American Jews Overwhelmingly Against Iraq War, Disapprove of Handling of War on Terror
The American Jewish Committee’s 2005 Survey of American Jewish Opinion reveals stunning information about the American Jewish community’s feeling towards the — ahem — “Global struggle against extremism.”
- 60% disapprove of the government’s handling of the “War on Terror” [Source]
- 70% disapprove of the war in Iraq [Source]
- 54% identify as Democrat and only 16% as Republican [Source]
- 44% identify as liberal, 26% as conservative and 29% as moderate [Source]
- 50% believe that the threat of overturning Roe v. Wade is grounds to disqualify a Supreme Court nominee [Source]
- 77% believe the U.S. needs to achieve energy independence [Source]
Conversely, the numbers on religious participation are a bit less flattering.
[Update] AJCommittee’s exec. dir., David Harris, to JTA: “Even on the eve of the war, fewer American Jews than other Americans were supportive of the prospect of going to war with Iraq. As American public support has declined since 2003, Jewish support has been declining in step, but because it began at a lower level, it continues to remain at a lower level of support than other Americans.”
They should do a poll that includes only Jews that can reasonably expect to have Jewish grandchildren. Bet we’d see very different numbers.
J do you think the Iraq war does something for Israel? If not, why would orthodoxy have any effect on Jewish opinion?
Dameocrat-
First, I wasn’t speaking only about the Orthodox. I would include many traditional non-Orthodox Jews, along with the serious core of the Conservative movement, and possibly a small number of “cultural” Jews.
Next, I’m not accusing you of malice, but be careful with statements like that. We’ve had too much accusation that (Jewish, neo-con, Elders of Zion, take your pick) support for the war is based solely on how it benefits Israel.
Now, to answer your question. Completely apart from Israel, Orthodox Jews, on the average, tend to lean rightward, especially on social issues and foreign policy. The social issues part is fairly obvious (although, like everything else, arguable). Regarding foreign policy, the Orthodox tend to combine (1) gratitude toward and high regard for the USA (google “Medina shel Chessed”) (some ultra-Orthodox excepted); (2) suspicion of Europe, the Arab world, and the ‘global community’; (3) a strong belief in the reality of evil (and less willingness to explain away or relativize evil actions) and (4) the belief that force is often necessary in fighting evil. Also, (5) while Orthodox Jews are in many ways the Jews most removed (as compared to all Jews) from the American mainstream, they generally frown on the “alienated intellectual” stance (or is that pose?) more commonly found among left-leaning Jews.
Individuals or groups with these characteristics tend to support the war in Iraq (as they did the Cold War before it).
Now, before I get deluged with responses from people who don’t fit my statements above (left-wing Jews who are not alienated; Orthodox Jews who are liberal; alienated Jews with 27 Jewish grandchildren; right-wingers who oppose the war, etc.), remember that I speak here in generalities. I acknowledge that there are numerous exceptions.
From the JTA today:
AJCommittee lauds Bush on Iraq
The American Jewish Committee congratulated President Bush on last week’s elections in Iraq.
“This success could not have been achieved without two things,” said the letter, sent Monday. “The vision, statesmanship and persistence of your administration in its efforts to promote democracy and stability in Iraq; and the courage and perseverance of the United States armed forces and our allies.”
The congratulations come just days after an AJCommittee poll showed the majority of American Jews oppose the Iraq war.
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I’ll let the Jews on the board fight with you about whether you are a better jew or more entitled to be called Jewish, but the vast majority of people opposed to this war are not pacifists. This is just an extremely dumb war. It has installed an evil pro-Iranian regime in Iraq, and it was based on lies about WMD and lies about Saddam’s ties to Al Qaeda.
YEAH!
xisnotx — it’s called politics. whether bush is a war criminal or not, the meek and meager jewish public still needs bush’s ear and assistance. suxking up is a prerequisite.
