Mondoweiss: But then again maybe I’m a paranoid conspiratorial self-hating Jew. Maybe Jeffrey Goldberg’s diagnosis of Glenn Greenwald applies to me as well: Maybe someone beat me up when I was a kid in Yeshiva! Remember Goldberg’s diagnosis:
“Self-hatred is a deeply-inexact description of the people this reader is trying to describe. In my experience, those Jews who consciously set themselves apart from the Jewish majority in the disgust they display for Israel, or for the principles of their faith, are often narcissists, and therefore seem to suffer from an excess of self-regard, rather than self-loathing. “Self-hater” is a euphemism, then, for “auto-anti-Semite,” or some other such locution. I generally try to stay away from such descriptions (though there are some very obvious candidates for the label of auto-anti-Semite, including the John Mearsheimer-endorsed neo-Nazi Gilad Atzmon).” ….I often suspect that some really bad shit happened to him [Greenwald] in Hebrew school…… (This is not to say I don’t admire some of his stands, including his forthright stance against torture — of course, this is a very Jewish position to take, if you ask me.)
I’m not a shrink, but it’s very strange to me that Goldberg so unselfconsciously talks about “narcissists” and “an excess of self regard.” If there are any characteristics you guys all share, it’s exactly that. Go down the list: Jeffrey Goldberg, Jennifer Rubin, Marty Peretz, Rabbi Boteach, Bret Stephens, Daniel Goldhagen, Alan Dershowitz. The list goes on and on. The preening self confidence, the nauseating degree of self righteousness, the smugness, the sanctimonious moralizing, the lecturing, the hectoring, the unscrupulousness, the lack of humility and of course– no sense of fair play at all.
Where does Jeffrey Goldberg get this chutzpah? He admires some of Greenwald’s stands, like on torture, but we all know: that’s “a very Jewish position.” Poor Glenn Greenwald. Who knows what happened to him in Hebrew school, and now Goldberg can’t even let him have his anti-torture position in peace. No, it’s the “Jew in you”! That’s the only reason you’re against torture, Glenn Greenwald.
If I were Jeffrey Goldberg I would be a little concerned that perhaps history is more likely to say Jeffrey Goldberg got beaten up in Hebrew school– and that’s why little insecure Jeffrey thought Meir Kahane’s JDL “had all the answers” as he put it, at a time when the Kahanists were beating up black people, because as much as he prayed and fantasized at night about going back in time and killing Hitler it didn’t look like it was happening. And then Jeffrey realized that American inner-cities are small potatoes. He could get on a plane and get a real gun and be in his very own Jewish army and shoot Arabs, or at least be a prison guard.
And then Jeffrey thought to himself “Anyone can be a prison guard for Arabs”– maybe Hashem has bigger plans for me. Maybe I can become one of those Middle East experts! If you know the right people you never know how the gig will turn out. And lo and behold now Jeffrey Goldberg is America’s “most influential Jewish Journalist;” instead of imprisoning Arabs he can fight the good cause in less brutal ways.
There’s a special place in Jewish heaven for Jeffrey Goldberg for all the extracurricular work he did surrounding Trump’s Aipac speech.
Before the speech, Goldberg was very clear about what was happening: Trump is a fascist. Here are three of his retweets:
First, the Trump -Hitler comparison.
- If the Hitler comparison is so flawed then why do 100% of the antisemitic replies to my tweets come from Trump supporters?
Second, Jews have very good ears for these things and they hear echos of fascism from Trump.
Third, Aipac is going to be Trump’s “toughest room yet.”
So you see, Jeffrey was all ready to demonstrate to America once again the moral superiority of Jews: the special ears we have for fascists. He should have realized though that it is much easier to convince his readers how wonderful Jews are by repeating the standard talking points every day ad nauseum than actually having an almost scientific experiment in which you could compare Jews’ and non Jews’ reaction to a Trump speech. Seems just a little risky. But understandable: years of bullying everyone has made Jeffrey feel invincible. Because maybe Jeffrey should have entertained the possibility for a brief moment that all of the wonderful things he thinks and says about the Jews and Israel might be influenced so very, very slightly by, you know, his ethnicity and Kahane and the JDL and the IDF and being an Israeli prison guard and all that stuff.
Because maybe Jews are just like everyone else and they might actually respond to Trump like other crowds do!
Yikes. Poor Jeffrey. The Aipac crowd didn’t act as hoped for. They applauded!!! Raucously, with several standing ovations. So he really needed to work his magic now: 15,000 delirious Jews responding to Trump. What does Goldberg do? Well, he’s been here before. Main thing is not to panic.
First try denying reality:
Translation “WoW! Trump used his Trumpian evil magic (brilliant what the words “quite effectively” contribute to the meaning of the sentence! ) to get the 75? 100? Obama haters in the crowd of twenty thousand to express their displeasure with Obama.
Problem: even the most influential Jewish Journalist in America can’t get people to believe his tweet over their eyes and ears!
Second, Nothing to see here.
Pro-Israel audience. What’s that about? Why not write the “Jewish audience.” Because it can’t hurt to suggest the 45 Christian Evangelicals in the Aipac arena were making all that ruckus.
And did you notice, “likes” Trump speech instead of, you know, “loving” his speech.
