SUBSCRIBE NOW WELCOME BACK. Do you want to continue reading where you left off? New Republic subscribers can pick up where they left off no matter which device they were previously using. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Go Home Kissinger and Nixon: The Soviets And Another Contemplated...

THE SPINE DECEMBER 13, 2010

Kissinger and Nixon: The Soviets And Another Contemplated Genocide of the Jews

BY MARTIN PERETZ

Richard Nixon was a psychopath for whom Henry Kissinger worked, first as national security adviser and then concurrently in that position and also as secretary of state. Nixon's psychopathology included his hatred of Jews, their intellectual character, their State, and them broadly as a nation and people. Still, he had many Jews around him, doubtless for what he thought to be their devilish smarts: Leonard Garment was his general counsel, Herbert Stein was his chief economic adviser, Arthur Burns was head of the Federal Reserve, Murray Chotiner was his campaign manager, William Safire (who conceded that "Nixon just didn't like Jews") was a trusted speechwriter. And, of course, Kissinger was Kissinger. Let's face it: the smartest, and perhaps the wisest caretaker of American diplomacy since Thomas Jefferson, who was the first. (A valued former staff member of TNR, David Greenberg, wrote about "Nixon and the Jews" for Slate in 2002.)

Every so often as the secret tape recordings President Nixon made in the Oval Office are released we assume that some scarlet blush will come to Kissinger's face. No doubt Kissinger is very much embarrassed today.

Here is the shameful exchange put out yesterday between the late president and his secretary of state:

Kissinger: "The emigration of Jews from the the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."

Nixon: "I know. We won't blow up the world because of it."

Of course, all the Kissinger-haters are saying: "You see, he's a monster."

I know something about Kissinger's maneuvering for the Jewish state and for the Jewish people. I and a few Harvard colleagues were in touch with him, actually met with him during the dread days of the Yom Kippur War when Israel's very survival was at peril. (Henry Rosovsky, Samuel Huntington, Michael Walzer, Thomas Schelling and I comprised the group.) Dr. K. confided to us how difficult it was to persuade his bigoted boss that a great deal of American arms (and sufficient Lockheed C-130s "Hercules" aircraft to deliver them) were needed and needed instantly. There is no doubt in my mind that Kissinger rescued the third commonwealth with these munitions.

Imagine, by the way, if George McGovern had defeated Nixon in the 1972 election. McGovern's enmity to Israel was and is well-documented. There would have been no military aid and no Israel.

So, if Kissinger needed to flatter Nixon in order to convince him, that flattery was also a blessing.

Yes, the Soviet government contemplated another genocide of the Jews and also lesser mortifications of them. But, believe me, no progressives believed this was possible. There is much documented evidence of the falsified "doctors' plot." Again, the American left denied it.

But one doesn't have to contemplate a post-World War II genocide of the Jews by the Soviets. There had already been the Nazi genocide. Did the administration of Franklin Roosevelt target any of its centers? Not for a moment. Even the bombing of Auschwitz, proposed by secretary of the treasury Henry Morgenthau, a Jew, was dismissed with contempt and derision. Henry Kissinger did much better than F.D.R. So, for that matter, did the anti-Semite Richard Nixon.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Show all 148 comments

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

148 comments

Unbelievable. I read the headline and assumed, for once, that Marty and I might finally agree on something, but this is one of the most craven apologies for Jewish self-hatred I've ever read. "The wisest caretaker of American diplomacy since Thomas Jefferson"? One word: Cambodia. Another: Chile. Two more: East Timor. I could go on (and on, and on, and on, and on...). For a magazine that supposedly stands for the best of liberal, democratic values and staunch opposition to anti-semitism, this veneration of a toadying war criminal purely because of his support for Israel is staggering. Israel doesn't need that kind of friend, however much her chauvinists might think so. As for the non sequitur insinuations about FDR... Well, if I wanted coherent arguments, this blog would not be my first stop.

- Shorpe

December 13, 2010 at 7:20am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Henry Kissinger did much better than F.D.R." Oh, dear God - I came here for my morning laugh, and was not disappointed. The Spine is becoming my Monday morning Meth: need a hit to be invigorated! This is the gift that keeps on giving ... Even after calling Berlusconi the best PM Italy has had in decades and his other silly superlatives, to call Kissinger "The wisest caretaker of American diplomacy since Thomas Jefferson" is just loopiness on a logarithmic scale ... Shorpe: totally agree with "one of the most craven apologies for Jewish self-hatred I've ever read ... veneration of a toadying war criminal" ... just amazing.

- icarusr

December 13, 2010 at 9:47am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Shorpe “For a magazine that supposedly stands for the best of liberal, democratic values and staunch opposition to anti-semitism, this veneration of a toadying war criminal purely because of his support for Israel is staggering. Israel doesn't need that kind of friend, however much her chauvinists might think so.” Shorpe’s reaction is pretty glib. Had Israel not been able to successful defend itself in 1973 it wouldn’t have needed any kind of defense because the country and probably most of its people wouldn’t exist today. Still, I have mixed feelings about Marty’s post. I also despise Kissinger’s “realism” which is just another word for opportunism as his reaction to Nixon’s hatred shows. Still, there is no gainsaying the fact that Nixon-Kissinger did help Israel in 1973 during the Yom Kippur war by sending them munitions for its defense. Nixon was a pathological hater as his comments about Blacks, Italians and Irish show. Hhe himself was more insecure than the American Jews he hated. In fact that hatred of them, as well as the Eastern political establishment, was a projection of his own insecurities.

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 9:55am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I actually agree with many of Marty's observations in this one about Nixon, Kissinger and Israel in 73, although there is still historical ambiguity as to whether the Egyptians would have actually proceeded to invade or bomb Israel proper after they had retaken the bulk of the Sinai. Same for the Syrians and the Golan, although it may be more likely that Assad would have invaded the Galilee if he was successful on the Golan. We won't know for sure until Egyptian and Syrian archives are fully available for researchers, which may be never. Be that as it may, Kissinger was fully rational in believing in October 1973 that the Yom Kippur War could have resulted in the destruction of Israel. As for that repartee about the Soviet genocide of Jews ... don't even bother trying to defend K on that one. It was craven and pathetic. Perhaps Kissinger could have pointed out to his boss that the Soviets were no longer pursuing genocide against their minority populations during the Brezhnev era, so it might not be such a big deal to criticize them for denying people human rights. But that would have really run against the grain of Kissinger's foreign policy views, as witnessed by his response (or lack thereof) to East Timor, Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Cultural Revolution, Chile, etc. BTW, Mary -- the Doctor's Plot was in 1952-53, a long time before the discussion in question. I'm not even sure if Nixon and Kissinger were much aware of it when they discussed the fate of Soviet Jews. In any case, Nixon's quote was redolent of the views of his boss Eisenhower and Hungary in 1956 -- nothing the Soviets do within their own borders or sphere of influence is ever sufficient to provoke nuclear war.

- wildboy

December 13, 2010 at 11:21am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

@jdyer I don't doubt that Israel needed the support. What I find highly questionable is Peretz's assertion that without Kissinger, no such support would have been forthcoming. As we're constantly being reminded on this site, America is Israel's ally first and foremost out of self-interest. Besides the obvious desirability of backing the region's only real democracy, we get all kinds of advantages out of being Israel's protector. This being the case, I just don't buy that any US administration (yes, even McGovern) would have let the Jewish state fend for itself in 1973.

- Shorpe

December 13, 2010 at 11:43am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Shorpe “I don't doubt that Israel needed the support. What I find highly questionable is Peretz's assertion that without Kissinger, no such support would have been forthcoming.” We don’t know what would have happened. WE do know what happened. You can’t make historical judgments on “what have been if…. “ “As we're constantly being reminded on this site, America is Israel's ally first and foremost out of self-interest. Besides the obvious desirability of backing the region's only real democracy, we get all kinds of advantages out of being Israel's protector. This being the case, I just don't buy that any US administration (yes, even McGovern) would have let the Jewish state fend for itself in 1973.” The US became Israel’s ally because Israel was seen as being a force in the region; however, as a country in need of US protection would have been counter to American interests.

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 12:16pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

... "How horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.” ...

- icarusr

December 13, 2010 at 12:18pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Nice to see Mr. Peretz take a swipe at George McGovern. I suppose making only 35 flights over Nazi teritory isn't that big of a deal to those who never saw combat, but he did his part to defeat the Axis powers whose victory would have certainly meant no Israel.

- mrpapa

December 13, 2010 at 12:35pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

What's the matter with you, Mr. Peretz? Who are you trying to please with your version of history? http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/thirty-six-years-ago-today--richard-nixon-saved-israel-but-got-no-credit-15254 “Both Kissinger and Nixon wanted to do [the airlift],” said former CIA deputy director Vernon Walters, "but Nixon gave it the greater sense of urgency. He said, ‘You get the stuff to Israel. Now. Now.’” Boyne, in his book The Two O’Clock War, described a high-level White House meeting on October 9: As preoccupied as he was with Watergate, Nixon came straight to the point, announcing that Israel must not lose the war. He ordered that the deliveries of supplies, including aircraft, be sped up and that Israel be told that it could freely expend all of its consumables -- ammunition, spare parts, fuel, and so forth -- in the certain knowledge that these would be completely replenished by the United States without any delay. White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig concurred: As soon as the scope and pattern of Israeli battle losses emerged, Nixon ordered that all destroyed equipment be made up out of U.S. stockpiles, using the very best weapons America possessed. . . . Whatever it takes, he told Kissinger . . . save Israel. “It was Nixon who did it,” recalled Nixon’s acting special counsel, Leonard Garment. “I was there. As [bureaucratic bickering between the State and Defense departments] was going back and forth, Nixon said, this is insane. . . . He just ordered Kissinger, “Get your ass out of here and tell those people to move.”

- noga1

December 13, 2010 at 12:49pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

mrpapa "Nice to see Mr. Peretz take a swipe at George McGovern. I suppose making only 35 flights over Nazi teritory isn't that big of a deal to those who never saw combat, but he did his part to defeat the Axis powers whose victory would have certainly meant no Israel." Victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan. I disagree with Marty's post on a number of points, but I doubt McGovern joined the army air corp for the sake of Israel or even Jews.

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 12:58pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Kissinger: "The emigration of Jews from the the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern." Nixon: "I know. We won't blow up the world because of it."" What's interesting about this exchange is that Nixon supplied a context for Kissinger's malicious comment and he almost sounded more rational than his toady Secretary of State. btw: I think most posts that excuse the exchange because of Nixon and Kissinger's (they sound like some wangling law firm) actions in 1973 are not facing the seriousness of especially Kissinger's comments. Kissinger is saying that it's acceptable to allow minorities in other countries to be slaughtered for reasons of State. This is a view that is still accepted in most capitals while it is rarely spoken out loud. (Vide WW2 where politicians, historians, etc. have gone out of their way to justify not bombing the gas chambers. Vide also the recent Rwanda massacres and the excuses State actors came up with for doing nothing.) Kissinger, by putting what was implicit policy into words and hence making it explicit, he would have made this criminal notion (to know about murder being committed and do nothing about is to be at the very least morally complicit) State policy.

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 1:15pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

the word rational above should have been in quotes.

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 1:16pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

jdyer Didn't mean to imply McGovern's war service was "for the sake of Israel or even Jews." Whose service was? I do agree that "yes, even McGovern" would have come to Israe'ls aid but Mr. Peretz is so sure he wouldn't have. And to support Israel trumps whatever else Nixon did. Just seemed it was a cheap, unnecessary shot at McGovern

- mrpapa

December 13, 2010 at 1:56pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Just seemed it was a cheap, unnecessary shot." Peretz? "cheap, unnecessary shot?" Heaven forfend.