Meek? this article in today’s JPost doesnt seem to agree:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/S…
World Jewry has changed, in Israel and everywhere else. Today its voice is the voice of wealth and power.
J:
“They should do a poll that includes only Jews that can reasonably expect to have Jewish grandchildren. Bet we’d see very different numbers.”
I’m not going to say very much more on this point of view other than to say that I find it deeply insulting. You might remind yourself from time to time that our boy Moshe was a prince of Egypt and behaved in a fairly goyish fashion prior to the Big Guy giving him a tap. When we start writing people off because they don’t practice quite the same way in which we do, well it may be time to turn out the lights. We should be inspiring others to lead more Jewishlly fulfilling lives…not whacking them over the noggin and enquiring about whether we have any confidence in their grandchildren being good yidden.
Now, that said, I have a real problem with the AJC poll from a statistical standpoint. Why didn’t they include the sample size? Where is the +/- error statement? I tend to write off polls that aren’t using accepted statistical method as they probably aren’t very reliable. Any poll with more than a factor of +/- 2.5 error belongs in the USA Today as a nice coloured pie chart, not to be used as a focal point for serious discussion.
Just my 2 shekels worth, anyhow.
Matityahu-
Sorry you feel that way, but there’s no reason for anyone to be insulted. By now, it’s fairly clear which approaches in life lead to a reasonable expectation of Jewish continuity and which are more risky. Given the thinking of many of the more alienated and assimilated, I don’t think they could even come up with an argument as to why having Jewish grandchildren is better than not having them.
Your view of Moshe, is, I think, backwards. Well before he was tapped by the Big Guy, the prince of Egypt risked (and ultimately lost) his princely status in order to defend a Jewish slave (this is in fact the first recorded instance of an act BY Moshe). Could be that this heroic and Jewish sort of behavior was the reason he was tapped, rather than at random. Which illustrates my point – proper action now is key to securing the future.
“When we start writing people off because they don’t practice quite the same way in which we do, well it may be time to turn out the lights.”
Heh. If that’s the standard, the lights were never on. But I wasn’t writing anyone off, only observing well-known and indisputable patterns.
And I don’t see why some “whacks in the noggin” are inappropriate. After all, what you just said to me is closer to a whack in the noggin than inspiration (not that I mind – I think hashing these issues out honestly and without sugar coating is very valuable). And I don’t inquire about granchildren being “good yidden” – the inquiry is over; the pattern of assimilation is well known. And the grandchildren won’t be any kind of yidden at all.
Dameocrat has managed to characterize the new government of Iraq, which has barely got off the ground, as evil, without a word about the character of the old government removed by the war. To quote Mr. Hand: Are you kids all on drugs??
J: It was predicted that a war would lead to a pro-Iranian Shiit goverment. Why is that a result worth fighting for, particularly given the fact that the war also antagonized Iran to such a degree that they elected the current nut case? That was also a predicted result. I don’t have kids, but the people who thought the war was a good idea might as well be on drugs. Iraq didn’t threaten us in the state it was in before, and neither did Iran. Iran was moving left before the fucking war, and they probably would have continued to had we not been so stupid. Iraqis would have overthown Saddam’s regime eventually without us. We needed to get Osama bin Laden, not install a Shiit theocracy. It was a complete waste of time, and the majority of Jews and Gentiles know this now.
What’s more disturbing, the belief that Iranian elections actually mean anything, or the idea that the Iranian leadership’s lunacy has anything to do with the Iraq war? Let’s call it a tie and think of poor Mr. Hand again (Sean Penn’s teacher, come to think of it).
And this-
“Iraqis would have overthown Saddam’s regime eventually without us.”
Yeah, and the rapist would have stopped raping without police interference eventually, too. Disgusting.
