it would take a full seminar to analyze, discuss and reference the many issues that have surfaced here.

I’ve got a full plate taking on the Environmental establishment over their crusade to end CO2 emissions….having confronted over 200 of them at a major forum today, I feel like a heretic…Martin Luther at the Vatican….Moses in Egypt….

But a few points:

> you need to distinguish the destiny of Israel as a nation/state from the Jewish identity;

> you need to recognize the many factions in the LIKKUD and perhaps educate ‘conservatives’ on their political differences lest you wind up lumping “JEWS” with “INDIANS”

gotta run…..new HDTV….gasp, gasp.

David Yerushalmi

Well and properly said. But, a school of thought cannot answer in and of itself whether Shari’a based Islam presents a clear and present danger and whether isolationism is the proper response. Your understanding of conservatism will no doubt provide you with good and valuable benchmarks, but there are no doubt times when conservatives must act to defend what is theirs. The open question is whether that is the situation today.

But even beyond that, there was yet a third overlooked aspect of the essay which for me was more important to our national existence and the aspect of Peoplehood which inheres in conservatism and that was the concluding paragraph.

All the best,

David Yerushalmi

You wrote: “We disagree on strategy. Paleos believe non-intervention and non-entanglement is the best strategy for creating a safer America, and I take it you disagree. Non-intervention is also the historically conservative strategy, and is an arguably more humane strategy. Just because we advocate self-interested neutrality in the Middle East and no foreign aid for anyone, does not mean we necessarily accept some form of moral equivalence. Some do, some don’t.”

You will recognize right away that the statement “Paleos believe non-intervention ….” suggests a kind of group think approach without substance. You attempt to add substance to it by what then follows, such as it is “safer” and more “humane”. The “safer” argument is a hard one for you to make in light of WMD, science-technology, and the fact that non-intervention allows regimes freedom of action/movement and seriously inhibits intel. Also, SANE’s Colonel T. Snodgrass does a fine job on what he defines as appeasement and you call non-intervention. But again, that is an analysis and conclusion this kind of comment discussion won’t benefit by. Finally, as to more “humane”, I would argue that exposing the world to the threat of Sharia Islam and most importantly exposing America to it is the opposite of humane.

The real point is that if you have arrived at these empirical-strategic conclusions after much deep and considered thought, I have no objections to raise but only to arrive at mine. But if these are conclusions reached because you are a “paleo”, I would only suggest that discussion belongs in the play ground. I will conclude for present purposes that it is the former.

All the best,

David Yerushalmi

You seem to write quickly, but maybe just a bit too quickly.

I believe that a careful reading of the essay and a perusal of the literature will answer most of your points so there is no need for a point-counterpoint. Much of what you say is not objectionable; some of what you say is mere polemics; and the rest of what you say is inconsequential.

But to clear the air. Our most important disagreements are empirical and so there is no need to debate them. I would suggest that the MacDonald/Buchanan/V-Dare camp is sizable and well represented in the conservative literature. I exclude what is commonly referred to as neoconservative literature. I believe I have placed them in proper context. I also exclude “main stream media” but then again so do most of us who spend time at sites such as IC.

I would also suggest that I was quite clear, as you also note by quoting from the essay itself, that a critique of Jews as a destructive source for western national existence is important and wrong to avoid. And, I would suggest that there is much to be said for why that is the case although having read MacDonald’s work, his is mostly superficial.

If the critique were to remain there, that would be fine. But the correlation between that conservative critique and the waxing on about the Palestinian plight is duplicitous at best for a conservative. At worst, it is falling prey precisely to the Elitist arguments made to destroy the West.

Now, you will not find that I have ever suggested that the US should support Israel. Indeed, I have been involved for over 15 years with a think tank which provided testimony before Congress during the Bush I loan guarantee issue. We maintained quite forcefully and did so without any other supporting voices and at great cost in the policy world that the US should not provide Israel with one penny of foreign aid: not for social projects and not military. Israel is more than capable of supporting and defending herself if she were to be able to overcome the very same disease destructive of national existence present in Zionism that is present in the West among the Elite.

Your fending off the Buchananite argument which suggests that Zionism is the main friction between Islam and the West is soft to the point of pot-bellied and does not do justice to the vigor and centrality of that argument made in those quarters and others. I won’t argue its merits here but I believe I have made that argument forcefully here and at SANE on numerous occasions (see my book review Knowing the Enemy posted here at IC).

