03/17/09 – Philip Weiss – The Scott Horton Show

For Antiwar.com, I'm Scott Horton.
This is Antiwar Radio.
Our first guest today is Philip Weiss.
He's an investigative journalist.
He's written for the New York Observer, The Nation, the American Conservative, National Review, Washington Monthly, New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Harper's, Jewish World Review.
He also wrote the 2004 book, American Taboo, A Murder in the Peace Corps.
And he writes the great blog Mondoweiss, which you can find at philipweiss.org.
That's one L in Philip, Weiss, W-E-I-S-S, philipweiss.org.
Welcome back to the show, Phil.
How are you?
Good, Scott.
I forgot I wrote all that stuff.
Must have been another lifetime.
Well, that's quite a record of accomplishment there.
I realized late I didn't have a bio open in front of me, so I quickly poached all that from the Wikipedia there.
Wow, wow, okay.
I'd believe it then if it was on Wikipedia.
Well, yeah, you know, they got their footnotes and everything's cross-checked eventually.
That's good.
All right.
Well, I sure appreciate you joining us on the show today.
Love it.
I wanted to ask you about, obviously, this Chas Freeman controversy.
And now this is the kind of thing where obviously the discussion can get very deeply inside baseball very quickly about this kind of thing.
So I hope you could at least start with giving us kind of an overview.
I think most people driving around in their truck are not too used to getting in the middle of or even caring about arguments about whoever the deputy undersecretary of whatever for something that they never heard of is.
Right.
And, you know, if you could just sort of give us the big picture and explain why it is important, the controversy over this appointment here.
Okay.
Let me take a shot at that.
That's a good standard you're setting of trying to explain this to people who are not, you know, sort of steeped in this question.
And what happened is that Admiral Dennis Blair, a retired admiral who is the director of national intelligence under Obama, a few weeks ago said he wanted to appoint a guy named Chas Freeman, retired ambassador, Saudi Arabia, 66 years old, to head the National Intelligence Council.
Now, the National Intelligence Council is just, you know, God, I don't even know the structure.
But it's one of, you know, multiple intelligence gathering operations in the federal government.
But it's sort of at the top of it because under it is like 15 intelligence organizations that report to the National Intelligence Council.
And the National Intelligence Council collates that stuff, sorts it out, and gives reports to the president and the White House.
So they don't have to sort through all that stuff.
They've got this National Intelligence Council that figures out what the facts are.
The most crucial event in the National Intelligence Council's history recently was the time a year and a half ago where they said, hey, guess what?
Iran is not near getting a nuclear weapon.
I think they've decided not to do a nuclear weapon.
It was an assessment, a national intelligence assessment just of that, saying that.
And it stopped the neocons, as Jim Loeb told you on this station, you know, on your network.
He said it stopped the neocons dead in their tracks.
And, you know, I think, if I can interrupt you just for a second, I think if there are people who have only heard of the National Intelligence Council once, that's probably when they heard of it because there was such a drumbeat about Iran.
And when they came out with that national intelligence estimate, it just completely took the wind out of the sails of the war party on the Iranian question.
November 07.
Yes.
And that I mean, the history of the Middle East could have been different, I guess, for but for that assessment.
So this is not a policymaking position, but it's a very important assessment position.
And Blair wanted to hire this guy who's 66 years old, spent four decades in American serve in the Foreign Service.
A brilliant guy.
Harvard and Yale, whatever that means.
But, you know, had been a linguist at 29.
He was interpreting Richard Nixon to the Chinese during the famous trip to China.
And in 30 years later, he's or 20 years later, he's interpreting George Bush to King Fahd in Saudi Arabia.
You know, first in Mandarin Chinese, then in Arabic.
He's a gifted linguist who, you know, in the second instance, was working on the Gulf War as the ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
So this guy has been around very professional and retires from government in the 90s and becomes the head of something called the Middle East Policy Council.
And where he's a very free thinking guy.
And in there, he advocates largely for having the Arab and Muslim point of view included in the American conversation.
And that's what did him in.
And what's crucial about what happened in the last two weeks over this is that we thought that Obama would stand by this.