J: What did it have to do with the Iraq War? Ever heard of the pnac. http://www.villagevoice.com/ne… Iran was their next stop. So the Iranians elected their own George Bush, to defend themselves. A belicose religious fanatic. Anyway, you can’t hide the fact that it was more important to stop a rapist of Americans known as Osama bin Laden. Furthermore there were worse tyrants on earth than Saddam. The next government of Iraq will probably be as bad, which was again predicted, so it wasn’t worth it.
Oh boy. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough before.
I thought the notion that the Iraqis would have overthrown Saddam eventually to be incredibly flip (think feet-first into plastic plastic shredders, or ponder the term ‘professional rapist’),as well as overly speculative and probably wrong (after over 30 years in power, you need some specific reason to claim that things were going to change). A human rights supporter you are not.
“So the Iranians elected their own George Bush, ”
The IRANIANS? Who exactly elects anyone in Iran? (Hint: not the “Iranians”.) And is this guy the first fanatic to be Iran’s frontman? How do you explain all the past eruptions of insanity? Jimmy Carter’s bellicosity?
“Anyway, you can’t hide the fact that it was more important to stop a rapist of Americans known as Osama bin Laden. ”
It’s called multitasking.
“Furthermore there were worse tyrants on earth than Saddam.”
Arguable. Even if true, how many repeatedly violated their agreement with the USA and allies over the course of ten years?
“The next government of Iraq will probably be as bad, which was again predicted, so it wasn’t worth it.”
Stunning. You’ve already concluded that the next government will be as bad, based on ….what? Prophecy? Oh, it was “predicted”? Who predicted? Just anyone? Or do you get to pick the prediction retroactively? Right now, we have predictions going every which way. We can wait and see, and no matter what the outcome, it will have been “predicted” by someone.
Are these predictions, or hopes? You wouldn’t want to give the impression that your’e rooting for failure, now would you?
Could one of the responsible liberals explain all this? I’ll pay it forward next time a crazy far rightist blows up here. I’m getting tired of typing.
J:
The justifications you use for your view strike to the very heart of what I was criticising in the ‘poll’ conducted by AJC.
‘By now, it’s fairly clear which approaches in life lead to a reasonable expectation of Jewish continuity and which are more risky.’
Really? Where are these studies then? And I’d be interested to see the polling samples used. Sorry, but I think you’re using the same dodgy statistical methods as our friends at the AJC. It’s not enough to pick out a set of numbers that support our point of view and exclude the others. If I were to extrapolate you reasoning, I would have to wonder why the Jewish world is currently so diverse and not solely inhabited by only folks who would measure up as observant in your eyes. Secularism isn’t something new to our generation; one need only read the average Haftorah and listen to the propehts extolling Jews in classical times to rail against secularism and return to G-d.
‘But I wasn’t writing anyone off, only observing well-known and indisputable patterns.’
Sorry, mate, but when I view your justification against your original statement, ‘They should do a poll that includes only Jews that can reasonably expect to have Jewish grandchildren.’ I can’t help but be drawn to the conclusion that you were intending to be exclusionary.
As far as Moshe goes, the point that I was trying to make is that something was inside of him and it took a spark to bring that out. Don’t be so quick to assume that the Jews you judge as being secular today won’t have Jewish grandchildren in time to come. If Moshe can come from a secular life to lead us out of slavery, then surely there is hope for all of us.
‘And I don’t inquire about granchildren being “good yidden” – the inquiry is over; the pattern of assimilation is well known. And the grandchildren won’t be any kind of yidden at all.’
That’s a crap argument, if I can be frank. Who decided the inquiry was over? YOU? You need to give people a bit more credit than you are presently I think.
In any case, I stick to my original argument. I find it difficult to believe that the AJC used good solid statistical methods, so I’m not sure how much credence I can put into their findings. I think it sad that some folks believe that judments were rushed because of faulty intelligence, but they are prepared to swallow any poll which tries to appear definitive simply to support their own views.
Dameocrat:
I don’t think I need ask where your political leanings are as you spell it out pretty clearly in your name, but I have a real problem intellectually with your argument.
