The anti-“Likudnik” party and their discontents

Anyone who reads this site knows that I am as critical of and opposed to the neoconservatives—this side irrationality—as anyone. But the paleocons do not stop at this side of irrationality. They persist in turning the name of an Israeli political party, the Likud, into a smear word against neoconservatives. It’s senseless, it’s wrong, it makes them look anti-Semitic, and they should stop doing it, as I discuss here.

- end of initial entry -

(Note: Below, I copy most of my comment from the thread linked above, followed by readers’ comments.)

LA replies:

… For American nationalist right-wingers to attribute to Americans who support Israel’s right to exist the name of an Israeli party that stands for Israel’s right to exist, and to use that name in such a way as to suggest that there is something sinister and anti-American about defending Israel’s right to exist, is hard to account for in any way that looks good. To smear and thus delegitimize Israel in order to smear the neocons (who are the real object of the paleocons’ hate) may not be anti-Semitism, but it sure as hell looks like it.

Of course, the paleocons will say that they don’t oppose Israel’s right to exist, rather they are opposing Jewish neoconservatives who place Israel’s interests above America’s, which is what they mean by “Israel-first Likudniks.” Their main “evidence” for this charge is the supposed fact, endlessly repeated in paleocon publications, that the “real” reason for the invasion of Iraq was to defend Israel’s interests, not what Persident Bush said was his purpose, which was to eliminate Iraqi WMDs and to turn Iraq into a model of democracy for the Muslim world. It wasn’t enough for the paleocons to attack Bush for his deluded, destructive policy of fighting a “war” by “spreading democracy” in Muslim countries that are inherently incompatible with democracy. No, the paleocons had to accuse Bush of the worst treason in American history by a U.S. president, namely that, under the influence of the traitorous Jewish neoconservatives, he had spent a year persuading America to go to war on false premises, when his real reason was to help a foreign, Jewish country. Remember that the paleocons have said, over and over, that the American soldiers who have died and been maimed in Iraq have died and been maimed for Israel’s sake.

Adding to the viciousness is the cluelessness. The paleocons are so immersed in their anti-neocon, anti-Israel prejudices that they haven’t noticed (1) that Israel was not pushing for the invasion of Iraq, American neoconservatives were (Israel had more pressing threats than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq); (2) that the invasion of Iraq has done nothing to improve Israeli security; and (3) that Likud has been shoved aside by the national-suicidal Olmert party and has been powerless to stop (and perhaps has stopped trying to stop) the retreat from Gaza and other Israeli acts of appeasement that have encouraged Israel’s Arab enemies.

Further, these clueless paleocons haven’t noticed that the neocons for several years now have relegated their concern about Israel’s security to the back burner in order to embrace Bush’s Democracy Project, which, under the criminally deluded belief that Arab “democracy” will end Arab terrorism, pushes Israel to accept Palestinian statehood and make other concessions to the Arabs regardless of the fact that the Arabs will use such statehood to advance their goal of destroying Israel. The paleocons haven’t noticed, even now, that the leading neocon, Norman Podhoretz, even now, is supporting Bush’s policy of forcing Israel to make more and more concessions to its would-be destroyers.

Nope. The anti-“Likudniks” don’t see any of this. They have their sense of grievance (meaning their grievance against the neocons), and they keep imagining a world that justifies their sense of grievance, rather than looking at reality. It is an intellectual failure of the first order, and it has been catastrophic for pro-American nation conservatism.

Simon N. writes from Britain:

You wrote:

“Further, these clueless paleocons haven’t noticed that the neocons for several years now have relegated their concern about Israel’s security to the back burner in order to embrace Bush’s Democracy Project, which, under the criminally deluded belief that Arab “democracy” will end Arab terrorism, pushes Israel to accept Palestinian statehood and make other concessions to the Arabs regardless of the fact that the Arabs will use such statehood to advance their goal of destroying Israel. The paleocons haven’t noticed, even now, that the leading neocon, Norman Podhoretz, even now, is supporting Bush’s policy of forcing Israel to make more and more concessions to its would-be destroyers.”