As to neutrality, that just evinces a head-in-the-sand view of things. President Washington did not mean we should fail to fight to defend our national existence. Anyone who does not believe that Sharia faithful Islam is not a threat to our national existence in this day and age of WMD and technological warfare is fatally fooling themselves. But again, “debate” on that subject is futile.

Permit me my only “personal” response. Ethnicity should have little to do with a discussion on principle and on fact. But, it should be clear enough from my name and from my quite public presence (with bio) at the SANE Works for US web journal and elsewhere that I am Jewish. But it is similarly clear where I stand on American national existence and the American people and who and what they are as a people. Just visit the Mission Statement at SANE if you have doubts or read from our quite extensive archives. But rest assured, I am not trying to join a club by being ambivalent about my Jewishness. I have no desire to be part of a “movement” of paleocons or anyone else. My interest is solely to create an environment of discussion where serious men will take up America’s national existence in resistance to the Redirection facing the West in the certainty/uncertainty reciprocal I have described at IC on more than one occasion and at SANE.

The real failure of your “style” of comment, and it is one that comes through in many comment threads at IC when the argument erupts over “paleocons” in any number of contexts, is a notion that a rubric drives discussion. The discussion begins to read like two or three groups of young boys arguing over the righteousness of their group. You are an American and part of a People. As such you experience your life in that context quite properly. But that is an experience of Truth that is not subject to debate and argument. There are things that are subject to discussion about protecting that national existence — that People. My ethnicity or “lectur[ing] us conservatives” or even “lectur[ing] Jews about their bad habits” is not part of that discussion. You are wrong in your implication and in your tack. I believe a fair reading of my essay is that while I labeled the Left’s contempt for Jews as hatred (and that is because as Jews proper, as a unique particular people chosen by G-d, Jews represent the antithesis of the Left and the homogenous world state), my approach to the conservative critique of Jews was and is far more circumscribed. Although, I would continue to maintain that there is no getting around the “disguise” that plays itself out in a pleading of the Palestinian cause against the Zionists. But again that remains a matter outside of “debate”. You can review the literature as well as everyone else who ventures onto this discussion. Good and reasonable men will make that assessment on their own.

The essay intended to reveal two related aspects about the discourse on national existence. One, there is a quite legitimate issue related uniquely to Jews within the context of the Elite’s effort to effect a destruction of the West in the march toward the World State. Two, there is a dark tendency by conservatives to blur that issue with a banal argument that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a result of the Jews/Zionists denying the Palestinian “people” a homeland. (And, again, while Zionism is clearly a flawed Leftist ideology which bears no real theological or ontological connection to the Jewish People and their national aspirations, there simply is no conservative argument that could be legitimately proffered to support a Palestinian state.)

Finally, then, we rest at what is so often missing in these kinds of digital discussions. If anything, conservatives are conservative. Their discourse, their demeanor, their very approach to their affairs is staid, prudent and above the fray. That is a valuable lesson for all of us.

All the best,

David Yerushalmi

Further, I

I confess I am puzzled by your article.

First you don’t define conservatism, but then assert that Jews are necessarily somehow a
problem for it. You then imply that this conservatism is a sort of insidious echo of 19th century racism and proceed from there. (“western theology comes from Judaism”) However, you also don’t define what
it means to be Jewish–beyond asserting that it’s improper for “Christians” to deny those who are
“Jewish” greater Israel.

Second, I can’t claim to understand what neoconservatism means, beyond a vague association with Podhoretz. However you imply that “conservatives” somehow dismiss neocons (you seem to assume
that these are all Jewish) because “neocons” don’t believe in a “dominant white Christian state”. This
implies that conservatives are crude racists. IS this what you’re saying?

Third, the only “conservative” I know of who blames Jews for the ARab world’s hostility towards
the United States is Buchanan. I think most non-Jewish Americans are willing to support an
unpopular Israel because of a common culture they share with Jews (and Israelis). This has
nothing necessarily to do with non-Jewish Americans supporting or not supporting a “greater Israel.”
I suspect that (in this instance) many Jews would agree with Buchanan!