‘Furthermore there were worse tyrants on earth than Saddam.’
Okee dokee, please do tell us which other tyrant you think we should have gone after. If Saddam didn’t have WMD, why did he intenionally play ‘chicken’ with the most powerful nation on earth? And why did he continue to flout UN resolutions? The only thing I can think of is that he was more afraid of his own people and the other tyrants around him to really tell the truth.
‘The next government of Iraq will probably be as bad, which was again predicted, so it wasn’t worth it.’
Crikey, well in that case you may as well give the good ol USA back to her Majesty then. Last time I checked, American democracy was hardly perfect after the initial revolution of 1776. And, now help me here as I’m over here in the UK, wasn’t a ‘Civil War’ fought between 1861 and 1865 where more US soldiers lost their lives than all other conflicts COMBINED? So, by your logic, it wasn’t worth it so you may wish to start drinking more tea and accepting that it is the letter ‘zed’ and not just ‘z’ at the end of the alphabet.
Mat:He did allow inspectors in. Bush invaded anyway, because he wouldn’t believe the inspectors.
They didn’t have a revolution. We installed fundies that will let us have their oil. What happened in the 1860s, happened in our own country.
J:I dont’ support forcing other countries to do my bidding unless they threaten me, and Iraq didn’t. I don’t have an obligation to invade every country that violates civil rights. That is why the neocons are insane fuckers. We can’t multitask. We don’t have enough soldiers.
BTW, here is what Arabs vote for when given and opportunity.
Akef, whose group won 88 of the Egyptian parliament’s 454 seats in elections in November and December, made his comment in an attack on the United States’ assertion that it is promoting democracy in the Middle East.
He said the U.S. campaign was a cover for promoting its own interests and those of the Zionist movement in the region.
`American democracy … steers the world into the American orbit delineated by the sons of Zion, so that everyone must wear the Stars and Stripes hat and keep away from the Zionist foster child,” he wrote in his weekly statement.” NY Times
This is what our soldiers died for.
BTW, methodist, baptists and Catholics didn’t have their own private militias in 1176, so the argument that this is in anyway comparable to the American revolution is a sick joke. One Iraqis didn’t fight for it themselves, two it is in no way a liberal democracy. It is a theocracy, and will be until it is violently overthrown.
Dameocrat:
I wasn’t drawing equivalence between the invasion of Iraq with the American revolution per se. I was pointing out that the US didn’t have what one could describe as a fully functioning and robust liberal democracy following the revolution of 1776. Further, whilst the Civil War isn’t necessarily equivalent to the sectarian violence seen in Iraq at the moment, it would be naieve to believe that there won’t be some violent episodes in Iraq as the insurgents and others seek to reverse efforts to introduce democracy. It took the Civil War of 1861-1865 to shake out major differences that the states had regarding the federal system, and there was a serious amount of bloodshed.
These aren’t ‘sick jokes’, it is known as critical and historical analysis.
‘BTW, here is what Arabs vote for when given and opportunity.’
Wow. Just replace ‘Arabs’ with ‘blacks’ or ‘women’ or even ‘Jews’ and I hope you will be able to see just how misguided and condescending that statement is. So we should only encourage those to vote who will do something meaningful with it, or say the things that we agree with? You’ve just wiped out most of the American populace with that logic.
I surely don’t approve of the anti-Semitism which does seem to be rife within Iraq, but you firstly have to ask yourself who fomented it in the first place (look no further than your buddy Saddam) and secondly ask yourself if there’s any hope of changing such opinions and baseless hatred without democracy. It may take a while, but I’ll take my chances with a functional democracy thanks very much.
Ok, ask yourself what formented it. Maybe it was the war? We’re taking their oil, not creating a functioning democracy, and the support of the conservative Jewish community for the war, fuels protocols rhetoric.