- icarusr

December 13, 2010 at 1:59pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Nixon's psychopathology included his hatred of Jews, their intellectual character, their State, and them broadly as a nation and people. " Why is there a sculpture of Golda Meir at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, California? _______________ http://www.nixoncenter.org/index.cfm?action=showpage&page=2009-Robert-Gates-Transcript "Joining the NSC in 1974, of course, was my first introduction to your honorary Chairman, Henry Kissinger. There are many wonderful stories about Henry. One I thought you would appreciate, given the center’s emphasis on diplomacy, involved a meeting between President Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, shortly after Henry had been appointed as Secretary of State. With Golda Meir in that meeting was her very erudite foreign minister, Abba Eban, a graduate of Cambridge University. At one point in the meeting, Nixon turned to Golda Meir and said, “Just think, Madame Prime Minister, now we both have Jewish foreign ministers.” And without missing a beat Golda Meir said, “Yes, but mine speaks English.” ____________ http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/thirty-six-years-ago-today--richard-nixon-saved-israel-but-got-no-credit-15254 "But Mordechai Gazit, who at the time of the Yom Kippur War was director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office, told authors Gerald Strober and Deborah Hart Strober in Nixon: An Oral History of His Presidency: “The airlift was decided not because we asked for it. Our relations with the United States were not at a point where we could have asked for an airlift; this was beyond our imagination.” As for Meir herself, to the end of her life she referred to Nixon as "my president" and told a group of Jewish leaders in Washington shortly after the war: “For generations to come, all will be told of the miracle of the immense planes from the United States bringing in the materiel that meant life to our people.” Wrote Nixon biographer Stephen E. Ambrose: Those were momentous events in world history. Had Nixon not acted so decisively, who can say what would have happened? The Arabs probably would have recovered at least some of the territory they had lost in 1967, perhaps all of it. They might have even destroyed Israel. But whatever the might-have-beens, there is no doubt that Nixon . . . made it possible for Israel to win, at some risk to his own reputation and at great risk to the American economy. He knew that his enemies . . . would never give him credit for saving Israel. He did it anyway."

- noga1

December 13, 2010 at 3:06pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I have not much of substance to add to this conversation but I will ask when the construction "I and...." became correct? I see it all over, but I am absolutely sure my fourth grade teacher said that you never put yourself first, so it is always "...and I". Unless you are just the most important person in the world, perhaps.

- ReganaD

December 13, 2010 at 3:10pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

ugh

- subterran

December 13, 2010 at 3:37pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I think the assessment/presumption of Nixon's antisemitism comes primarily from the White House tapes and his rambling and somewhat paranoia-driven meditations in the presence of aides. It may have also been some deeply-rooted discomfort from youth, not exactly explicable on the rational level, rather like Reagan's obvious discomfort around blacks. Something like that doesn't necessarily prevent one acting for the benefit of the group that you nonetheless have, let's say, "psychic" difficulties with.

- ironyroad

December 13, 2010 at 4:51pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

From Truman diaries of 1947: "The Jews, I find are very, very selfish," he wrote. "When they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the underdog." http://www.adl.org/anti_semitism/oped_truman.asp "Recognizing that the revelations in Truman's diaries reflect the resiliency of the anti-Semitic virus, are there lessons for us in the 21st century? For one, it reminds us to avoid complacency about anti-Semitism. Even in America, the place for a different kind of life for Jews, anti-Semitism has resilience in quarters where one might not expect it - Harry Truman, a highly respected progressive national leader; Billy Graham, the most prestigious religious figure in the country. Even as discrimination against Jews disappears, as attitudes improve, as Jewish security is strong, what people think and feel and say in the privacy of their homes or boardrooms is still uncertain. America the exception is also still America the product of a 2,000-year Western tradition of anti-Semitism. Secondly, Truman's diaries reveal once again the irrational character of anti-Semitism. It has often been noted that Jews are often accused of being contradictory things: Communists and capitalists, too powerful and too weak. The 33rd American president writes of how "very, very selfish" Jews are and how brutal they are when in power. This, only two years after the Holocaust, when the Jews of Europe were destroyed; when more than one-third of world Jewry was wiped out; when the world, including the United States, largely stood by in the face of the Nazi inhumanity toward Jews, when Jews themselves failed to do enough to try to save their brethren in Europe. Jews were at a low point in their history in 1947. That didn't seem to stop Truman from attributing classic stereotypes about Jews. The diaries, along with the Nixon tapes, also speak to the variability of anti-Jewishness. Those two presidents were capable of standing up for Israel at critical times, even while sharing many of society's worst stereotypes abut Jews. Today, things are turned on their heads: Denials of anti-Semitism abound while one-sided criticism of Israel is rife and acceptable. Anti-Semitism is not only the largest hatred, it is the most elastic. "

- noga1

December 13, 2010 at 5:03pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Yes, I find Irony's use of "presumption" in Nixon's case a bit far fetched.

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 5:40pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

noga1 “From Truman diaries of 1947” Unlike Nixon, Truman was not an antisemite, Noga. He fought his own State Department when they counseled him not to recognize the Jewish State. He also asked for inquiries about the condition Jewish DP’s were living under in Europe. “The United States was late to accept displaced persons, which led to considerable activism for a change in policy. Earl G. Harrison, who had previously reported on conditions in the camps to president Truman, led the Citizens Committee on Displaced Persons that attracted dignitaries such as Eleanor Roosevelt, David Dubinsky, Marshall Field, A. Philip Randolph, and others. Meeting considerable opposition in the United States Congress with a bias against Eastern European intellectuals and Jews, Truman signed the first DP act on June 25, 1948, allowing entry by 200,000 DPs; and then followed by the more accommodating second DP act on 16 June16 , 1950, allowing entry for another 200,000. This quota included acceptance of 55,000 Volksdeutschen and required sponsorship of all immigrants. The American program was the most idealistic and expansive of the Allied programs but also the most notoriously bureaucratic. Much of the humanitarian effort was undertaken by charitable organizations, such as the Lutheran World Federation and ethnic groups. Along with an additional quota granted in 1953, a total of nearly 600,000 refugees into the country, second only to Israel.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displaced_Persons_camp#Resettlement_of_DPs Judged by the standards of the day Truman does come off as a “second Cyrus” as he liked to style himself. “The Babylonians regarded him as "The Liberator".[65] After his conquest of Babylon, followed Cyrus' help for the return of Jews; for this, Cyrus is addressed in the Jewish Tanakh as the "Lord's Messiah". Glorified by Ezra, and by Isaiah, Cyrus is the one to whom "Yahweh, the God of heaven" has given "all the Kingdoms of the earth".[18]” Nixon, on the other hand, judged by the same standards comes as a hateful paranoid when it came to other ethnic groups, (probably because they opposed his political goals) though he seems to have had an admiration for the State of Israel. I suspect that his prejudiced views of the Irish and Italians like wise didn’t translate into hatred for the countries of Ireland and Italy. The link to the Commentary blog didn’t impress me. The Conservatives (no neo) at Commentary would never admit that a conservative Republican could be a goddamn son of a bitch. Abe Foxman got it right when he wrote in Noga’s link: “Truman was a product of his time and of a civilization's attitudes. The anti-Semitism revealed in his diaries is a stain on his reputation. Still, he remains a hero of Israel.” What was Nixon’s excuse? btw: for anyone interested in reading about antisemitism in action I suggest they read I. J. Singer's brilliant novel published in 1936 called "The Brothers Ashkenazi."

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 6:22pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

noga: thanks for posting these sources here, instead of what is hopefully the now cold Chait thread on same topic. I was hoping to move beyond the Nixon tapes when I read this about the National Archives report, “Hitler’s Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence and the Cold War” from Sunday NYT: "...In chilling detail, the report also elaborates on the close working relationship between Nazi leaders and the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who later claimed that he sought refuge in wartime Germany only to avoid arrest by the British. In fact, the report says, the Muslim leader was paid “an absolute fortune” of 50,000 marks a month (when a German field marshal was making 25,000 marks a year). It also said he energetically recruited Muslims for the SS, the Nazi Party’s elite military command, and was promised that he would be installed as the leader of Palestine after German troops drove out the British and exterminated more than 350,000 Jews there. On Nov. 28, 1941, the authors say, Hitler told Mr. Husseini that the Afrika Corps and German troops deployed from the Caucasus region would liberate Arabs in the Middle East and that “Germany’s only objective there would be the destruction of the Jews.” The report details how Mr. Husseini himself was allowed to flee after the war to Syria — he was in the custody of the French, who did not want to alienate Middle East regimes — and how high-ranking Nazis escaped from Germany to become advisers to anti-Israeli Arab leaders and “were able to carry on and transmit to others Nazi racial-ideological anti-Semitism.” “You have an actual contract between officials of the Nazi Foreign Ministry with Arab leaders, including Husseini, extending after the war because they saw a cause they believed in,” Dr. Breitman said. “And after the war, you have real Nazi war criminals — Wilhelm Beisner, Franz Rademacher and Alois Brunner — who were quite influential in Arab countries.” In October 1945, the report says, the British head of Palestine’s Criminal Investigation Division told the assistant American military attaché in Cairo that the mufti might be the only force able to unite the Palestine Arabs and “cool off the Zionists. Of course, we can’t do it, but it might not be such a damn bad idea at that.” “We have more detailed scholarly accounts today of Husseini’s wartime activities, but Husseini’s C.I.A. file indicates that wartime Allied intelligence organizations gathered a healthy portion of this incriminating evidence,” the report says. “This evidence is significant in light of Husseini’s lenient postwar treatment.” He died in Beirut in 1974. ..." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/12holocaust.html?hp [a link to the pdf of the entire NA report is in this article] [I guess we can blame Harry Truman and his SecState George Marshall for this. Marshall was a truly great SecState, except for the Jews and Israel, so I guess Peretz can not place Marshall above Kissinger. such a strange Peretzian-worldview. As if Thomas Jefferson did not extend slavery into the Louisiana Purchase...does Peretz puts TJ on the pedestal because TJ took on the Barbary Pirates?]

- K2K

December 13, 2010 at 6:37pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Unlike Nixon, Truman was not an antisemite, Noga. " I can't see what is the difference and why Nixon is demonized for his antisemitism while Truman's, as confided to his diary, is mitigated: "But the most surprising comments were Truman's remarks on Jews, written on July 21, 1947, after the president had a conversation with Henry Morganthau [sic. Morgenthau], his Jewish treasury secretary. Morganthau called to talk about a Jewish ship in Palestine -- possibly the Exodus, the legendary ship carrying 4,500 Jewish refugees who were refused entry into Palestine by the British, then rulers of that land. "He'd no business, whatever to call me," Truman wrote. "The Jews have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgement (sic) on world affairs. Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York on a supposedly temporary basis and they stayed." Truman then went into a rant about Jews: "The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes." (Harry Truman's Forgotten Diary 1947 Writings Offer Fresh Insight on the President By Rebecca Dana and Peter Carlson Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, July 11, 2003; Page A01 ) Both Truman and Nixon shared antisemitic loathing of Jews and both rendered to Israeli Jews extremely important services when history called for it. How is that “Truman was a product of his time and of a civilization's attitudes." an excuse? And if it is an excuse, why isn't it just as equally attributable to Nixon? Even President John Adams, 150 years earlier, had better things to say about Jews than these two, despite "the asperities and peculiarities of their character" and before the pogroms and the Holocaust ever happened.

- noga1

December 13, 2010 at 7:10pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Do you have a link to the Post article?