The neocons went crazy over him because of statements he had made about Israel and Palestine.
And the neocons went crazy.
Their bloggers went crazy.
And they got traction on the Hill.
That was the crucial event is that senators, Republican senators and big Israel supporters like Chuck Schumer went to bat against Freeman and Obama slinked away.
He did not stand up for this guy that his own director of national intelligence wanted to appoint.
Now, why is this important?
It's important for two reasons.
First of all, it was widely reported, largely on the blogosphere.
A lot of Jewish bloggers on my side and left wing bloggers actually supported Freeman.
And they helped expose the fact that the Israel lobby did this guy in.
So it was a very public event.
And even though my side lost, our side lost, it happened in front of everybody for once.
And the second thing that happened out of this is that while they lost, it's become sort of a huge resonant event.
And I think that it's starting already to hurt them.
Because you have a lot of people coming out and saying, hey, there should not be a litmus test.
Just because someone is critical of Israel has made critical statements.
They can't serve in a mid to senior level position in government.
And I think that's resonating and is embarrassing people inside the Israel lobby.
J Street, the new alternative Israel lobby, the head of that, Jeremy Ben-Ami, said that last night.
Even though he didn't support Freeman, he said, there can't be a litmus test.
We can't limit government positions on this issue.
Well, and here's the thing about this, too, is that I think most people would be surprised, outside of Washington, D.C., anyway, to hear what this guy says about Israel, to hear that be even called anti-Israel in any sense.
Because he really sounds like he cares more about Israel than the Likudniks, who just assume drive it straight into the ground.
Right.
I think you're right.
And I think that something great is happening in this country, which is that I think a lot of Jews have a lot of power over this issue.
Let's just be plain.
I mean, I'm Jewish, but we are just engaged on this question as a special interest.
We're the Cuba lobby of this policy issue.
And what you see now is you see some liberal Jews who are saying, hey, we don't like those Likudniks, and Freeman doesn't like the Likudniks, and maybe we've got to start making common cause with the Chas Freemans of the world.
Well, and that's the whole thing.
Like I saw just this morning, someone posted up the YouTube on my blog, one of my co-bloggers there, I forgot to see who it was, of Freeman's interview on CNN with Fareed Zakaria, and he sure seemed like a reasonable guy.
And when Fareed Zakaria said to him, well, people are saying not just that you're anti-Israel, but even, you know, they're calling you an anti-Semite, or at least they're using that same term in the same sentence as your name kind of thing.
How do you feel about that?
He said he was terribly insulted, and that he just thinks that what the Likud party wants for the future of Israel is terribly destructive to America's interests, first of all, and to Israel's interests, too.
Right.
And I think that the thing that's happening is that, yeah, I agree with you, and it's a very reasonable statement, and people across the spectrum agree with him, and the issue here is political engagement.
Are the people who understand what's happening to Israel right now, that it's turning into a thuggish state, as Freeman has said, are they going to get engaged?
And are they going to allow Obama to come out against Netanyahu?
I think that that's what's critical.
Even though Obama did not support Chas Freeman, he is in a position now to sort of, say, put pressure on Netanyahu and Israel, and that's critical, is that the American government has to put pressure on that country.
Well, but has it been proven that, in fact, he's in no position to put pressure on them, that they can put all the pressure on him they want, but not necessarily the other way around?
I think that it's not proven yet.
I mean, certainly, Steve Walt concluded at the end of this episode, Barack Obama is a wimp, and I think that that's a fair conclusion.
But I think, also, we don't know yet, because Obama has sent some other signals, too.
I mean, this guy is a very careful character.
He hasn't said yet who his next nominee for that post would be, right?
No, he has not.
Well, so I guess that'll be interesting to see whether they try to fight about it again, or whether he finds someone that's much more amenable to the AEI way of looking at things.
I suspect he will not do a pro-AE guy, American Enterprise Institute guy.
That would just be beyond the pale.
And Obama knows that a lot of people are watching him right now, suspiciously on this, cratered on, crumpled on this one.
I don't think we're going to see neocons in the Obama government.