Dameocrat:
So the invasion of Iraq fomented anti-Semitism that was already present in Iraq? I think your logic is just a bit on the flawed side, or am I the only one who remembers the pictures of a simling Saddam handing out cheques to the families of suicide bombers in the Territories?
The sole argument of ‘if they hate us, it must be something that we’re doing’ smacks of shtetl mentatlity. I had hoped that we had moved on from all that, but I guess not.
He was giving checks to people who died in the intada most of whom were not suicide bombers. Look J dismssed Iran as being undemocratic, therefore their leader wasn’t reflective of any will of the people, but the exact same style of “Islamic Democracy” is being installed in Iraq, but according to you and J it is just a flawed baby democracy, and our soldiers should die for it. What kind of sense does that make? None. Look Iraqis don’t want liberal democracy. They want Iranian Islamic Democracy. Why should our soldiers die for what J aknowledges is not a real democracy? I didn’t see Saddam stone any adulteresses. This regime in Iraq will do precisely that. I won’t sacrifice any of my male relative for this form of government and most Americans agree with me. That is why they can’t get anyone to fight there and there is no call for a draft. Look if you want democracy in Iraq volunteer for the military and fight for it yourself.
Dameocrat:
You’re deluding yourself to believe that your buddy Saddam was handing out cheques to Palestinians who died in the Intifada but weren’t suicide bombers. Saddam supported and encouraged anti-Semitism, and this was the case well prior to the invasion of Iraq. Sorry, but you’re argument that the Iraqis have suddenly become anti-Semitic as a result of the invasion and conservative Jewish support just doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
The fact of the matter is you probably wouldn’t agree to the use of military force for any cause, so my argument of the use of force to remove Saddam and introduce democracy isn’t ever likely to sway you in any event.
I think your logic is just as flawed as the undocumented statistical methods used by the AJC to produce the ‘poll’ which started this thread to begin with.
My buddy Saddam. Come off it. What a strawman. I agreed with the use of military force in Afganistan so you wouldn’t know a fact if it kicked in the butt. I want to get bin Laden. He is the enemy.
Saddam didn’t cause democratic Egyptians to believe in the protocols, or his own people. That is just endemic in the Arab world and when we invade their countries based on lies it fuels it, and makes it worse The Democracy they want isn’t a democracy by J’s standards, so why the hell die for it, when we have better things to do like getting bin Laden.
Matityahu: according to this report in MEMRI, Saddam’s largesse went beyond the families of suicide bombers:
http://memri.org/bin/articles….
July 31, 2002 No.6
VI. Distribution of Saddam’s Gifts Among Families of Martyrs in Jenin, Khan Yunis, and Rafah
“The Ba’ath Party and the Arab Liberation Front held a big rally in Jenin to honor relatives of martyrs and to distribute President Saddam Hussein’s gifts amounting to $10,000 for each martyr and $25,000 for each suicide martyr. The hall was decorated with pictures of President Saddam Hussein, Iraqi and Palestinian flags, and slogans hailing the unity between the two nations…” [8]
“Saddam Hussein’s grants were distributed among 48 families of the Intifada martyrs in Khan Yunis and Rafah… The celebration included speeches honoring Saddam’s support of the Palestinian revolution … and the crowds shouted slogans in support of Iraq and its leader…” [9]
According to this Israeli source,
http://www.intelligence.org.il…
he also payed out between 1,000-25,000 to Palestinians whose homes were destroyed.
As for the origins of anti-Semitism in Iraq, you have to look back at the pogroms that started in ’41: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrar…
Matityahu:
Point by point-
I said “By now, it’s fairly clear which approaches in life lead to a reasonable expectation of Jewish continuity and which are more risky.’
You replied
“Really? Where are these studies then? And I’d be interested to see the polling samples used. Sorry, but I think you’re using the same dodgy statistical methods as our friends at the AJC. It’s not enough to pick out a set of numbers that support our point of view and exclude the others.”