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 7:16pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

noga1 "I can't see what is the difference and why Nixon is demonized for his antisemitism while Truman's, as confided to his diary, is mitigated" It is those people who bring up Truman at this time who are trying to mitigate Nixon's bigotry. Truman was roundly cirticized when the diaries were first published. Nixon's comments which he made to other people and were not just confided to his private diary also deserve to be criticized, and Kissinger even more so for reasons I stated above.

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 7:30pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

No. It is only available in full on an antisemitic website which I don't want to link to. If you google the quote you can find some parts of it on respectable sources.

- noga1

December 13, 2010 at 7:31pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"It is those people who bring up Truman at this time who are trying to mitigate Nixon's bigotry. " I believe Golda Meir saw Nixon as Israel's benefactor in a time of dire need. I find those people who forget that he was the president at the time and without his consent there would be no replenishing of supplies to Israel that are being oddly biased, only because he was a Republican. It is all the more noticeable considering the need to whitewash Truman's record as "not antisemitic". Israelis carry fond memories of Truman, of Kennedy, of Nixon, of Clinton, of George W. Bush. Israelis do not remember with great fondness Carter, or senior Bush and they do not trust Obama. Maybe these inclinations are not very comfortable or convenient, for American Jews but there it is.

- noga1

December 13, 2010 at 7:41pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Is there anything comparable to this in Truman’s diary? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/oct99/nixon6.htm New Tapes Reveal Depth of Nixon's Anti-Semitism Washington Post reporter George Lardner Jr. listens Tuesday to a White House recording from the Nixon administration. (AP) By George Lardner Jr. and Michael Dobbs Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, October 6, 1999; Page A31 “Beset by the leak of a top-secret history of the Vietnam War and rising unemployment statistics that were hurting his standing in the polls in summer of 1971, President Richard M. Nixon lashed out repeatedly at "the Jews" he saw at the root of his problems. "The Jews are all over the government," Nixon complained to his chief of staff, H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, in an Oval Office meeting recorded on one of a set of White House tapes released yesterday at the National Archives. Nixon said the Jews needed to be brought under control by putting someone "in charge who is not Jewish" in key agencies. Washington "is full of Jews," the president asserted. "Most Jews are disloyal." He made exceptions for some of his top aides, such as national security adviser Henry Kissinger, his White House counsel, Leonard Garment, and one of his speechwriters, William Safire, and then added: "But, Bob, generally speaking, you can't trust the bastards. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right?" Haldeman agreed wholeheartedly. "Their whole orientation is against you. In this administration, anyway. And they are smart. They have the ability to do what they want to do--which is to hurt us." Elsewhere on the tapes, Nixon denies being antisemitic, but his attitude toward Jews was starkly displayed in the approximately 445 hours of White House tape recordings made between February and July 1971 and released yesterday--the first comprehensive disclosure of confidential discussions between Nixon and his closest advisers. Only portions of recordings dealing with the Watergate scandal and other abuses of governmental power, along with semi-public meetings in the Cabinet room, had been released before. The newly released tapes give an unprecedented insight into the workings of the Nixon White House, punctuated by the president's frequent coarse comments on prominent figures, including Supreme Court justices, leading newspaper publishers and officials in his own administration. They show Nixon talking about selling ambassadorships, railing against Jews and other minorities, complaining about the drinking habits of leading members of Congress, and exchanging conspiracy theories with Kissinger and other top aides. In many cases, Nixon's tirades were touched off by news leaks and political setbacks, such as the occasion at the beginning of July 1971 when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released figures showing that unemployment was on the upswing. Concerned that news of the joblessness was hurting him in the polls, Nixon demanded the ouster of the director of the bureau, Julius Shiskin, and asked his hatchet man, Charles Colson, to investigate the ethnic background of officials in the agency. "They are all Jews?" Nixon exclaimed when Colson listed the names. "Every one of them," Colson replied. "Well, with a couple of exceptions. . . . You just have to go down the goddamn list and you know they are out to kill us." In a later conversation the same day--July 3--Nixon and Haldeman discussed Jewish penetration of the National Security Council staff. "Is Tony Lake Jewish?" Nixon demands, referring to a young Kissinger aide who went on to become national security adviser under President Clinton. "I've always wondered about that," Haldeman replies. "He looked it," says Nixon, without reaching a firm conclusion. [Lake is not Jewish]. When The Washington Post gave front-page coverage in April 1971 to a survey showing 60 percent support for antiwar demonstrations among residents of affluent District neighborhoods, Nixon complained that the results were loaded. "Bob," he explained to a receptive Haldeman, "there's a hell of a lot of Jews in the District, see . . . The gentiles have moved out."” Such complaints were overshadowed by the controversy surrounding publication of the Pentagon Papers, a classified history of the Vietnam War, that first appeared in the New York Times and later in The Post and other newspapers. Two days after the articles first appeared, the Justice Department moved to enjoin publication and the battle soon moved to the Supreme Court, which ruled against the government June 30 in a 6-3 decision. The decision dismayed Nixon, even though he told Colson he had expected such an outcome. That afternoon, he expressed special chagrin at Justice Potter Stewart, whom he described as "a weak bastard" who had been "overwhelmed by the Washington-Georgetown social set." The next morning, in a telephone conversation with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, he said he hoped he would "outlive the bastards" on the high court. "We have got to change that court," he told Hoover, adding that the "stinking decision" had stolen the headlines from his own visit to FBI headquarters, where he had given a tough law-and-order talk. The two men exchanged views on "a conspiracy" among leading Washington journalists and the man who leaked the classified history, Daniel Ellsberg, to embarrass the government. Hoover observed that he had seen Post Publisher Katharine Graham on television the night before commenting on the decision, and described her as "an old bitch." "She is a terrible old bag," agreed Nixon. The tapes shed more light on the sometimes tortured relationship between Nixon and Kissinger. At one point, in March 1971, the national security adviser threatened to resign because of critical articles in the news media that he blamed on a jealous secretary of state, William P. Rogers. "I produce an almost pathological reaction in him now," Kissinger told Nixon. "I am such an offense to his ego." Nixon consoled Kissinger, but later commented to other aides that Kissinger was attempting to gain total control of "everything that comes to me" on foreign policy. "What he does not realize is, I don't read his goddamn papers . . . I just skim it." Nixon praised Kissinger as "the man that has the greatest influence on me," but said he did not want to rely on him entirely. "Sometimes he is as wrong as hell. Sometimes Rogers has a good idea, not very often."

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 8:07pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes." (Truman) "They show Nixon talking about selling ambassadorships, railing against Jews and other minorities, complaining about the drinking habits of leading members of Congress, and exchanging conspiracy theories with Kissinger and other top aides." Two peas in a pod. ___________ Why is it possible to appreciate (for example) Dostoyevski's works while reviling his rabid antisemitism outside of them? Fact is the neither of these men's antisemitism played any role in the decisions they took. I believe it is called "compartmentalization". Too bad that the president who recognized the state of Israel 11 minutes after it was declared, and the president who rushed airlifted supplies to the same country when it was under existential threat did so based on some high universal value and not because of affection for the Jewish people.

- noga1

December 13, 2010 at 8:32pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Too bad that the president who recognized the state of Israel 11 minutes after it was declared, and the president who rushed airlifted supplies to the same country when it was under existential threat did so based on some high universal value and not because of affection for the Jewish people." You are not reading Nixon's comments correctly. Truman's comments are mostly general and abstract. Nixon went after individuals because they were Jews. Who knows what policies he might have put in place had he finished his term in office?

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 9:03pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Jackson, I just can't find myself caring much that Nixon was an anti-Semite. He took care of Israel when it mattered. And that's all that's relevant for this post. If we were having a broader conversation about Nixon, then yes, bringing up how evil he was when he bombed Cambodia is merited. Nixon was extremely self-destructive. His taping of conversations is proof enough. This is not a defense of Nixon, although I think he has not got his due. Unfortunately for him, Watergate has silenced any appreciation for his opening up of China and his stand on the environment--which would have seemed insane these days. Noga says we need to worry about what goes on behind closed doors. That's not so. All sorts of hateful things are said in private and fortunately most people keep thoughts and opinions private. When it's time to worry about anti-Semitism, most of us will know. And it won't be because we failed to stop any bigoted back and forths that took place in private.

- MOLLYSIMON

December 13, 2010 at 9:34pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Noga says we need to worry about what goes on behind closed doors. " Really? Where does Noga say this?

- noga1

December 13, 2010 at 9:50pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

By "presumption" I meant that it's now a kind of a priori component of the memory of Nixon in American culture. Maybe it's not quite the right word. Noga, I don't think the antisemitic venting is given more attention merely because Nixon was a Republican, but because Nixon was the only president to be hounded from office in disgrace after a whole history of conspiratorial sabotage of his political opponents, the electoral process, and his oath of office was revealed. It gives it a different heft. In Truman it seems like the marks left by the upbringing of a lower-middle class midwesterner born in the late 19th century. In Nixon it seems to carry an uglier, more personal twist.

- ironyroad

December 13, 2010 at 10:28pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

no way that Truman and Nixon are "two peas in a pod". Truman's decision to recognize Israel was complicated by his enormous respect, even awe, for SecState George Marshall, who threatened to resign. My recollection was that Truman had Acheson orchestrate a presentation to persuade Marshall, and then gave Marshall enough time to support Truman's decision while still, but privately, disagreeing. Marshall was worried about oil. QUOTE FOR THE YEAR: "...SS leaders and [Grand Mufti] Husseini both claimed that Nazism and Islam had common values as well as common enemies—above all, the Jews...."(Herf, p 200) from CHAPTER TWO "Nazis and the Middle East" of the new National Archives report "HITLER’S SHADOW: Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence, and the Cold War", by Richard Breitman and Norman J.W. Godathe (our tax dollars put to good use - better than WikiLeaks) Key citations for Chapter 2: 1) Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews of Palestine (New York: Enigma Press, 2010). 2) Jeffrey Herf, Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

- K2K

December 13, 2010 at 10:43pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

irony: my takeaway as to why the newly revealed Nixon tapes are getting attention is because the debate over Iran is heating up. This is why the focus is on this exchange: "Kissinger: "The emigration of Jews from the the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern." Nixon: "I know. We won't blow up the world because of it." " The U.S. today will not risk 'blowing up the world' over a nuclear North Korea, or a nuclear Iran... I suppose it is 'comforting' to know the Japanese and South Koreans are as theoretically expendable as Israelis when it comes to realpolitik...

- K2K

December 13, 2010 at 10:51pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

ironyroad "In Truman it seems like the marks left by the upbringing of a lower-middle class midwesterner born in the late 19th century. In Nixon it seems to carry an uglier, more personal twist." I think so too. MOLLYSIMON "Jackson, I just can't find myself caring much that Nixon was an anti-Semite. He took care of Israel when it mattered." I wish you were right. However one interprets the tapes, they are not the end of the story. Bigotry is never just about the bigot and his target.

- jdyer

December 13, 2010 at 11:05pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Hey, just be half as understanding of our President, Mr. Peretz, and I'll give you all the rope on Kissinger you want.

- floydsm8

December 14, 2010 at 2:17am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Postscript on Anthony Lake, mentioned in JDyer's WaPo clip about Nixon search for Jews in high place. Lake was a Congregationalist who later converted years later, in 2005, to Judaism. He quips, "Now I can trace my [Jewish] heritage all the way back to Nixon!" in Lake article in Wikipedia.

