellectuals have formed highly cohesive groups whose influence to a great extent derives from the solidarity and cohesiveness of the group. Intellectual activity is like any other human endeavor: Cohesive groups out-compete individualist strategies. The fundamental truth of this axiom has been central to the success of Jewish community throughout its history whether in business alliances and trading monopolies or in the intellectual and political movements discussed here.
MacDonald, “Understanding Jewish Influence I: Background Traits for Jewish Activism,”; For the evolutionary basis of these movements, see his book A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy; Kevin MacDonald, "The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements"; Connelly, “Israel’s Willing Executioners”
Writing initially in the mid-to-late nineties, MacDonald focused primarily on the intellectual movements that sought to weaken, if not undermine, Western culture. These movements offered radical critiques of Christianity and gentile mores, and any sense of any positive gentile identities. Thus, for example, Franz Boas’s dominance of American anthropology resulted in attacks on the core of Majority American identity by negating the very concept of race except where it served to cause and exacerbate divisions, discord and destructiveness that would be beneficial to Jewish group interest.
Sigmund Freud’s creation and propagation of psychoanalysis performed a similar function, one that was adopted by the essentially Jewish group known as the Frankfurt School. Viewed more broadly, MacDonald argues that Jews as a constituent part of the Left (Old and New) advanced Jewish interests while weakening the ethnic cores of the American majority.
Because the movement known as neoconservatism was hardly a pressing issue at the time MacDonald was writing, he paid scant attention to it. Post-9/11, however, things changed. George W. Bush assumed the presidency just prior to these attacks.
In response to the rise of the neocons, MacDonald penned a three part series called “Understanding Jewish Influence”. The final essay is entitled “Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement.” MacDonald the evolutionary psychologist operates from a perspective utterly different from that of Petras the Marxist. Yet both scholars reach similar conclusions. Thus it seems likely that both are viewing something objective and real.
These arguments comprise the entirety of The Culture of Critique, the final book in MacDonald’s trilogy: 16 MacDonald, “Understanding Jewish Influence I: Background Traits for Jewish Activism”, “Understanding Jewish Influence II: Zionism and the Internal Dynamics of Judaism,” and “Understanding Jewish Influence III: Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement,”
PETRAS ON THE JEWISH LOBBY IN AMERICA
Current Lobby efforts on behalf of Israel do not exist in a vacuum. In his introduction, he demands that, “We must call the system of power by its name, organization, and international alignment—without euphemism.” That he does.
While Petras does not explore the biological and psychological and sociological impetus with the same focus (such as MacDonanld's "group survival strategy" theory), he also is much more politically and historically versed and not tied to a narrow perspective that sees European ethnic groups as the target or the Jewish Lobby or Jewish ethnocentrism .
Petras- among the premier political, economic and historic scholars, employs the concept of hegemony to explain the breadth of Lobby power, including great Jewish individual and corporate wealth and such extensive ownership of important media that “hegemony” would apply there as well. Both money and media influence play important roles in the Lobby’s successes in Washington.
“Who fabricated the Iraq War Threat?” asks Petras in Part I. He answers that Jewish power and its neoconservative operatives in America (and elsewhere) did. Couching it in terms familiar to those acquainted with MacDonald’s Jewish thesis about Jewish movements, Petras writes:
"While the design and execution of the US war strategy was in the hands of Zionist civilian militarists in the Pentagon, they were only able to succeed because of the powerful support exercised by Sharon’s acolytes in the major Jewish organizations in the US. The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, AIPAC, and the thousands of their activists—doctors, dentists, philanthropists, real estate magnates, financiers, journalists, media moguls, and academics— acted in concert with key Jewish politicians and ideologues to press the case for a war because, they would argue, it was in the interest of the State of Israel . . ."
Putting it in political science terms, Petras stresses that “the ZPC’s Connelly, “Israel’s Willing Executioners” [Zionist Power Configuration’s] formal and informal structure has a crucial dynamic element to it: each power center interacts with the rest, creating a constant ‘movement’ and activity, which converges and energizes both leaders and followers”. Petras is right to stress this “crucial dynamic element,” for it explains how a seemingly small number of actors (Jewish neoconservatives and their partners on the "left") drawn from a small portion of the American population (Jews constitute roughly two percent of the US population) could effect such large changes. In addition, it allows in-depth analysis of phenomena that are too easily dismissed as “conspiracy theories” and thus left unexamined and unchallenged.
Another shibboleth Petras deals with early is the claim that “Big Oil” is behind US behavior in the Middle East, a belief popular with American progressives in particular. Petras shows that “there is no evidence that the major US oil corporations pressured Congress or promoted the war”, revealing this canard as one that survives far more by the power of propaganda than by the facts. Of the facts, Petras writes:
A thorough search through the publications and lobbying activities of the oil industry and the pro-Israel lobbies over the past decade reveals an overwhelming amount of documentation demonstrating that the Jewish lobbies were far more pro-war than the oil industry. Moreover the public records of the oil industry demonstrate a high level of economic co-operation with all the Arab states and increasing market integration. In contrast the public pronouncements, publications, and activities of the most economically powerful and influential Jewish lobbies were directed toward increasing US government hostility to the Arab countries, including exerting maximum pressure in favor of the war in Iraq, a boycott or military attack on Iran, and US backing for Israeli assassination and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in the ability of the pro- Israel lobby to prevent profit-seeking oil companies from going forward with new projects in Iran. Indeed a flash point between the neoconservatives and corporate oil concerns with deep ties to the Bush administration was a series of oil ventures signed with Iran, Libya, Algeria and several other Middle Eastern states, notably by Halliburton and its subsidiaries. It was largely for this reason that Halliburton undertook the creation of an alternate headquarters in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
The Lobby, Petras claims, was responsible for Congress barring major American oil companies from investing in Iran, as represented by Executive Order 12959, first signed by Bill Clinton, renewed by George Bush and already embraced by all the major Democratic and Republican Party candidates for the presidential election.
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