Sorry, no. The AJC poll which started this thread is more of a one-shot deal (I believe you would call it one-off), so it’s legitimate for you to question it. For the points I’ve made, I rely on decades’ worth of studies, done by many different organizations, the results of which, in general, are not disputed here in the USA. Even those parties which would have reason to oppose the results, such as the Reform movement, tend to accept them. There is hardly any reason not to accept them, except for wishful thinking. Do a few Google searches and see for yourself. And I haven’t been selective in my presentation of numbers; I simply presented the broad consensus.
“If I were to extrapolate you reasoning, I would have to wonder why the Jewish world is currently so diverse and not solely inhabited by only folks who would measure up as observant in your eyes. ”
First, you are putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about who measures up as observant. (My opinion on this is more complex than you might think.) In fact, some of the groups I mentioned as likely to have Jewish grandchildren are not usually described as observant.
To answer your question, today’s diverse Jews are descended from centuries of Jews (prior to Emancipation) who were far less diverse in their views of Judaism. And assimilation is rapidly eating away at many segments of our diverse population today. Secular Judaism would seem to be a temporary thing.
“Secularism isn’t something new to our generation; one need only read the average Haftorah and listen to the propehts extolling Jews in classical times to rail against secularism and return to G-d.”
And whose point does this prove? What happened to the descendants of the people who didn’t listen to the Prophets?
“Sorry, mate, but when I view your justification against your original statement, ‘They should do a poll that includes only Jews that can reasonably expect to have Jewish grandchildren.’ I can’t help but be drawn to the conclusion that you were intending to be exclusionary. ”
Not exclusionary at all. If anything, I’m lamenting that many Jews exclude themselves, where I would like them to be included. But to me, inclusion doesn’t include observing behavior that demonstrably leads to the disappearance of Jews and smiling benevolently on it.
My original point was that, in the USA, there is a marked difference in the politics of Jews, and the fault line is often between those Jews who care deeply about the continuity of the Jewish people and those who don’t. It may be different where you are from.
“As far as Moshe goes, the point that I was trying to make is that something was inside of him and it took a spark to bring that out. Don’t be so quick to assume that the Jews you judge as being secular today won’t have Jewish grandchildren in time to come. If Moshe can come from a secular life to lead us out of slavery, then surely there is hope for all of us. ”
I don’t think it was a “spark”, but rather a choice to behave in a moral and heroic way that defines Moshe, but maybe your’e a Kabbalist 🙂 . In any given case, I agree with you that people who are secular now may produce spectacular Jewish descendants. But statistically, considering the entire group, it’s not going to happen too often. You could take your life savings and lunch money and buy lottery tickets. It’s always possible you’ll win the lottery, but surely you agree that this is not a good idea.
“‘And I don’t inquire about granchildren being “good yidden” – the inquiry is over; the pattern of assimilation is well known. And the grandchildren won’t be any kind of yidden at all.’
That’s a crap argument, if I can be frank. Who decided the inquiry was over? YOU? You need to give people a bit more credit than you are presently I think. ”
And who decided I was wrong? YOU? See, that non-argument always cuts both ways. The inquiry is over because the patterns are well established, not because I say so, of course. And you need to accept tragic facts and assign credit as it is deserved, not based on wishful thinking.
Look, I think your’e a well-meaning person, and your errors are caused because you find the reality of assimilation to be horribly depressing (and I’m with you there). But you won’t do anyone any good by denying the obvious. You wanted to be frank with me when you called my argument crap? That’s fine. (I’d be insulted if you held back, in fact.) Now be frank with the rest of the world as well.
isnt the critique of the left that the arabs just don’t want democracy always amusing, do they base that on some genetic defect of arabs, if so perhaps we should bar all arabs from the west; and the the reform movements outburst (on behalf of all jews) against the war is revelatory of a warped state of mind, isn’t that the same jewish group that hectors the fundamentalist right for attempting to involve religion with politics? amd for those who attempt to defend hussein, if rape rooms, state rapists, state tongue and hand removers, 300 to 500 thousand iraquis murdered, l million killed in the war he started with iran, and the attempt to absorb kuwait aren’t enough to justify the removal of evil, then lets just retire from the world, forget aids, forget afridca, forget the sudan, forget kosovo, none of it matters so long as i’m all right jack.