- amidut

December 14, 2010 at 3:57am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"In Truman it seems like the marks left by the upbringing of a lower-middle class midwesterner born in the late 19th century. In Nixon it seems to carry an uglier, more personal twist." Hard for me to distinguish between the malice that makes one write: ""He'd no business, whatever to call me," Truman wrote. "The Jews have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgement (sic) on world affairs. Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York on a supposedly temporary basis and they stayed." "The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes." And the malice that makes one say: " * You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana are Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob? What is the matter with them? I suppose it is because most of them are psychiatrists. * Many Jews in the Communist conspiracy. ... Chambers and Hiss were the only non-Jews. ... Many thought that Hiss was. He could have been a half. ... Every other one was a Jew — and it raised hell for us. But in this case, I hope to God he's not a Jew. * The Jews are irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards. ____________ They are both products of the same American ethos expressing the same innate and instinctive loathing for Jews as ever. That one was nicer and better liked and the other a tormented goon makes very little difference as far as judgment goes about their antisemitism. What this discussion proves, in fact, is the depressing phenomenon that if you are charming, soft spoken, witty and erudite, you will be forgiven for your antisemitism. Others will rush to find mitigation for it. For me it is quite the other way around: the more civilized a person is, the more shocking, and frightening, it is to learn what kind of thoughts he is harbouring, underneath that polished exterior.

- noga1

December 14, 2010 at 8:00am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Maybe these inclinations are not very comfortable or convenient, for American Jews but there it is." Oddly, some of us American Jews form our opinions about presidents largely based on our view of how well they served America and Americans. Strange, isn't it? "Too bad that the president who recognized the state of Israel 11 minutes after it was declared, and the president who rushed airlifted supplies to the same country when it was under existential threat did so based on some high universal value and not because of affection for the Jewish people." Quite the opposite. "Affection" in international affairs is ephemeral to say the least. Interest, and at times universal values that have roots in national interest, are far more stable bases than affection on which to ground national security, as Nixon's conduct during the Yom Kippur War shows us. What Nixon and the Yom Kippur War also show us is that both criticism of Israel policy and support for Israeli foreign and security policy that focus primarily on the continued existence of anti-Semitism faie to appreciate that which is actually most relevant to Israel's safety. Anti-Semitism exists, but to focus on it as the most important fact of Israeli existence is to be a ghetto Jew, what Zionism sought to leave behind us in favor of Jewish self-responsibility and agency.

- roidubouloi

December 14, 2010 at 9:12am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Even as discrimination against Jews disappears, as attitudes improve, as Jewish security is strong, what people think and feel and say in the privacy of their homes or boardrooms is still uncertain. America the exception is also still America the product of a 2,000-year Western tradition of anti-Semitism." If you expect people not to make inferences from your words, then when at the keyboard, please write as concretely as possible.

- MOLLYSIMON

December 14, 2010 at 11:36am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

It was an ironic statement, roi but I wouldn't expect you to get it.

- noga1

December 14, 2010 at 11:38am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

""Even as discrimination against Jews disappears, as attitudes improve, as Jewish security is strong, what people think and feel and say in the privacy of their homes or boardrooms is still uncertain. America the exception is also still America the product of a 2,000-year Western tradition of anti-Semitism." If you expect people not to make inferences from your words, then when at the keyboard, please write as concretely as possible." You Talkin To Me? If you are, then your quote is not anything I wrote.

- noga1

December 14, 2010 at 11:43am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Noga I take your point but my distinction was in response to your statement that Nixon was being taken to task more than Truman because Nixon was a Republican president. As I said, I believe that there are other reasons for that. I don't say the reasons are particularly rational or illuminating -- just that they are there.

- ironyroad

December 14, 2010 at 11:46am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Roid’s empty palaver: “Oddly, some of us American Jews form our opinions about presidents largely based on our view of how well they served America and Americans. Strange, isn't it?” Some of us Americans form out opinions about presidents based on how well they care out their Constitutional mandate. Nixon failed the test. He failed it publicly when he broke the law, and we now know that he failed it publicly with his damn hatred of Jewish, Black, Irish, Italian and possible other Americans. The man was total disgrace. More empty palaver: “Anti-Semitism exists, but to focus on it as the most important fact of Israeli existence is to be a ghetto Jew, what Zionism sought to leave behind us in favor of Jewish self-responsibility and agency.” Let’s see; suppose I said, ‘Racism exists, but to focus on it as the most important fact of Black people’s existence is to be a slave, the Black fight for equal right sought to leave behind such a mentality in favor of African-American self-responsibility and agency.’ The New School school boy, Roid, gets drunk on his own rhetoric which is never original with him.

- jdyer

December 14, 2010 at 11:58am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

The first part of my post should have read: Roid’s empty palaver: “Oddly, some of us American Jews form our opinions about presidents largely based on our view of how well they served America and Americans. Strange, isn't it?” Some of us Americans form out opinions about presidents based on how well they carry out their Constitutional mandate. Nixon failed the test. He failed it publicly when he broke the law, and we now know that he failed it publicly with his damn hatred of Jewish, Black, Irish, Italian and possible other Americans. The man was total disgrace.

- jdyer

December 14, 2010 at 12:03pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Racism exists, but to focus on it as the most important fact of Black people’s existence is to be a slave, the Black fight for equal right sought to leave behind such a mentality in favor of African-American self-responsibility and agency." I think you would find many African-Americans who agree with this. They are not oblivious to the continued existence of racism, nor should we be, but they are not willing to make it the linchpin of their existence or the defining fact of their relations with the rest of the world. They have stood up, something some Jews, who wallow in anti-Semitism despite their objectively far better circumstances, seem unable to do. ______________________ Strange that the consummate logician, jdyer, should think that carrying out the Constitution's mandates and serving America and Americans are somehow in opposition to one another. I don't imagine he is drunk on his own rhetoric. Even he couldn't get drunk on such swill. What then is the source of his mental incapacity?

- roidubouloi

December 14, 2010 at 12:16pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"It was an ironic statement, roi but I wouldn't expect you to get it." I entertained the possibility, but as the statement would have been so much more forceful if direct rather than ironic, I had to choose between a) the meaning was ironic but you express yourself poorly and don't understand the use of irony or b) the meaning was direct. I guess I should have opted for a).

- roidubouloi

December 14, 2010 at 12:21pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"I don't say the reasons are particularly rational or illuminating -- just that they are there." Well maybe there is a lacunae in the language then. When I read "reason" I tend to take that as something rational that actually helps to explain and illuminate, so that we can understand better. When a "reason" is just something people provide to justify their biases and personal, political or self-serving inclinations then it ought not to be called "reason" but some other word.

- noga1

December 14, 2010 at 12:22pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"I entertained the possibility," Yes, once you are told it was an ironic statement you convince yourself that you "entertained the possibility" to begin with. (The explanation would be persuasive if you had any record that showed any glimmer of understanding what irony is)

- noga1

December 14, 2010 at 12:27pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

“I think you would find many African-Americans who agree with this.” So, according to you they don’t care if people in public office make racists comments about Black people. In any case, I doubt you understood the ramifications of what I said as your subsequent comment shows: “Strange that the consummate logician, jdyer, should think that carrying out the Constitution's mandates and serving America and Americans are somehow in opposition to one another.” I never said that. According to Roid then, Nixon carried out his constitutional mandate, he also served American and Americans well, and should not have been driven from office? “I don't imagine he is drunk on his own rhetoric.” No, I don’t suppose you have much of an imagination. “Even he couldn't get drunk on such swill. What then is the source of his mental incapacity?” We know what the source of your mental incapacity is; being full of yourself doesn’t leave much room for clarity of thought, does it?

- jdyer

December 14, 2010 at 12:37pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

The babble is self-evident. No further comment necessary.

- roidubouloi

December 14, 2010 at 1:01pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

roiduturd "The babble is self-evident. No further comment necessary." Yes, your babble is self evident, New School boy.

- jdyer

December 14, 2010 at 1:06pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

A conscious and self-serving justification is not quite the opposite of a rational reason, surely? Say one could ask the ghost of Harry S. Truman about his comments (the ghost now being able to review his former life honestly). Might it go like this? Q. Mr. President, what was the reason for your comments back then, which seem to vilify Jews or at least show a strong personal prejudice against them? A. The reason, ironyroad, I'm sorry to say, was that I was born and grew up in Missouri around the turn of the 20th century, and those attitudes and prejudices were all around me in my family and community, and nobody questioned them, and so I internalized them as people do. I wasn't trapped there, of course. I left Missouri, saw a bit of the world, fought in France in the First War, then went into politics back home, and eventually became president of United States, but some of those attitudes -- although I knew better by then -- came bubbling back up at key moments. It's not a very edifying reason, I know, but it's the best one I can give. My only justification is that I don't think my career shows me acting on those prejudices, but often in spite of them.

- ironyroad

December 14, 2010 at 2:41pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I should not longer be surprised, but it never ceases to amaze me how quickly jackson becomes enraged, starts to foam at the mouth, and can no longer think of anything more intelligent to say than "turd." Did you skip nursery school, jackson? Was there no one to teach you about being a potty mouth? More important, assuming as I do that you are not four years old, doesn't it embarrass you to be so inarticulate? Once again, you pointlessly pick a fight and then fall apart at even the mildest response. Not very impressive, jackson. Really.

- roidubouloi

December 14, 2010 at 2:42pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

roidubouloi "I should not longer be surprised, but it never ceases to amaze me how quickly jackson becomes enraged, starts to foam at the mouth, and can no longer think of anything more intelligent to say than "turd."" If you can't take it don't dish it out. You are an irrational boy Roid pretending to be rational. What does this have to do with Kissinger's comment about "gassing Jews in Russia" or Nixon's ravings about Jews? "Quite the opposite. "Affection" in international affairs is ephemeral to say the least. Interest, and at times universal values that have roots in national interest, are far more stable bases than affection on which to ground national security, as Nixon's conduct during the Yom Kippur War shows us." Are you endorsing Kissinger's view of the world? If so, does it excuse Nixon's hatred of Jews? If being an ally of Israel was and is in America's interest than any President would have acted as Nixon did in 1973 and your idea about "affection vs. national interest" is superfluous, don't you think?

- jdyer

December 14, 2010 at 3:16pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I thank ironyroad for his thoughtful attempt to bring Truman to life and explain what made him write these ugly things about Jews. But my interest in the case of the two peas (two presidents) is not how THEY acquit themselves but rather how people in later generations choose to either acquit or denounce them, when it is clear that both committed the sin of antisemitism with equal zeal. And why. Your fantasy does not explain that. There is no rational reason that can explain it. The only way is to treat them as we would a TS Eliot. Accept that a leader can be antisemitic and simultaneously do the right thing about people who happen to be Jews. This cannot explain anything or justify anything and I'd rather leave it at this juncture. You know, like a Scottish court ruling, an unproven case.

- noga1

December 14, 2010 at 3:39pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"when it is clear that both committed the sin of antisemitism with equal zeal." I think that the question, as Jackson and irony have tried to explain, is not as clear as all that. To assert "it is clear" does not make it so. And the issue is not "clear" in either its sources or its effects. The bigger question thought, it seems to me, is the one that Jackson (I think) raised earlier: why bring in Truman at all? Was the point again to attack the Left for ignoring the Democratic icon and picking on poow wittow wepubwican Nixon? Was it to detract attention from Nixon's abominable behaviour - which you have done well, whether intended or not, as the discussion has turned away from Nixon and Kissinger's cynicism in the direction of Truman - for whatever reason (because he was a friend of Israel's)? Or is it that, as I suggested before, you do in fact look into every nook and cranny - this time, Truman's diaries - to find zealous antisemitism? The tapes matter because Kissinger is still alive, and because the noxious poison that they breathed into American politics taints it to this day. Nothing like this can be said of Truman and his antisemitism, which appears more of a historical and sociological matter than a live political one, in the United States, these days.