I’m not sure I understand your paragraph which begins with “Blind Rage.” You seem to be equating
the conservative support of the Palestinian cause with that of the political left. Whatever one may
say of Bush, he has far exceeded *any* other American president in his willingness to risk American
prestige to support Israel’s military endeavors. Reagan ordered Begin to withdraw his troops from Lebanon
and Al Haig used Lebanon as a litmus test on loyalty for his advisers (see Cannon’s biography).
Do you mean that Bush Jr. somehow hurt Israel by standing with Sharon (when no one else would?)

You then assert that for a Conservative (or do you mean Christian–you seem to conflate the two, though it’s not clear why) to deny that Greater Israel is in fact what the current Israeli state is entitled to is somehow representative of some sort of “dark power.”
How do you derive this position, when most Jews today don’t believe in it? Most Jews have given up the
Biblical ideal of “Greater Israel,” if they ever had it. HOw can conservatives be, presumably, anti-semitic
for going against the will of most Jews?

Finally you cite someone who claims that Israel is somehow “the most advanced case” of western
afflictions–after asserting that somehow Judaism lies at the west’s origins. Hence anything bad
about Israel must causally be found in the “Christian west”–and presumably much that is good
emanates out of “Jewish theology.” These are all interesting speculations, but hardly shed much light
on contemporary Jewish-Christian, let alone Jewish-Conservative relations, which are essential
for maintaining the integrity of the Israeli state today. I agree that most Jews and most non Jewish
Americans share a common culture–but this is hardly the 19th century attitude of competition
over who founded what for whom. It has rather to do with shared ideas of decency and integrity–as well
as belief in the common principles of liberalism. Medieval ideas on “who killed Christ” and “whose
religion came first” (the Muslims of course insist theirs did. ..) have little to do with current
Americans beliefs towards Jews and Israel.

That there were 19th century Conservatives who
held Neanderthal attitudes towards Jews is reprehensible. I don’t believe it’s possible to
paint contemporary American conservatives with the same brush–much of modern conservativism
has been articulated by Jews!

Mr. Yerushalmi; WHat do you mean by conservative? What do you mean by Jewish? In your
essay I recognize neither!

Best,

WNA

Second, you

1. Mr. Yerushalmi is supposedly a conservative, yet the point of his article is to criticize what he considers is the “conservative” view in regards to the Jews and he identifies it as “Jew Hatred”.

2. He begins the article addressing legitimate concerns about matters that are internal to the “Western nation-state” but then quickly changes the topic to Israel.

3. What he considers to be the “conservative” view of Israel is wrong. While Pat Buchanan may share Jimmy Carter’s favoritism for the Palestinians, the vast majority of conservatives do not. The standard, modern conservative view is quite partial to Israel. But this ought not be considered the true, traditional conservative view as discussed below.

4. It never ceases to amaze me how people can ignore the most interesting and profound parts of an article and then give so much time and attention to the most trivial aspects. The title here is “Jew Hatred?” The really intriguing part was the acknowledgement that “so much of what drives [conservative critics of Jewish patterns of behavior] is true and accurate”, to wit: Jews tend to be “the most radical, aggressive and effective of the liberal Elite…Their goal is the goal of all ‘progressives’, a determined use of liberal principles to deconstruct the Western nation state in a ‘historical’ march to the World State…Jews in the main have turned their backs on the belief in G-d…the neo-cons who, while far more bellicose than their fraternal Left, are no less dismissive of a Western political order based upon a dominant white Christian people with a strong Biblical moral order…the radical liberal Jew is a fact of the West and a destructive one.”

Those statements are what really matters, so let’s get to the real point, shall we? A true conservative is driven by opposition to radical, leftist ideology which is so threatening to his nation and culture. Of course, Jews are not the root of ALL evil but the roots of the problem of the Left trace back to the Jewish people in an extremely disproportionate way and if conservatives can’t see that then indeed they are blind and will never be able to mount a defense. And if they do recognize the heart of the problem, but are too afraid to address it, then again we “conservatives” will never get anywhere.

5. The opening paragraph is wrong. Another thing that amazes me is how LITTLE attention the Jewish issue receives in conservative circles, or any “intellectual” circles for that matter. Dr. Kevin MacDonald has very little company. The truth is that it remains the forbidden topic, and possibly more so now than at any time in world history. We desperately need more intellectual courage. Mr. Yershalmi shows some here but I wonder if can more easily say these things because he is Jew who wants to have credibility and influence in a paleoconservative publication. I think he should be more forthcoming about his ethnic background.