Was abu ghraib not a rape room? Anyway, I don’t base this claim on geneitics. I base it on behavior. They created an Islamic fundamentalist constitution and just voted for an Islamic fundamentalist government. That is Islamic Democracy, same as Iran and not in any way worth one American life.
Iraq: Game Over
Robert Dreyfuss
December 22, 2005
The last hope for peace in Iraq was stomped to death this week. The victory of the Shiite religious coalition in the December 15 election hands power for the next four years to a fanatical band of fundamentalist Shiite parties backed by Iran, above all to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Quietly backed by His Malevolence, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, sustained by a 20,000-strong paramilitary force called the Badr Brigade, and with both overt and covert support from Iran’s intelligence service and its Revolutionary Guard corps, SCIRI will create a theocratic bastion state in its southern Iraqi fiefdom and use its power in Baghdad to rule what’s left of the Iraqi state by force.
The consequences of SCIRI’s victory are manifold. But there is no silver lining, no chance for peace talks among Iraq’s factions, no chance for international mediation. There is no centrist force that can bridge the factional or sectarian divides. Next stop: civil war.
There isn’t any point in looking for silver linings in the catastrophic Iraqi vote. The likely next prime minister, Adel Abdel Mahdi, is a smooth-talking SCIRI thug. His boss, Abdel Aziz Hakim of SCIRI, is the former commander of the Badr Brigade and a militant cleric who has issued bloodthirsty calls for a no-holds-barred military solution to the insurgency. The scores of secret torture prisons by the SCIRI-led Iraqi ministry of the interior will proliferate, and SCIRI-led death squads will start going down their lists of targets. The divisive, sectarian constitution that was rammed down Iraq’s throat in October by the Shiite religious bloc will be preserved intact under the new, “permanent government” of Iraq led by SCIRI………
The more perceptive among U.S. intelligence officials and Iraq experts know how to read the situation, and they mostly believe it is hopeless. “I hate to say, ‘Game over,'” says Wayne White, who led the State Department’s intelligence effort on Iraq until last spring. “But we’ve lost it.” There is no mechanism for the Sunnis now to restore a modicum of balance in Iraq, and the Shiite religious parties have no incentive to make significant concessions either to the Sunnis or to the resistance, White says.
Most worrying is the fact that centrist elements in Iraq—ranging from the CIA’s favorite candidate, Iyad Allawi, to the Pentagon’s chosen vehicle, Ahmed Chalabi—got blown away. Therefore, as I had hoped earlier (and wrote, in this space, two weeks ago, in a piece called “Iraq’s Last Small Hope,” and again, last week, in “Iraq’s Tipping Point”), any chance that someone like Allawi could emerge as a power broker who could bridge the divide between religious Shiites and the Sunni-led resistance is gone. The planned-for Arab League peace conference, scheduled for late February or early March, likely won’t happen. Violence will intensify.
I assume that Arabs that come to America want real democracy, not the Islamic kind, so no I don’t want to keep them out of the country. Indeed I want to give Iraqis asylum from the nightmare of Iraq.
J:
You make a lucid and analytical argument, and I don’t wish to take anything away from that. Indeed, it does occur to me that we may be arguing two sides of the same argument. I’d also like to clarify, for the record, that I am not a Kabbalist. I’m a committed Jew who still has many years of Torah study left to go before I could even consider the study of Kabbalah. I was merely trying to point out that Jews, like many people, can surprise you when you least expect it. Had we viewed Moshe prior to his getting the ‘tap’, I doubt few of us would have bet any money on his grandchildren being Jews. Flash forward to today and I thnk we should be more optimistic about the future. To wit, I’ve been hearing that Yiddish is going to die since the early 80s. I haven’t read any obituary yet.