- icarusr

December 14, 2010 at 4:24pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Icarus is right on when he says "The tapes matter because Kissinger is still alive, and because of the noxious poison that they breathed into American politics...." I would also that they matter because the evidence of hatred is readily available (audiotapes can be readily duplicated and they can be heard even as background while one is doing something else; print on the other hand had to be accessed, and it has to be done consciously and deliberately and pay attention to what one reads) and we don't know what effect they will have on future voters. We can't take it for granted that a future audience will not be in sympathy with Nixon and his ideas even though today it seems far fetched.

- jdyer

December 14, 2010 at 5:08pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"why bring in Truman at all? " How can he not be brought in? When one president is being attacked for vile antisemitic slurs it begs the question: is this really such an exceptional event? If not, then why all this focus on this particular president? As for the charge of "the noxious poison that they breathed into American politics". Really? Is Icarus claiming the Nixon's antisemitic slurs had such a profound impact on politics today? Or does he claim that we should pillory Nixon for his antisemitism not because of the antisemitism per se but because it helps in augmenting the demonization of this particular president, which the desirable and correct thing to do, according to icarus. In which case, it is very inconvenient to have the efficacy of such a strong medicine get diluted by the reminder of another such antisemitic president. The point in bringing in Truman is a reminder that there are no devils and no saints. Only democratic antisemites who nonetheless rendered good services to Jews in hours of great distress. Jews who care about Israel ought to remember this. ________ BTW, nice to see how a shared contempt brings together such rivals as icarus and jackson. It never fails, does it?

- noga1

December 14, 2010 at 5:21pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"As for the charge of "the noxious poison that they breathed into American politics". Really? Is Icarus claiming the Nixon's antisemitic slurs had such a profound impact on politics today?" Either you don't know your American history, or you are reading my comments acontextually. The "poison" refers to six years of mismanagement, adventurism, external crimes and domestic perversion of the political process; Nixon's vicious antisemitism and Kissinger's cynicism are aspects, but not the totality, of the poison they injected in American and world affairs. The one or two good deeds Nixon might have done in office - Israel, the EPA - should not blind us to the fundamentally corrosive nature of his government. So, no - it was not his antisemitism that had a profound impact on politics today, but his entire career as a politician, going back to 1950, that was a perversion of public service itself.

- icarusr

December 14, 2010 at 5:59pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"When one president is being attacked for vile antisemitic slurs it begs the question: is this really such an exceptional event? If not, then why all this focus on this particular president?" Well, there is disagreement, it seems, as to whether Truman's views were in the same ballpark as Nixon's. Why this focus on this particular president? Because he was alive when most of the people writing such things were coming of age; because he died in recent memory; because Kissinger is still alive and still expostulating about world affairs; because Nixon is relevant, very relevant, to US politics today in a way that Truman is not.

- icarusr

December 14, 2010 at 6:01pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Nixon's vicious antisemitism and Kissinger's cynicism are aspects, but not the totality, of the poison they injected in American and world affairs." So you are actually claiming the Nixon's antisemitism played a part in the damage he caused to American politics. Can you enlighten me on this subject a little more? As you say, I know nothing about American history, and am always eager to learn from my betters. How did this "vicious antisemitism" manifest itself in the way he managed his administration? Did Nixon actually go after Jews qua Jews?

- noga1

December 14, 2010 at 6:10pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"BTW, nice to see how a shared contempt brings together such rivals as icarus and jackson. It never fails, does it?" I was wondering whether to dignify your snark with a reply, but - in your literalism, you miss a lot of subtext, and you make assumptions - or assertions - that miss the point entirely. For one thing, I have no "contempt" for Nixon; to recognise a man's poisonous legacy on politics is not to have "contempt" or hatred or whatever. There are lots of figures in politics whose legacy I do not admire, but to suggest that I have "contempt" for them is a bit strong. For another, read Irony's comments about "shared views" elsewhere in these pages. It is perfectly possible for JD and I to agree on some issues - and we have - and to disagree on others, as we clearly do. On Nixon's noxious influence on American politics, I find myself in the company not only of a lot of democrats and Democrats and Leftists and lefties and liberals and Liberals, but also of many conservatives - any conservative, in fact, worth this appellation who cares at all about democratic institutions. Nixon's antisemitism is yet another manifestation of his utter unfitness for office; Truman's an exception to it. Therein is the principal difference between the two and, I think, the point of shared views between me and JD.

- icarusr

December 14, 2010 at 6:10pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Again, Noga, I think you're misreading this. It's not because Nixon was a Republican that this gets more attention than, say Truman's anti-Jewish diatribes. It's because Nixon was Nixon (Watergate, plumbers, CREEP, lying, impeachment, resignation etc). You may be -- and probably are -- perfectly correct that there is little to choose between the content of these two presidents' (peas') hostility to Jews. But there is a great deal to choose between the two men in terms of their respective niches in modern American history.

- ironyroad

December 14, 2010 at 6:17pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"there is disagreement, it seems, as to whether Truman's views were in the same ballpark as Nixon's." Of course there would be when you want to minimize one president's antisemitism or find excuses for it rooted in his upbringing, and blow up the other's. They were both antisemites and personally I find Truman's viciousness a lot more distressing, written as they were only two years after the horrors of Auschwitz.

- noga1

December 14, 2010 at 6:20pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"So you are actually claiming the Nixon's antisemitism played a part in the damage he caused to American politics ... I know nothing about American history, and am always eager to learn from my betters." I will, again, ignore the "my betters" snark. (It is possible, you know, that you don't know everything in the world, and to suggest that you might not possess all-encompassing knowledge or wisdom is not to suggest that those who might know more about a particular subject are your "betters". So please lay off the highly unattractive snark and stick to the point.) As to the first point - you read my point, again, too literally. When something - a character trait, a political worldview, a phobia - is an "aspect" of something else, it is not necessary to find specific manifestations of that "aspect" in the effects of the whole. Nixon's antisemitism is either the source or itself a symptom of his paranoia, his hatreds, his cynicism, his manipulativeness and so on - who knows? You cannot trace each of his specific problems since 1950 to specific character traits. What we do know is that he had an unimagineably negative impact on US politics for the better part of two decades; that he left the US presidency in tatters and the US reputation in the dump, and that the Republic has yet to fully recover. Did he go after Jews as Jews? He after Paul Newman and his Jewishness and liberalness were intermixed, for Nixon. But, does it matter? He had a noxious influence, more than any other modern politician; and he was a racist and an antisemite. The whole of his character harmed the country; why do you need to separate out specific elements?

- icarusr

December 14, 2010 at 6:20pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Of course there would be when you want to minimize one president's antisemitism or find excuses for it rooted in his upbringing, and blow up the other's." Well, you assume bad faith in others' reading of the evidence. Goes back to the point I made on another thread: you think yours is the only correct way of viewing something, and every one else has an agenda or an unworthy motive. It is also possible, you know, that the same set of facts give rise to different interpretations. So, if you want to have a civilised discourse, lay off the accusations of bad faith.

- icarusr

December 14, 2010 at 6:27pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"So, if you want to have a civilised discourse, lay off the accusations of bad faith." Yes, I'll try to remember this urging towards civility and wisdom when next I read something like this: "Every time I read about Obama's supposed vanity or arrogance, I hear, " uppity nigger". And now we have someone nauseated by the picture of a bemused president squinting as he is looking at something his host is describing. This is what we are going to read next: "In a startling development today, insiders report that President B. Hussein Obama defecated on a treasured White House antique fixture. The fixture, known to have been made for President Lincoln and used with care and reverence by every President since, was subjected to particularly fierce abuse by Obama, who is said to have eaten a mixture of Indonesian, Mexican and Islamic food for the purpose of doing maximum damage to the Lincoln treasure. An unidentified source confirmed that Obama may have encouraged the First Lady to urinate on the fixture as well. The source noted, 'it was awful, having to clean the Lincoln toilet bowl after he took crap in it ... and only Green products too - those things don't clean ...." Please, icarus. don't preach to me about civility and bad faith.

- noga1

December 14, 2010 at 6:56pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

“So you are actually claiming the Nixon's antisemitism played a part in the damage he caused to American politics ...” Nixon’s legacy include Jimmy Carter as well as Ronald Reagan. It also includes the antisemite Patrick Buchanan.

- jdyer

December 14, 2010 at 7:01pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Here is every single word you wrote in a paragraph. "For one, it reminds us to avoid complacency about anti-Semitism. Even in America, the place for a different kind of life for Jews, anti-Semitism has resilience in quarters where one might not expect it - Harry Truman, a highly respected progressive national leader; Billy Graham, the most prestigious religious figure in the country. Even as discrimination against Jews disappears, as attitudes improve, as Jewish security is strong, what people think and feel and say in the privacy of their homes or boardrooms is still uncertain. America the exception is also still America the product of a 2,000-year Western tradition of anti-Semitism."

- MOLLYSIMON

December 14, 2010 at 7:34pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I haven't said anything about Nixon or Kissinger, jackson, one way or the other. You are babbling. I was noting, as I have in the past, that states generally act out of interest, not friendship, and ascribing friendship and affection to states is a form of anthropomorphizing of governing corporations.

- roidubouloi

December 14, 2010 at 8:37pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

roidubouloi "I haven't said anything about Nixon or Kissinger, jackson, one way or the other." Given that the thread is about Nixon and Kissinger you are the one who is babbling, New School Boy. It's not news that States act out of self interest, but that self interest also includes domestic politics and could also at times include acting out of humanitarian consideration. As usual what you said has no meaning and contributed nothing to the discussion.

- jdyer

December 14, 2010 at 9:37pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Noga: we know you can google; bully for you, and for changing the topic, again, instead of addressing the issue.

- icarusr

December 14, 2010 at 10:55pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

You win - by the way - am done with this thread as well.

- icarusr

December 14, 2010 at 10:56pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

To the extent that Nixon or Truman's anti-Semitism or Kissinger's feelings about his Judaism informed their policies and actions, it is interesting and historically important, but there does not seem to be any argument for that. To the extent that they didn't have any impact, it is interesting as a counterpoint to the obsessive idea that anti-Semitism is the primary driver of all policy that Israel and Israelis don't regard as in their interest and as a comment on the complexity of individual personality. Otherwise, it is just boring. It is not news that there is anti-Semitism in the world. Just one more occasion for a wallow by those obsessed with Jewish victimhood as the paradigm of Jewish existence.

- roidubouloi

December 14, 2010 at 11:17pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Another pompous nothing from our resident New School Boy.

- jdyer

December 14, 2010 at 11:21pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

This more or less my experience with New School which had its glory days in the 1930’s and 40’s. The New School “Populated mostly by kids who didn't or couldn't get into NYU. Had a controversy in 2006 when it switched to just "The New School" from "The New School University" and changed its logo from a standard collegiate shield to what looks like a spray-painted tag. Many people called them out for failing to maintain academic integrity. Considered to be more avant-garde than your standard university. Actually more or less where rich people send their kids who want an excuse to live in New York City for four (or more) years without working.” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=new%20school%20for%20social%20research The place is a third rate college were the privileged go to get certified that they are not bourgeois.

- jdyer

December 14, 2010 at 11:58pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Noga: we know you can google; bully for you, and for changing the topic, again, instead of addressing the issue." Very thin skinned, aren't you, icarus? My point in reminding you of your own bad faith was just an attempt to adjust your level of tone and vehemence when you speak to me, that's all. (That is, if you are actually interested in speaking to me instead of just holding forth and hammering away). I didn't intend for you to flounce away in a huff because you were hurt or something.