I think this is the critical point, and well said. OK, Likud wants the U.S. to attack Iran, and the Neocons want the USA to attack Iran. There is a frequent convergence of interest. But the Neocons pretty consistently subordinate Israel’s genuine, reality-based security interests to the global democratisation crusade. Likud, by contrast, may use similar “Iran is Nazi Germany” type rhetoric, but they are Israeli Nationalists and far more reality-based than the Neocons.

BTW on the topic of Paleocons and anti-Israelism, this piece by Gottfried was well worth reading.

James W. writes:

You have raised the issue of Israel’s right to exist in context with the opinions of paleocons and neocons. Here I present my opinion on Israel’s existence, not its right to exist.

It seems to me that twenty years out, if that long, Israel will indeed not exist. I will not need to convince you of what few Americans understand—that the destructive and suicidal grip of far-left ideologies in Israel is considerably more advanced than in the United States, strong enough to thrive even in the face of the threat of imminent destruction that is ever-present. [LA replies: yes. We see liberal suicide brought to its extreme in Israel. With no buffers, with nothing to fall back on, facing actual enemies making war on them, they keep a government in place that is seeking to make further major concessions to those enemies. We’ve gone way beyond Chamberlain in Munich here. This is Chamberlain in Munich to the nth power.]

I do not believe Israelis are now, have ever been, or ever will be, prepared to do to their innumerable enemies what their enemies are certainly prepared to them. At some point, like Russian Roulette, this is a game that must be lost. We see Palestinians gleefully anticipating Iran’s nuclear program as it is obvious even to their degraded intellects that their lives are going to go up in radioactive smoke as well as the Jews. Or, chemical and biological agents. They don’t appear to very much care.

Israelis will choose life, wherever that is, and reject the annihilation of their enemies. And I expect it will be life in as many places as they hold dual citizenship, plus a few more.

Ron L. writes:

Paleoconservatism is not a coherent ideology and never has been. It is a mixture of traditionalists, revolutionaries and libertarians joined to oppose neoconservatives. Their “raison d’etre” was the M.E. Bradford Affair and having been founded at a Randolph Society meeting in the late 1980s their entire enterprise has been a historical revision. There is nothing “paleo” about a movement formed over a set of grievances from the 1970s until today. But just as revisionism is their mode, grievance is there core. It is not different than black nationalists or Jewish leftists who support foreign immigration despite the damage that this does both to their own rational self interest and that of the country. Historical facts or future damage are all irrelevant, because for all the rhetoric of some of the more rational members, they are driven by grievance and feeling.

This is why we have:

Jeffersonians and Neo-confederates enamored with Hamiltonian-Lincolnian tariffs to protect industries.

We have people who oppose Hispanic immigration becoming hysterical over Islamists or at least illegal alien Arabs being rounded up. Those who want secure borders and an end to employment of illegals hysterical over verifiable identity cards.

Defenders of European cultures and nationalisms defending the slow-jihad of Muslim minorities in Europe.

People who called Ike a communist or at least excoriated his foreign policy now in love with him.

Those who oppose a New World Order, defending UN Treaties and rulings as the arbiter of American foreign policy.

Those who once supported a strong military declare us unable to defend against Fourth-generational warfare.

Those who were once anti-Communists now enamored with Putin and supporting Russia and China’s attempts to undermine U.S. policy.

The self-proclaimed intellectual heirs of the “Old China hands” now opposing support for Taiwan.

And those who called for us to stand fast against communist agitprop calling for us to give into the reasonable demands of Islamists.

