Anti-Semitism

Announcing the “Fleshies”: awards for the best responses to anti-Semitism on the Web

Friday, March 7th, 2008

It is hard to convey the amount of bile and reductionist, blame-the-Jews-for-every-sin rhetoric that has taken over much of the blogosphere. Phil Weiss’s blog generally attracts some of the most articulate Jew-bashers, so I tune into the comments from time to time in order to gauge the level of hatred.
I just noticed some great […]

Sorry to disappoint you, conspiracy theorists: few Jewish voters are obsessed with Israel

Saturday, February 9th, 2008

A commentator with a brilliant nickname, “Agog,” was disturbed by the previous thread’s discussion of candidates’ positions on Israel. Agog asked: “Is that how you judge the merits of the respective candidates: who is best for Israel? Shouldn’t the criterion be who is best for the US? The two countries’ interests are not […]

Weiss exonerates people who are obsessed with dual loyalty…

Friday, October 12th, 2007

Philip Weiss reacted to my HuffPo piece (see previous post) on the neocons with a little essay entitled Fleshler Exonerates the Neocons of Dual Loyalties. Why He’s Wrong.
Take a look at it. Take a look at the comments. There are a number of people, including Richard Witty, who disagree with Phil and make some […]

Progressive answers to anti-Zionism — Part 1: A vision of what Israel could be

Sunday, April 15th, 2007

There are perfectly reasonable, articulate, well-meaning people who share many of the values of progressive Zionists but do not believe the Jewish state should exist.
It is possible to believe this without being anti-Semitic. It is possible to believe this and still denounce protestors against the Jewish state who treat Palestinians suicide bombers as freedom […]

Worth reading: “Reclaiming the Z Word” (i.e., Zionism)

Friday, April 13th, 2007

On Sunday, I am going to argue that it is important to start answering the claims of educated anti-Zionists with cogent, calm and respectful arguments, rather than engaging in frenzied efforts to deny them platforms. In the meantime, the following essay by Chris MacDonald-Dennis on why he calls himself a Zionist is worth reading. […]

Philip Weiss and the straw man of Jewish “separatism”

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007

On April 1st, I remarked that a post by Philip Weiss had conveyed the far left’s discomfort with Jewish identity. Weiss’ response created so many straw men that it would take hours to torch them. But one of his ideological scarecrows deserves comment, because it is based on a notion of Jewish identity […]

The far left’s discomfort with Jewish identity

Sunday, April 1st, 2007

Philip Weiss, a casual friend and often an ideological nemesis, has a fascinating, typically disturbing post about Jewish identity on his blog, MondoWeiss.
In his magazine articles and his blog, he has been asking very provocative, often necessary questions about American Jews and Israel. As a result, he has become an increasingly important […]

My Iranian problem…and ours

Monday, March 26th, 2007

When I was a teenager, I learned not to take at face value anything Robert McNamara or Lyndon Johnson said about U.S. military behavior in Vietnam. Later, I didn’t automatically accept what Sharon and Begin said about the first Israeli invasion of Lebanon or what the IDF said about its behavior in Lebanon this past […]