- noga1

December 15, 2010 at 7:08am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Can you never offer an analysis that doesn't fall back on your alleged access to inside information as its sole source of support for whatever assertion you're putting forward?

- adsprung

December 15, 2010 at 9:46am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I suppose the craven Kissinger would have approved of this too: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/12holocaust.html "Declassified Papers Show U.S. Recruited Ex-Nazis" By SAM ROBERTS "After World War II, American counterintelligence recruited former Gestapo officers, SS veterans and Nazi collaborators to an even greater extent than had been previously disclosed and helped many of them avoid prosecution or looked the other way when they escaped, according to thousands of newly declassified documents. With the Soviet Union muscling in on Eastern Europe, “settling scores with Germans or German collaborators seemed less pressing; in some cases, it even appeared counterproductive,” said a government report published Friday by the National Archives. “When the Klaus Barbie story broke, about his escaping with American help to Bolivia, we thought there weren’t any more stories like that, that Barbie was an exception,” said Norman J. W. Goda, a University of Florida professor and co-author of the report with Professor Richard Breitman of American University. “What we found in the record is that there were a fair number, and that it seems more systematic.” In chilling detail, the report also elaborates on the close working relationship between Nazi leaders and the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who later claimed that he sought refuge in wartime Germany only to avoid arrest by the British. In fact, the report says, the Muslim leader was paid “an absolute fortune” of 50,000 marks a month (when a German field marshal was making 25,000 marks a year). It also said he energetically recruited Muslims for the SS, the Nazi Party’s elite military command, and was promised that he would be installed as the leader of Palestine after German troops drove out the British and exterminated more than 350,000 Jews there....." and later on: "The report details how Mr. Husseini himself was allowed to flee after the war to Syria — he was in the custody of the French, who did not want to alienate Middle East regimes — and how high-ranking Nazis escaped from Germany to become advisers to anti-Israeli Arab leaders and “were able to carry on and transmit to others Nazi racial-ideological anti-Semitism.” “You have an actual contract between officials of the Nazi Foreign Ministry with Arab leaders, including Husseini, extending after the war because they saw a cause they believed in,” Dr. Breitman said. “And after the war, you have real Nazi war criminals — Wilhelm Beisner, Franz Rademacher and Alois Brunner — who were quite influential in Arab countries.” In October 1945, the report says, the British head of Palestine’s Criminal Investigation Division told the assistant American military attaché in Cairo that the mufti might be the only force able to unite the Palestine Arabs and “cool off the Zionists. Of course, we can’t do it, but it might not be such a damn bad idea at that.” “We have more detailed scholarly accounts today of Husseini’s wartime activities, but Husseini’s C.I.A. file indicates that wartime Allied intelligence organizations gathered a healthy portion of this incriminating evidence,” the report says. “This evidence is significant in light of Husseini’s lenient postwar treatment.” He died in Beirut in 1974....." .... " The report, “Hitler’s Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence and the Cold War,” grew out of an interagency group created by Congress to identify, declassify and release federal records on Nazi war crimes and on Allied efforts to hold war criminals accountable. It is drawn from a sampling of 1,100 C.I.A files and 1.2 million Army counterintelligence files that were not declassified until after the group issued its final report in 2007." See the whole NY Times article with links to more sources here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/12holocaust.html?pagewanted=print some may want to look at the original government document here: http://www.archives.gov/iwg/reports/hitlers-shadow.pdf

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 10:30am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"I didn't intend for you to flounce away in a huff because you were hurt or something." That's sweet of you - I don't get hurt, I don't "flounce" - off, on, out, away or into - and I don't do huffs. I do occasionally write satire that you do not find funny, and sometimes attack, it is true; here, however, I have tried to respond and engage in a reasonable discussion with you, and all I get is snark after snark, and non sequiturs. As the man said, "A gentleman walks but never runs". I give up. You're right. Nixon good, Truman icky-poo; the Left evil, Republicans lilly-white; everyone other than those who want to bomb Iran and Hamas and Muslims and Arabs is an antisemite; etc. etc. See, no huff and no flouncing. Peace.

- icarusr

December 15, 2010 at 10:57am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Icarus, when you are mentioning anti-Semites on the Israeli top ten list, you must always be sure to mention both Thomas Friedman and the Union for Reform Judaism.

- roidubouloi

December 15, 2010 at 11:12am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Well, well, new school poor rich boy is back with more nothings about non issues. Did anyone refer to Thomas Friedman and the Union for Reform Judaism as antisemites, here?

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 11:23am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Does anybody here remember ThompsonDavid. For some obvious reason, I'm having a memory flash.

- MOLLYSIMON

December 15, 2010 at 1:42pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

This was just published in forward.com and gives much needed background to the despicable Kissinger’s evil minded comment. It also shows how wrong the “brilliant strategist” could be. Read the whole article here: http://forward.com/articles/133939/ “….There is a bit of lost context here — as Kissinger himself has made clear in a statement he released to the Forward. This 1973 conversation is in response to a popular Jewish groundswell of support for the Jackson-Vanik amendment, legislation in support of Soviet Jews that at that moment posed a threat to Kissinger’s entire foreign policy strategy, détente. He was frustrated and angry that Jews were the ones sabotaging, as he saw it, his delicate attempt at stabilizing the world through weaving “an intersecting web of interests” between the two Cold War enemies. “I think that the Jewish community in this country on that issue is behaving unconscionably,” Kissinger said to Nixon moments after his “gas chamber” comment. “It’s behaving traitorously.” The Jackson-Vanik amendment was an attempt to steer American foreign policy away from détente and towards a human rights issue. Soviet Jews, who had begun receiving exit visas in larger numbers in 1971 (13,000 got out; more than the past ten years combined) were facing new restrictions in the summer of 1972. The Soviets had implemented a “diploma tax,” requiring the Jews to pay back exorbitant sums to the Soviet government for the education that had been provided by the state. This seemed like a form of ransom. In response, Henry Jackson, a senator from Washington state, a Democratic cold warrior, came up with his formulation. As part of détente, Nixon and Kissinger were trying to get Congress to approve a trade bill that would grant Most Favored Nation trading status to the Soviets. Jackson now proposed an amendment that would demand any non-market economy (by which he meant the Soviet Union) would have to remove all blocks to emigration if they wanted to get MFN. “In the beginning, this seemed like it would be impossible, in the realm of fiction,” said Mark Talisman, the legislative aide to Charles Vanik, the Ohio congressman who sponsored the bill in the House. “Because in this real world, this terrible world we were living in, one in which realpolitik ruled, it seemed impossible that this could actually pass.” But the bill quickly gained support among the grassroots activists of the Soviet Jewry movement, and eventually the so-called Jewish establishment. By the time of that March 1973 meeting between Nixon and Kissinger, the bill had a majority of the Congress behind it. In fact, Kissinger’s comments followed a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in which both Kissinger and Nixon pleaded with her to tell the American Jewish community to back off the bill. “You must understand my situation,” Meir told the two men. “I cannot tell Jews in the United States not to concern themselves with their brethren in the Soviet Union!” When Kissinger uttered those now infamous words, he was feeling like a “scorned lover,” said Jeremi Suri, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin and the author of a book-length psychological profile of Kissinger, “Henry Kissinger and the American Century.” “What those comments reveal are a great deal of frustration that people he saw as people who should have been favorable to his point of view and favorable toward him were not supporting him,” Suri said. “It seems so shrill in a certain way, so emotional. This sense that they should have been supporting him.” Kissinger’s greatest enemy in this battle over Jackson-Vanik was Richard Perle, then a young legislative aide to Henry Jackson who would in later years have positions of power in the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. Perle coordinated the campaign for Jackson and worked hard to keep the Jewish community squarely behind the amendment. “It’s not surprising that he was very angry,” said Perle, when asked to comment on the new Kissinger comments. “His hopes for détente were being jeopardized by Jackson-Vanik and by the Soviet Jewry movement generally. My guess is that he was saying this to Nixon so that Nixon would not for a minute think that Kissinger had a soft spot that might lead him to do less than the policy they had agreed on. The extremity of the statement was meant to show that he’s just a very tough guy who, like Nixon, had his priorities straight and was single-minded.” What Kissinger could not know on March 1, 1973 was that almost three weeks later, on March 20, in Moscow, Brezhnev conducted a meeting in the Politburo which showed the palpable effect that Jackson-Vanik was having on the Soviet leadership. Brezhnev told the Politburo, “At this particular time, when the Zionists have incited a campaign around the Jackson amendment and around granting us [most favored nation] status, we need to let them out.” Brezhnev demanded that there be more thought given to how to appease the “Zionists.” He chides his comrades that they are going to lose the benefits of détente. “Zionism,” he said, “is making us stupid.”….” There is more: http://forward.com/articles/133939/

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 1:54pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

“He (Brezhnev) chides his comrades that they are going to lose the benefits of détente. “Zionism,” he said, “is making us stupid.”….” He should have said, “anti-Zionism is making us stupid,” since that was the case then as it is the case now. Similarly, antisemitism also makes people stupid as well as vicious. Just look at Nixon. If Nixon is popular in Israel today, I doubt he will remain popular after people learn what is in the tapes.

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 2:15pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

For the record here is a complete transcript of Truman’s diary for 1947: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/diary/transcript.htm The crucial entry is July 21. Does anyone know who “young Franklin” is in the July 23 entry?

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 2:30pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Did anyone refer to Thomas Friedman and the Union for Reform Judaism as antisemites, here?" Well now that Tom Friedman's name has been mentioned, it's a good opportunity to link to a fisking of his recent attack on Israel: http://simplyjews.blogspot.com/2010/12/thomas-l-friedman-reader-chapter-one.html

- noga1

December 15, 2010 at 3:06pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Oh, it is very much an issue, jackson. I am explaining to icarus how it works in the Jewish right-wingnut world. Not only is everyone who doesn't want to bomb Iran an anti-Semite, but sooner or later anyone, Jewish or not, who is critical of the Likud and/or settlements can reliably be expected to be branded by them as an anti-Semite. I want to be sure that icarus doesn't forget anyone. Obviously FDR, Jr. "his daddy's papers" "he and has mother not with Wallace" _________________________ "If Nixon is popular in Israel today, I doubt he will remain popular after people learn what is in the tapes." I would bet the opposite. Most people can easily forgive such dyspepsia when someone has saved their lives. I also note that Truman does not limit his comment about what people do when they go from being the "underdog" to "on top" to Jews. He describes it as a general human phenomenon. Not so far off the truth. I don't even read this remark as being particularly anti-Semitic. Seems more like irritation at Morgenthau's special pleading.

- roidubouloi

December 15, 2010 at 3:08pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Talked to young Franklin for almost thirty minutes on Jews, New York, California, his daddy's papers and political matters generally. Said he & his mamma were not with Henry Wallace!" Maybe this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt,_Jr.

- noga1

December 15, 2010 at 3:25pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

See what I mean, icarus? Doesn't take long. Thomas Friedman is purportedly "attacking Israel." Why is his criticism of Israel, or rather his criticism of the United States for what he thinks is its largely unconditional support of Israel, an "attack on Israel?" Does he hate Israel? Does it wish harm to come to it? Is he yet another Jewish anti-Semite or self-hating Jew? Does he have some self-serving agenda that he is promoting at Israel's expense?