Paleoconservatives are not anti-Semites so much as people blinded by their own crude parody of damaging behavior and beliefs of leftist Jews. However driven by grievance politics, blinded by anger, and caught in a sounding room with the far-left they are not only embracing “stabbed-in the-back” type theories but are accepting open anti-Semites. Back in 2001, I told you, Robert Locke, and David Horowitz that the Paleos will eventually have to decide whether they love America and the West more than they hate Israel. Far too many made the immoral choice.

LA replies:

Ron, it’s a fascinating theory I’ve never heard before, that the entire paleocon movement originated out of reaction to the “original crime” of the neocons stopping the Bradford nomination.

Now, I know that that incident has been central to the paleocons, but it had never occurred to me that it was literally the formative event of their movement. If this is your theory, what is your evidence for it?

Ron replies:

My theory of the concordat between Paleocons and libertarians should have been attributed to you.

My point about Paleocons being new and their grivence rising from Bradford rests on an article by Sam Francis:

“Although Scotchie does not put it quite this way, contemporary paleoconservatism developed as a reaction against three trends in the American Right during the Reagan administration. First, it reacted against the bid for dominance by the neoconservatives, former liberals who insisted not only that their version of conservative ideology and rhetoric prevail over those of older conservatives, but also that their team should get the rewards of office and patronage and that the other team of the older Right receive virtually nothing.

The politics of this conflict, as those involved in it will recall, was often vicious and personal, the most notorious case being the backstabbing treatment of the late M.E. Bradford by his neoconservative rivals over the appointment to the chairmanship of the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1981. The bitterness of the NEH controversy was due not to the neocons pushing their own nominee, the totally unknown and laughably under-qualified William Bennett but to their complete lack of hesitation in smearing, lying about, and undermining Bradford at every opportunity.

Scotchie deals briefly with the Bradford controversy, but I have to say, as one closely involved in supporting Bradford at the time, that he does not dwell sufficiently on the sheer evil and meanness of neoconservative conduct in it. But he also notes the firing, calculated vilification, or effective ostracism of several paleos or paleo fellow travelers by the neocon cabal in the following years as well as the deliberate campaign to strip the Rockford Institute of funding by neoconservative-controlled foundations.

As the neoconservatives emerged into prominence, most paleos more or less welcomed them, believing their contributions were largely positive and that if they could move no further to the right then, they might do so in time. Certainly that was Mel Bradford’s view before he enjoyed the benefit of their malicious attentions. By the late 1980s, however, no informed paleo harbored any such illusions any longer. Critics of paleoconservatives who raise an eyebrow at the bitterness and sheer hatred that paleo polemics with neocons sometimes display will find in Scotchie’s book a good deal of explanation for such passions.”

Also, my inflammatory reference to “stab-in-the-back” comes from Francis’s review. “Have the paleos indeed failed, and if they have, is the neocon stab-in-the-back theory the only reason? “

Even David Wilkinson, who hold the conventional belief that paleocons are merely traditionalist conservatives revived, acknowledges the Bradford nomination battle as the break between neocons and paleocons:

“Conceptualizing paleoconservatism around the founding of Chronicles, these emphasize key events closely associated with Chronicles magazine and its staff. Such events most prominently include the M.E. Bradford NIH nomination fight, the neoconservative initiated 1986 Rockford Institute funding cutoff, and attacks by noted neoconservatives such as Neuhaus on the Rockford Institute as anti-Semitic. Correspondingly the growing power of neoconservatism at National Review, as manifested by the increasing power of John Podhoretz and the Commentary faction at National Review and NR’s attacks on Pat Buchanan and Joseph Sobran also figure prominently in their accounts of the rise of paleoconservatism’s mirror opposite, neoconservatism.”

LA replies:

John Podhoretz never had any kind of power at National Review. He was an occasional contributor, and then he was included as a participant at the Corner, where he rapidly made himself a highly disliked figure, so much so, that when he was appointed as editor of Commentary, no one except Kathyrn Lopez, the editor of NRO, said anything about it, and what she said was as de minimus as could possibly be.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 06, 2008 10:32 AM | Send