But that still doesn’t solve the big problem. Jeffrey needed to tell the goyim what the correct way to understand what happened is, with the minimum damage to the good guys. It’s amazing just how impervious Goldberg feels here from even needing to have a defensible position on his favorite subject: the evils of prejudice.
True he had no good answer that would satisfy the goyim. He had foolishly set himself up by drinking his own Kool-aid. He believed his own propaganda. Aipac Jews were “better” than an average Trump crowd. When any non Jew (if they dared) could have told Jeffrey that the Aipac crowd would be just as loud as the rest of Trump’s rallies, if Trump just told the Aipac crowd what they wanted to hear.
Thankfully Goldberg still had one thing left, his moral authority:
Those of you who are surprised a pro-Israel audience likes a pro-Israel speech by Donald Trump should stop being surprised.
You should know better than to even think these Jews are doing something wrong! And you need to stop thinking those things immediately!
But why, Jeffrey? Can you explain why different rules and standards apply to Jews? Why is it OK for Jews to act like that when they hear a bigot but nobody else? Jeffrey what are you doing here? What is this all about? Why are you trying to mislead everyone?
I know nobody else can suggest a motive. But what’s your answer?
Jeffrey Goldberg has long ago lost the ability to realize how he comes across to other people. Especially when you look at his own motive-mongering. Remember this piece, “Andrew Sullivan Is Frightened by Complexity.”
If it is condescending to think that Andrew Sullivan — formerly an embarrassingly rabid Zionist, who lately has become an embarrassingly rabid anti-Zionist — doesn’t know much about the Middle East, and fears its complexity, well, I guess I’m guilty. …… (I remember when Andrew, of course, characterized Palestinians as devils and thought Israelis wore halos, but this was before, as he told me over lunch one day a couple of years ago, he realized that Netanyahu, in his opinion, was standing in the way of President Obama’s destiny. Once Netanyahu got in the way, Andrew said, he was finished defending Israel).
It’s fairly obvious that both sides in the conflict have screwed-up, in different ways and at different times. But to acknowledge that this is all very complicated is to forgo the opportunity to demonize Israel and its Jewish supporters, and Andrew wouldn’t want to miss that opportunity.
1. “Formerly an embarrassingly rabid Zionist”= you were always a little crazy in the head even when you were on our side. Now you’re crazy in the head in their side.
2. “Characterized Palestinians as devils”= you were a fanatic when you were on our side. Now you’re a fanatic on their side.
3. During lunch Andrew “told me” = Not something I heard, a rumor or a guess or an assumption. Andrew himself told me what I’m about to tell you. Look what Golberg is doing to his erstwhile friend. He had lunch with his then friend and takes a couple of words that Sullivan said totally out of context and turns it into, This is what Sullivan told me with his own mouth. Wait, who does things like this?
4. Netanyahu standing in the way of Obama’s destiny, so Sullivan finished defending Israel = Andrew really knows Israel is “correct” but she is standing in the way of (Sullivan’s irrational almost religious obsession with) Obama’s destiny. Sullivan– Goldberg is telling his readers– is willing to cloud his own judgment or lie or trick himself because: He just Can’t think straight when something gets into the way of Obama’s destiny.
Of course Sullivan never characterized Palestinians as devils. Sullivan simply used to accept the Goldberg narrative of Israel/Palestine as reality; but no good deed goes unpunished. This is what absolutely no scruples looks like…
When Ayelet Waldman, an Israeli American writer, makes a (light-hearted) tweet about Israelis–
she does not have to wait long for the arbiter of all things moral Jeffrey Goldberg to denounce it as “blatant prejudice.”
And what tends to happen with these things happened. The most moral subgroup of the most moral people in the world are forced to take a moral stand:
And then, produce a follow up article about the “controversy.”
Novelist Ayelet Waldman spars with Jeffrey Goldberg over Israel’s “#nationalcharacter”
And Ayelet Waldman is left pleading/hoping for a pass:
But wait, let’s look at one of comrade Kirchick’s tweets.
What brought on Kirchick labeling millions and millions of Austrians as Nazis? Nothing more than the victory of a right wing Austrian political party whose leader as it happens, was in Israel two weeks ago at the invite of the Likud party (the most moral political party of the most moral country in the world) meeting government ministers.
“[Heinz-Christian] Strache, who arrived in Israel on Monday night, told Channel 1 TV on Wednesday that he had met with government ministers during the course of his visit, but declined to mention names, saying that he had promised confidentiality.”
Let me just guess what Jeffrey Goldberg’s response to Kirchick’s tweet would be:
“Those of you that are surprised that James Kirchick tweeted a prejudiced tweet about Austria should stop being surprised.”
But no. Jeffrey Goldberg has created a fantasy life for himself about Jews, Israel and the world in which the most anodyne observation– Waldman again:
results in this:
Since it’s a Jewish occupation, if you’re not surprised by resistance, that means you believe the “Jews had it coming apparently.”
For too long Jeffrey Goldberg has done his darnedest to intimidate everyone from asking him why there are different rules for Jews and Israel than for everyone else. If Goldberg keeps it up he might very well have a bunch of Jewish kids holding a seder on his lawn next Pesach.