‘First, you are putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about who measures up as observant. (My opinion on this is more complex than you might think.) In fact, some of the groups I mentioned as likely to have Jewish grandchildren are not usually described as observant.’
Fair enough, but your original statement was ‘They should do a poll that includes only Jews that can reasonably expect to have Jewish grandchildren.’ By what other criteria would you propose measuring such a thing? The numerous polls you allude to but don’t specifically reference (I don’t need to Google as I’m well aware of the stats and the polling done historically) have often used observance as a measurement of commitment to the Judaism and the Jewish people. This seems somehow flawed, in my mind, as I know plenty of frum from birth who have left and plenty secular who have come back, so I don’t think it is a fair measurement of who will or won’t have Jewish grandchildren in the future.
In any event, I’ll retract the use of ‘crap’ as regards your argument and replace it with ‘pessimistic’ which is a more fair representation I think of where you were headed. I don’t see any value in polling ‘only Jews that can reasonably expect to have Jewish grandchildren’ unless you come up with a statisitcal method which can accuraltey represent which of us today can ‘reasonably expect’ to have Jewish grandchildren. Moreover, I think it would be counterproductive in any effort to fight the assimilation that you quite rightly point out as being depressing.
We shouldn’t just challenge the views of the assimilated or those heading in that direction regarding Judaism. We should also question our own as to how we can make Judaism relevant and attractive to the ‘assimilated’.
Dameocrat:
‘Was abu ghraib not a rape room?’
When Saddam Hussein was in charge, you bet your life it was. If you are referring to the use of Abu Ghraib as a US Military Prison, I’m not convinced that it was. And let’s not forget that those responsible for abuse at Abu Ghraib are now being tried by the US military. That’s what we call democracy in action where I hail from. I don’t recall any investigations into Abu Ghraib during Saddam’s tenure, but I’m willing to learn.
What I think really irritates ‘progressive Democrats’ is that you hae been arguing for years that the US should ‘do something’ about tyrants and evil dictators that the US government has previously done business with in the interests of realpolitik. Now the Republicans have co-opted the idea of humanitarian intervention, and you folks don’t like it and sigh loudly about how much better things would be if only Kerry were in charge. Let’s not forget that it was Clinton’s indecisivness that brought about Bin Laden’s becoming bolder and bolder as the US failed to respond in any meaningful way. Although Bill did manage to blow up an aspirin factory with some cruise missiles whilst tring to formulate a response, but I’m sure that you’ll tell me that this had no effect on inflaming tensions with the Sudanese or ‘Arab street’ and didn’t embolden the Islamic militants in any way.
The peon soldiers are the only ones that have been punished for Abu Ghraib. Gonzalez was rewarded for it with the attorney generalship, and Cheney and Rumsfeld are still working and free last I checked. Nobody that thought torture was a good idea has been punished in any way.
I don’t absolve the Democrats, but Bill’s role is minor in comparison to Hillary who voted for the war, and in comparison to all those dems in the 80s that funded Osama and his ilk in Afghanistan.
BTW, it was never a humanitarian intervention. It was perpetrated based on stovepiped lies about WMD and links to Osama bin Forgotten. Probably just to get Iraq’s oil.
its a precept of judaism that we primarily care about what you do, not what you think. none of us knows bush’s inermost thoughts, that’s g-d’s preserve; what we do know is that he deposed an evil tryant who terrorized his own people and the nations around him – that’s why g-d will look with favor on bush. i don’t recall a democratic uproar when we went into kosovo with much less justification, oh i forgot, that was clinton’s war, therefor it was obviously a good thing, sorry. i guess we are talking about the victory of party identification over objective jacts, who said faith can’t determine reality.