I mean, we do, obviously, there are a couple who are neocon-ish, but I feel like he's going to try to balance that.
I don't really know.
I guess I can only go by my own experience, and think back to, like, the earlier part of this century, when I first even heard of what the Likud Party even was.
I think that's a pretty foreign word, probably, to most Americans.
They don't even know what the Likud Party is, what it represents.
They never really see it on TV, except maybe this Fareed Zechariah thing was probably the first thing on TV that was this level of discussion about the existence of the lobby and what it represents.
And I thought Freeman said it well.
He kind of said it was unfortunate that he used the term Israel lobby, because he doesn't really like that term very much, because what it is is it's a Likud lobby.
And maybe it's even a Yisrael Betanyu or whatever, the hardcore right-wing party lobby.
It's not the Israel lobby in general at all.
Yeah, well, I mean, I guess we're going to find out now, because for the last 20 years, I think it has been the Israel lobby, and it's been Israel right or wrong, and yeah, that's been Likudnik policies.
The issue is now, are these Jewish organizations going to stand by Netanyahu and stand by the settlements?
Or is there going to be some significant fragmenting of that that will allow Obama to gain support in opposition?
And that's the big question.
And that is the definition of the Likud party in Israel, right, is that they're for expanding the settlements outright.
They don't even pretend otherwise.
Yes.
Well, they offer contradictory statements.
I mean, because, yes, the problem is all governments in Israel have expanded the settlements.
You know, it's been labor governments, it's been centrist governments, it's been right-wing governments.
They've all licensed this behavior.
They all offer us different rationalizations of this behavior.
And one can say that expansionism is part of the DNA of Zionism.
Even the heroes Ben-Gurion and Abba Eban, they were expansionists at some level.
So I think that we have reached this moment where, and Bill Clinton, who's a liberal Democrat, supported the settlements in 1992.
We've reached a moment where I think the two-state solution is probably dead, but we have reached a time where we're finally going to have to call the Israeli government on this question and see where they stand.
And I think you're right, they are going to stand for settlements.
And hopefully their coalition is built around that.
Well, and they're saying now that Avigor Lieberman, who's, I guess, Israel's answer to Joe Lieberman, he's going to be the foreign minister over there.
What does that portend?
I think that it's a good sign in this sense, that it's horrifying to liberal American Jews.
And therefore, it offers an opportunity to break up the monolithic lobby.
And the key here is that a monolithic lobby, giving the impression to a politician that if you take a certain vote, you're going to lose Jewish support, and Jewish support means not just votes, it means a lot of money, that breakup of the monolith is everything.
If you've got one Jewish organization coming into a congressman's office and saying, vote for the settlements, and then some other Jewish organization coming in and saying, vote against the settlements, that politician gets to make up his own mind then.
There's true debate.
And I think that is the one great thing about this Lieberman thing, is that it reveals this face, this very ugly face of Israel to American Jews, and will cause them to divide.
And that would allow an end to this kind of stranglehold on the policy process that American Jews have exercised.
Is it right to interpret what you're saying as sort of an admission that Americans who aren't Jews aren't really in any position to debate about this with their congressman?
Otherwise, they'll be an anti-semi.
It's completely improper for someone who's not Jewish to have your opinion about this situation.
I think that it is very hard.
I mean, look, it's hard enough for a Jew like myself to have this type of opinion without suffering consequences.
You know, it's hard to get work writing about this stuff.
But I think that Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street, that's one of the things he said last night in New York in a very Jewish space, the 92nd Street.
Why?
He said, look, there are non-Jews who want to get involved in this issue.
They're afraid to speak out.
We've got to have them engaged.
And what is that?
That's democracy.
It's a great thing, and I think that they're actually, this is starting to break up.
Yeah, and by the way, what is anti-Semitism anyway?
I mean, honestly, in this society, you have your Christian identity, neo-Nazi Aryan nation people, and then there's everybody else.
And there's, if you're an anti-Semite, you go and join those nut balls.
But otherwise, none of these people are anti-Semites who want to debate this issue.
You know?
Come on.
No, I agree with you.
I mean, and that's the smear tactic that's used again and again.