- roidubouloi

December 15, 2010 at 3:25pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"would bet the opposite. Most people can easily forgive such dyspepsia when someone has saved their lives. I also note that Truman does not limit his comment about what people do when they go from being the "underdog" to "on top" to Jews. He describes it as a general human phenomenon. Not so far off the truth. I don't even read this remark as being particularly anti-Semitic. Seems more like irritation at Morgenthau's special pleading." Truman's comment's were dyspepsic, he was not an antisemite. Nixon's comments were vile and not just a one time thing. We'll see how the comments by Kissinger and Nixon about Russian Jews will play in Israel.

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 3:31pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I didn't think Friedman was attacking Israel. I thought he was attacking both the Israeli government and the PA, and by implication an American posture toward the ME conflict that enables a kind of back-and-forth of provocative frustration. But perhaps I'm wrong. I usually am.

- ironyroad

December 15, 2010 at 4:04pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

You ARE wrong, irony. You need a political reeducation in Likud-think to get yourself straight.

- roidubouloi

December 15, 2010 at 4:20pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"I didn't think Friedman was attacking Israel. I thought he was attacking both the Israeli government and the PA," That's exactly why it is an attack on Israel. Any suggestion of a moral equivalence between Israel and the PA is an attack on Israel. As long as there is this kind of thing: http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=3858 And this kind: http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=3809 Or this: http://www.palwatch.org/STORAGE/OpEd/Protocols_of_the_Elders.pdf Any article that purports to assign equal blame on Israel and the PA is a de facto attack on Israel's integrity. _______________ "It is long past time that we stop being their crack dealers." What exactly is Friedman crack analogy?

- noga1

December 15, 2010 at 4:55pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

http://www.palwatch.org/STORAGE/OpEd/Protocols_of_the_Elders.pdf Any attempt to dispense equal blame to israel and the PA is de facto an attack on Israel's integrity. What exactly does he mean by that "crack" analogy? I think snoopy the fisker I linked to has the right measure of this pathetic has been of a journalist.

- noga1

December 15, 2010 at 4:58pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

" I didn't think Friedman was attacking Israel. I thought he was attacking both the Israeli government and the PA, and by implication an American posture toward the ME conflict that enables a kind of back-and-forth of provocative frustration." That's how I read it too. However, he is not the issue on this thread. Some people feel more comfortable talking about anything except the noxious Nixon-Kessinger tapes.

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 5:03pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Any attempt to dispense equal blame to israel and the PA is de facto an attack on Israel's integrity." Not so, in this case both the Israeli government and the PA are to blame. Who cares what percentage of blame each party is to be credited with? Still, let's get back to the the thread topic.

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 5:05pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"We'll see how the comments by Kissinger and Nixon about Russian Jews will play in Israel." "Meir herself referred to Nixon as “my president” and told a group of Jewish leaders in Washington shortly after the war: “For generations to come, all will be told of the miracle of the immense planes from the United States bringing in the materiel that meant life to our people.” THE NEW York Times, attempting to explain the apparent contradiction between Nixon's anti-Semitic remarks and his pro-Israel behavior, ascribed it to a distinction the president made between Israeli Jews, whom he admired, and American Jews. Perhaps so. Whatever the case, Nixon’s readiness to come to Israel’s aid at a time of dire need, his appreciation that this was an American interest, has an ongoing relevance, underlining the critical mutual importance of the Israeli-American strategic alliance. With all its implications for policy-making in Washington and in Jerusalem, this remains as true today as it ever was." http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=199133

- noga1

December 15, 2010 at 5:09pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"the Israeli-American strategic alliance" is rather a little grand and misconceives the relationship. Israel has very little, if anything, that the United States needs, strategically that is. No resources, no military capability that it can lend to the United States, no geographic position that is an important base against enemies. It helps where it can, and that is welcome. Israel is a US client. If a Great Power wants to have clients, as it needs to do to limit the power of its rivals, it needs to demonstrate that being a good client brings important benefits. If the US had abandoned Israel during the Yom Kippur war, the repercussions would have been to all other US relationships around the world. That the US is willing to consider Israel a client in the first place is in part because Israel is a democracy, and the US wants to demonstrate the benefits of being a democratic client rather than an undemocratic one, and in part because of domestic political sentiment. Although the US behaves for the most part like any great power with regard to its interests, Americans want to see themselves playing a certain beneficent role in the world. The relationship with Israel fits that narrative. It makes everyone feel good to describe it as "strategic," as though Israel were a NATO member, but it is not the reality except insofar as strategy embraces the entirety of our foreign policy. Unfortunately, many Israelis seem to believe this literally. That means that they fail to see that Thomas Friedman points the way to the future: The US will not support Israel's colonial adventures indefinitely as they are a strategic liability for the US, frustrating its policies and needs elsewhere in the Moslem world and alienating other allies who have long since abandoned support for Israel over its posture in the territories. By failing to appreciate that the occupation is a wasting asset, Israel fails to make the best bargain it can in exchange for ending it. If it doesn't, the occupation will ultimately end anyway (see, The Peace Process is Finished) and likely not to the advantage of Israeli security and other concerns. ________________ I see we now have topic police, although a casual reading of the oeuvre of said police would disclose that the police talk about whatever pleases them whenever they want to, germane to the editor's blog or not. As the police pay no attention to their own admonitions, I don't see that anyone else should feel the slightest urge to do so.

- roidubouloi

December 15, 2010 at 6:46pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Noga, you usually criticize the NY Times, especially when they report on Israel. Why then do you offer them as evidence that Nixon was totally evil? I disagree with the NY Times, view. Nixon did make a distinction between Israel as a State and "his Jews" those who reside in the US. He probable made the same distinction between Italy and "his Italians," or Ireland and "his Irish," etc. This is not uncommon among people who hate other ethnic groups. It's not a view that the NY Times would want to admit. In any case, as I said to Roid. Nixon acted as a President ought to act when an ally needed help. Any other President would have done the same. As a supporter of Israel, I am glad his administration took the action he did, but I am reacting to Nixon as an American Jew. I think is a despicable bigot and I am glad he was forced to leave office for criminal Unconstitutional and un-American activities. Nixon was a polarizing figure who adversely affected the political process. We still have not recovered from what he did to this country.

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 6:51pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

“That the US is willing to consider Israel a client in the first place is in part because Israel is a democracy, and the US wants to demonstrate the benefits of being a democratic client rather than an undemocratic one, and in part because of domestic political sentiment.” This doesn’t even begin to explain the special US Israel relation. It was the US which came to Israel after 1967 to set up a partnership. During the cold war Israel was an important ally. There was no talk of “the only democratic’ State in the region at that time. The US has also maintained a close relationship with Israel because many of its citizens support and demand it. These supporters are not all Jewish. I suspect that this was also true of American support for Ireland. Conversely, the US could not reach out to Cuba because of the large exiled community in the US. Prior to the end of the cold war US policy towards Eastern Europe also had to take into account the sensibilities of Polish Americans et al. There are many other examples I could cite. It’s not always that easy to separate foreign policy interests from domestic politics.

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 7:06pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

“I see we now have topic police, although a casual reading of the oeuvre of said police would disclose that the police talk about whatever pleases them whenever they want to, germane to the editor's blog or not. As the police pay no attention to their own admonitions, I don't see that anyone else should feel the slightest urge to do so.” Give it a rest, garcondunouvellecole.

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 7:17pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Why then do you offer them as evidence that Nixon was totally evil?" It was the Jerusalem Post, not the NY times I linked to.

- noga1

December 15, 2010 at 8:50pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

And I don't remember usually criticizing the NY Times. Maybe you are confusing me with someone else? You, for example? I actually like to quote from hostile sources, even Al-Jazeera whenever possible. It spares a lot of haggling over facts.

- noga1

December 15, 2010 at 8:52pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Roi, Irony makes the most sense here. Any politician who puts Israel under pressure is dead. The numbers back this: A recent poll revealed that 61 percent of Americans have sympathy for Israel. I don't see a number like that getting lower any time soon. Not with the Christian right--which has basically taken over the RNC.

- MOLLYSIMON

December 15, 2010 at 9:02pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

noga1 "It was the Jerusalem Post, not the NY times I linked to." That's just a technicality, here is what you said: noga1 "THE NEW York Times, attempting to explain the apparent contradiction between Nixon's anti-Semitic remarks and his pro-Israel behavior, ascribed it to a distinction the president made between Israeli Jews, whom he admired, and American Jews." You wrote about the NY Times and then linked to the jpost. Also your use of quotes was odd, you used quotes to close a comment but there are no beginning quotes. See Noga at 5:09 PM post.

- jdyer

December 15, 2010 at 9:40pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

All I did was cut and paste a passage from the JPost article. Which you would have known had you taken the trouble to open the link. It would also have taken you a lot less time than writing a gratuitous comment.

- noga1

December 15, 2010 at 10:47pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I can see that close reading is not really your forte, jackson :)

- noga1

December 15, 2010 at 10:49pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

noga1 "Which you would have known had you taken the trouble to open the link. It would also have taken you a lot less time than writing a gratuitous comment." I trusted you, sorry my mistake.

- jdyer

December 16, 2010 at 12:10am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"I trusted you, sorry my mistake." If you trusted me then you should know that you are the one who deserves to be mistrusted for misrepresenting my comment the way you did. You assumed that I wrote ""THE NEW York Times, attempting to explain the apparent contradiction between Nixon's anti-Semitic remarks and his pro-Israel behavior, ascribed it to a distinction the president made between Israeli Jews, whom he admired, and American Jews." I didn't. It was part of the passage I quoted and you should have noticed that it started with a quotation mark. And then went on to suggest that I don't punctuate intelligently by declaring: "You wrote about the NY Times and then linked to the jpost. Also your use of quotes was odd, you used quotes to close a comment but there are no beginning quotes. See Noga at 5:09 PM post." Both your assumption and your silly and unfounded criticism about the quotes stink of either snotty ill will or reading incompetence. And then you have the nerve to top it all with a sanctimonious ""I trusted you, sorry my mistake."

- noga1

December 16, 2010 at 5:38am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Oops, I should have credited Jackson, not Irony.

- MOLLYSIMON

December 16, 2010 at 11:42am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I knew what you meant, molly. I don't think Americans are going to wobble in their support for Israel's security, but right now there is not a lot of distinction drawn between Israel's security needs and its settlements, not least because Israelis who support the settlements do their best to confuse the two. More important, the Palestinians have yet to figure out that the single audience to which they have to appeal in order to achieve their political goals is American public opinion. To do that successfully, they have to abandon violence and clearly be perceived as having done so. They are not there yet, but they are moving in that direction and there are indications that the PA leadership understands the dynamic. Hence its focus on nation building. The pincer of a peaceful PA and an increasingly dangerous Hezbollah with an open channel for Iranian weapons will, I believe, push matters to a conclusion. The Likud obviously believes that time is on its side, that the longer it can postpone a settlement the more of the West Bank it will be able to eat and keep permanently. I don't think it will keep any. Before it is over, the costs will be greater, and the brinksmanship constantly risks a war that threatens to be much more devastating for civilians than any war since the war of independence (when no one was a civilian). These are the sort of pointless risks that über-nationalists of all stripes take repeatedly, to the sorrow of the world.