6. There is nothing to “disguise”. I firmly believe I speak for many when I say that we don’t have “contempt” (or hate) for Jews as individuals. We DO have contempt (or hate) for the acts of subversion for which Jews are so disproportionately to blame. We are quite capable of distinguishing between generalities that are true on the macro level and the realities of the individual on the micro level. Indeed, we do not wish ill to Jews and there is nothing disingenuous in saying that. We wish Jews (and Israelis for that matter) all the peace, harmony, and success in the world. But we also wish that they end the assault on our values system. We wish the halt to the culture war they have waged against us for centuries. It has now reached critical levels with the awesome power of modern media which the Jews dominate and so cleverly use to promote their leftist propaganda. We are not guilty of anything by expressing our concerns about the subversion or for the desire to mount a peaceful DEFENSE. The best inoculation is education but we cannot have that if there is to be intellectual cowardice.

7. Contrary to Mr. Yerushalmi’s assertion, conservatives do not believe that everything would be fine with the Muslim world if we eliminated the Zionist problem. Conservatives who have any sense of history know that there are inherent and historical conflicts with Islam that would continue to be a significant source of contention. But the reality is that the Zionists are a major source of aggravation of the problems we have with the Muslims. This is an undeniable fact.

8. As for Israel and Palestine, I am always amazed why so may Americans think we must favor one side or the other. The true conservative position should be one of neutrality, consistent with George Washington’s Farewell Address. The idea that we have vital interests to protect in Israel is a total fallacy. Our investment of money and political capital in Israel has given us nothing but misery. I acknowledge the barbarity of the Palestinian terrorists. But we should steer clear of both groups. The Jews who founded Israel brought this hell on their own people when they so cleverly (and stupidly) maneuvered themselves into Palestine. Often, Jews are too smart for their own good. It was a terrible mistake to create modern Israel. Madagascar (or some other place) would have been a wiser move. But Israel is now an established reality and it does have a right to exist. They should have built a wall decades ago, put a deep moat around it, and fight when necessary. But they don’t have a right to have their sovereignty maintained by the sacrifice of Gentile American blood or Gentile American treasure. Let’s face it, our suffering in Iraq has been in large part for the benefit of Israel and the result of Jewish manipulation. We need to stop being gullible Goyim.

Mr. Yerushalmi does not need to lecture us conservatives about “Jew hated” or the right of Israel to survive. He needs to lecture Jews about their bad habits.

I imagine I owe you a thank you. Your disagreement is noted but not understood. You might go back again and read with a tad more care. I think you will understand then that you were speaking mostly past the article. One might even suggest that your comment contradicts itself as to the importance of the Jews. Since I’ve gone this far, I might add that the essay was speaking of the role conservatives tend to place the Jews in, not the one Jews may or may not actually occupy. You might also take note that the essay doesn’t contradict a proper critique of the Jews in the West, who empirically are overwhelmingly liberal. Notwithstanding some rather nonsensical comments about family members above in this comment thread, this is empirically demonstrable.

As to world government, you might gain some insight if you were to understand what national existence meant at the founding up to the 20th Century. Then look at what national existence meant in the West in the second half of the 20th Century and finally today. If you don’t then understand the “progress” toward a World State, we ought to just leave well enough alone.

All the best,

David Yerushalmi

The jews are no more a problem than the rest of us. Take any group and you can see fault with them. Because the jews have so much history they can be picked on easier than most.

From a Biblical viewpoint the jews are suffering by their failure to honor the convenant with God they made back in the days of Moses. They also suffer blindness because they failed to recognize the Messiah when He came to Jerusalem. I think that any group that has this spiritual weight on them would appear the same. Even if you do not believe in the Bible the weight is there because of the people who do believe.

From a world view we see the mideast always fighting the jews. We also see them fight each other. Come to think of it they are in conflict with just about everyone. In your article you say the jews want a world government. Fat chance that will happen unless someone like Stalin with some new weapon imposses it on the world. If that happens then the jews will have little to say just like the rest of us.

I like articles that make you think and yours certainly did that.

Frank Baginski