It was used against Walton Mearsheimer.
It was used by implication against Chas Freeman.
And it's nuts, you know?
I mean, also, I mean, there was a lot of anti-Semitism in this country, but it's largely vanished.
It's like, I mean, there's still a lot of racism in this country, but now we have a black president.
Yeah, and I, you know, I don't know.
Corruption of language, obviously, too, because you get large groups of people singularized by terms, and Jews think this, the Jews think that, and those sorts of things.
Interesting.
Yeah, sloppy language leads to, you know, broad brush and false accusations and that kind of thing.
But if I can broad rush, it looks to me, from the poll results I see, that American Jews by super majorities oppose the Likudnik policy.
It happens to be the people that run the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and whatever, who happen to agree with the Likud party.
Well, I hope you're right.
I mean, there are polls that show that most Jews oppose the division of Jerusalem.
They've never been to Jerusalem, most of them, but they're opposed to giving up an Arab capital in East Jerusalem.
You know, there are some very strong Zionist indoctrination within the Jewish community, and I think that part of what's happening with this opening up, this debate, this discussion of Chas Freeman, is finally that within the Jewish community itself, the issue of Zionism is going to be discussed more openly.
It's a great thing.
Well, I saw something in the LA Times that said the problem is Zionism, and it was a liberal Jewish writer saying that Zionism is just incompatible with peace and security in the region.
It's got to be given up, and they've got to figure out another way to do it.
Right, and what I would tell you is historic, Scott, about that, is that anti-Zionism is a long tradition in Jewish life, but this is the first piece, the one you just mentioned, is the first piece in a mainstream publication, a mainstream newspaper of the anti-Zionist point of view, in memory.
And I think those pieces appeared in the 1940s.
They appeared in the 1910s, 20s, 30s.
They didn't appear since then.
And so this is just a very important landmark in the discourse, that we, you and I and others, are starting to have an effect on even the mainstream media.
Well, and I think there's probably a common perception that the only anti-Zionist Jews are a certain very religious branch that sees humans setting up a Jewish homeland in violation of the Bible and that kind of thing.
But this guy who wrote that, you, you guys are not the most orthodox religious interpretation here.
You're looking at this from a human justice point of view.
We're looking at it from an American standpoint of minority freedom.
I mean, I'm a Jew who has incredible freedom in America.
I'm a minority.
And then am I going to support a society that denies freedom to 20% of its population?
When you talk about forming that government in Israel with the right wing and the settlers and Avigdor Lieberman, there are Arab parties in Israel.
Are they included in any of these negotiations to build a government?
No!
Is that right?
Can Americans be in favor of that?
Israeli Arabs get to vote, but they can't even participate in the government coalition?
What's wrong?
That's why many Jews wonder, how can you reconcile Zionism with democracy?
Yeah, it looks like it's going to have to be one way or the other.
That's really what's going on here, right?
That's why everything is at such a fever pitch, because the status quo cannot really be maintained.
At some point, something's got to give.
Either the Avigdor Liebermans of the world are going to kick all the last of the Palestinians out of the West Bank, or there's going to be some form of withdrawal and give it back to them, or something's got to happen.
I agree with you.
I agree.
We've reached a crisis moment.
Yeah, and a reveal moment, too.
Yeah, well, you know, Justin Raimondo says, and it looks like your article, Freeman's Fight at the American Conservative Magazine, is kind of along these lines as well.
Raimondo wrote at Antiwar.com that Freeman really won this thing by losing.
I think you're right.
Well, it's that famous Steve Rosen quote, right?
That a lobby is like a night flower, and it dies in the sunlight.
Right, and finally we're getting a little sunlight.
All right, well, hey, listen, I really appreciate your time on the show.
Hey, appreciate it, man.
All right, everybody, that's Philip Weiss.
The blog is mondoweiss at philipweiss.org.
That's one L in Philip, philipweiss.org.
He's written for the New York Observer, The Nation, The American Conservative, where he has a current article right now at amconmag.com called Freeman's Fight, The National Review, Washington Monthly, New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Harper's, Jewish World Review, and we will be right back after this.