- roidubouloi

December 16, 2010 at 12:03pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"... a peaceful PA... " The historical record does not bode well for such aspirations and should not be forgotten or shunted aside in the scramble for "peace" at any price: http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=199634 "On August 15, 1929, when Jews again marked Tisha Be’av by sitting, as well as chanting “The Wall is ours,” the Arabs began yet another in a series of bloody massacres. The massacres in several cities culminated in unspeakable atrocities at Hebron. It began in Jerusalem. “Itbach al-Yahood! Itbach al- Yahood!” Slaughter the Jews. Slaughter the Jews. With knives and clubs, the mob attacked every Jew in sight, burned Torah scrolls and yanked supplication notes to God from the cracks in the Wall and set them aflame. Attacks spread throughout the land. Jews were stabbed, shot, beaten with rocks, maimed and killed in various towns and suburbs. The chaos continued for days. [...] The mufti used the Wall controversy to continue his campaign against the British and the Jews. As part of that war, he led a broadly accepted, international and popularly accepted Arab and Islamic alliance with Nazi Germany. Eventually, when the British tried to arrest him, he fled to Iraq. There, the mufti and Nazi agents helped inspire the 1941 Farhud, a two-day spree of killing, looting and raping the Jews of Baghdad."

- noga1

December 16, 2010 at 12:25pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Noga, how come if I go back to, say, Norway's resistance record in WW2 to put the present-day antisemitic publishing etc in a certain historical context (so the present ugliness doesn't completely eradicate the record) I'm essentially distracting the discussion with an irrelevant fact, but if you go back to 1941 to make an argument about the present day Palestinian Authority, that's perfectly legitimate?

- ironyroad

December 16, 2010 at 12:36pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"I'm essentially distracting the discussion with an irrelevant fact," Did I say you were "distracting the discussion with an irrelevant fact"? I'm sure I had said something more substantial than that. Anyway, the point about Norway was and remains that the Norway you wish to recall was acting in accordance with what we would agree is universal justice. The Norway of today is antisemitic. This is their tragedy. http://www.israelwhat.com/2010/12/16/aftenposten-susan-abulhawa-op-ed-in-response-to-bernard-henri-levy/ The point about the history of the Palestinians or the Arabs of pre-1948 is exactly the opposite. That there is no difference between the Arabs who rioted, massacred and humiliated Jews before 1948 and the Palestinians, their descendants, today. http://pajamasmedia.com/michaeltotten/2010/12/15/the-oral-historian-of-the-israels-terror-war/

- noga1

December 16, 2010 at 3:08pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I just realized, ironyroad, that you were trotting out roi's cows in your question to me above. http://thesnee.typepad.com/.a/6a01287651dd4a970c0134866f609b970c-800wi

- noga1

December 16, 2010 at 3:13pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

First of all and lastly, "On August 15, 1929 . . . ."

- MOLLYSIMON

December 16, 2010 at 3:19pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I agree that the two cases represent an ugly discontinuity (Norway then and now) and an ugly continuity (Palestinian Arab fomenting of anti-Jewish violence then and now), but perhaps there's more to be said than that. One should not get into the habit of forgetting the past, but at the same time history isn't just a repetition of the same elements of a pattern.

- ironyroad

December 16, 2010 at 3:29pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

What's with the cows?

- ironyroad

December 16, 2010 at 3:30pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Surely you are familiar with roi's tried and unsuccessful method of ridiculing me or others when we provide stories that illustrate Palestinian ethics and practices when it comes to Israeli Jews. He believes we are forever trying to distract from the horrors of Israel's illegal occupation by changing the subject; oh, look, cows! (The "oh look cows" rhetorical fallacy, better known as the red herring)

- noga1

December 16, 2010 at 3:36pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"...t at the same time history isn't just a repetition of the same elements of a pattern." I believe so, too. I think historical repetitions present themselves with such altered features and feathers that they can mislead many a-goodly men that this is a brand new situation we are seeing, to which the lessons of history cannot really apply.

- noga1

December 16, 2010 at 3:39pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

noga1 To jd: "If you trusted me then you should know that you are the one who deserves to be mistrusted..." I know, I know, Noga never makes mistakes. Noga never nods while posting. Got it!

- jdyer

December 16, 2010 at 4:06pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Look! Cows." applies when, for example, some improper or foolish or otherwise objectionable behavior by Israel becomes the subject. Not infrequently, we are then subjected to irrelevant stories about worse deeds committed elsewhere, perhaps by the Palestinians, perhaps by Arabs, or perhaps just elsewhere in the world. As one cannot justify one's own bad or foolish behavior because other people are doing worse things, this is meant solely to draw our attention away to contemplation of something irrelevant but worse. Hence, "Look! Cows." I have no opinion on whether this applies to any part of the current discussion.

- roidubouloi

December 16, 2010 at 4:40pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I prefer "Oh look over there! It's Osama bin Laden!" The favored distraction move of the Bush administration.

- ironyroad

December 16, 2010 at 5:42pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

There is another thread here dealing with the stalled peace process, go take your obsessive Israel bashing there, new school boy.

- jdyer

December 16, 2010 at 5:44pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

What, jackson? And give up the opportunity to push your buttons and watch the spittle and foam fly? Never! The fun never stops as long as you are around.

- roidubouloi

December 16, 2010 at 9:56pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Also, you need to keep track of the distinction between bashing Israel and bashing the Likudnik and messianic nuts. They are far from being one and the same thing. Indeed, the reason for bashing the Likudnik and messianic nuts is precisely that they pose a threat to the safety and well-being of Israel, as our own flat-earth, right-wingnuts pose a threat to ours.

- roidubouloi

December 16, 2010 at 9:59pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

roidu... "What, jackson? And give up the opportunity to push your buttons and watch the spittle and foam fly? Never! The fun never stops as long as you are around." I wouldn't talk about foaming at the mouth if I were you. It's what you do best. In fact that and pushing people's buttons is the only thing you are good at. Are you sure you are not attending John Jay College rather than "The New School?" Or is it the New New School you are attending. The New School is by now not so new, except that its faculty has gotten senile and the new old students can't tell the difference between a hawk and a handsaw.

- jdyer

December 16, 2010 at 10:35pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Also, you need to keep track of the distinction between bashing Israel and bashing the Likudnik and messianic nuts. It's you who can't tell the difference between 'likudniks and messianics.'

- jdyer

December 16, 2010 at 10:38pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Written English getting the better of you, jackson? I suggest you try going to school. But perhaps high school would be an appropriate place for you to start your formal education. With the difficulty you have parsing sentences, I don't think you are ready for the prime time of college, even your local community college. I didn't suggest that you keep track of the differences between "Likudnik nuts" and "messianic nuts." I suggested you keep track of the difference between "bashing Israel" and "bashing the Likudnik and messianic nuts." Note the parallel construction, "bashing A" and "bashing B." This signals to the competent reader that the difference to be observed is between these two things. "Nuts" is modified by "Likudnik and messianic," not by "Likudnik, messianic." The latter might be construed to indicate that nuts are taken to be both "Likudnik and messianic" at the same time. The former makes clear that what is being referred to is "Likudnik nuts and messianic nuts," both of which are suitable for bashing. You see, jackson, this is why I don't recommend you apply to college straight away. Given your reading comprehension, the SATs are going to be an embarrassment for you (and let's not even talk about GREs and such). Get high school under your belt first. Study hard and you too can go to college.

- roidubouloi

December 16, 2010 at 10:52pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Roiduboy is in a bad mood again. Good.

- jdyer

December 16, 2010 at 11:01pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Nearly 40 Years Later, Kissinger’s Words Stir Fresh Outrage Among Jews" By CLYDE HABERMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/nyregion/17nyc.html?hp "“Despicable,” “callous,” “revulsion,” “hypocrite,” “chilling” and “shocking” were a few of the words used this week by some leaders of Jewish organizations and by newspapers that focus on Jewish matters. Conspicuously, however, many groups and prominent individuals stayed silent. They include people who would have almost certainly spoken up had coldhearted talk of genocide come from the likes of Mel Gibson or Patrick J. Buchanan, neither a stranger to provocative comments about Jews. Even some who deplored Mr. Kissinger’s remarks tempered their criticism. The Anti-Defamation League called the recorded statements “outrageous,” but said they did not undermine “the important contributions and ultimate legacy of Henry Kissinger,” including his support of Israel. The American Jewish Committee described the remarks as “truly chilling,” but suggested that anti-Semitism in the Nixon White House might have been at least partly to blame. “Perhaps Kissinger felt that, as a Jew, he had to go the extra mile to prove to the president that there was no question as to where his loyalties lay,” the committee’s executive director, David Harris, said in a statement. There was no hedging in editorials by Jewish-themed newspapers like The Forward and The Jewish Week. Separately, in a Jewish Week column, Menachem Z. Rosensaft, a New York lawyer who is active in Holocaust-related issues, dismissed Mr. Kissinger as “the quintessential court Jew.” And J. J. Goldberg, a Forward columnist, wrote, “No one has ever gone broke overstating Kissinger’s coldbloodedness.”"

- jdyer

December 16, 2010 at 11:03pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Jackson, How can I possibly be in a bad mood when you keep inviting me to hold you by the nose and kick you in the behind? You just don't know what a good time is.

- roidubouloi

December 16, 2010 at 11:20pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

New School Boy couldn't sleep unless he has the last word. It doesn't matter if that word is pure pathological fiction, it's gotta be his last word.

- jdyer

December 17, 2010 at 12:13pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Do you have an early bed time, jackson? You know, I love playin' with you and watching you clown around, but over at the thread just above this one, there is a real debate going on with some actual substance. That is so unusual for the Spine, I gotta hop. Play with yourself why dontcha.

- roidubouloi

December 17, 2010 at 12:25pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

The little rich boy from the new-old-school is baaaaaack. This must be the 23d hundredth time that he said he won't be back. But like a bad coin he keeps showing up. Needs to have the last word, gotta have the last post. Poor deluded roidurien.

- jdyer

December 17, 2010 at 4:30pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I've never once said I won't be back. Quite the contrary. I always say that I WILL be back if I say anything about it at all. You are confused again, jackson. As usual. Now, go back to playing with yourself.

- roidubouloi

December 17, 2010 at 4:42pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

The little new school old boy will say anything except talk about Kissinger and Nixon. Pathetic.

- jdyer

December 17, 2010 at 5:27pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Oh, this is SOOOOO fun, Topic Patrol Officer Jackson. You DO know how to have a good time!

- roidubouloi

December 17, 2010 at 6:23pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

The new school old boy is still unable to talk about the thread topic. MUst be that his "teachers" haven't told him what to think about it, yet. The good old boy's brain is a blank trash can all he knows is what the old new school pours into it.

- jdyer

December 17, 2010 at 6:25pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Yes, officer, of course.

- roidubouloi

December 17, 2010 at 9:24pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

He is still here! nothing to say, just keeping his sit warm.

- jdyer

December 17, 2010 at 9:47pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

If one wants to speak with authority, one should of course first observe the masters: 'He is still here! nothing to say, just keeping his sit warm.' Now THAT is really saying something! Must be difficult to live with head so bursting with ideas.

- roidubouloi

December 17, 2010 at 10:05pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Must be difficult to live with head so bursting with ideas." You, roi, are in no danger of bursting with ideas. There is only one idea in your mind and you make full use of it. One is almost afraid to speculate what these boards would look like if you had two ideas.

- noga1

December 18, 2010 at 6:38am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Someday, noga, I will learn how to cut and paste as you do. Then I will be able to claim that I have lots of ideas.

- roidubouloi

December 18, 2010 at 8:50am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

More on Kissinger like Jews who give in to their antisemitic masters: http://hurryupharry.org/2010/12/18/the-jews-nazi-germany-and-the-soviet-union/ "The Jews, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union" Guest Post, December 18th 2010, 4:18 pm Review by Karl Pfeifer

- jdyer

December 18, 2010 at 1:13pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

SHARE HIGHLIGHT

0 CHARACTERS SELECTED

TWEET THIS

POST TO TUMBLR

SHARE ON FACEBOOK

Close