Neocons = Conservative Jewish Hawks To The Kooks?

by John Hawkins | April 22, 2003 11:43 pm

Neocons = Conservative Jewish Hawks To The Kooks?: I probably wouldn’t even bother to comment on this article from “Arab News” entitled, “Protocols of the Elders of Neocons[1]” if I hadn’t seen the sentiments in it slipping into mainstream leftist and Paleocon thought. But, since there are some people out there who buy into this sort of garbage (probably more so than many of them are willing to admit in front of a camera), I thought it was worth shooting down. Here’s the opening paragraph that gives a good general idea of what the writer is trying to get across…

“In this weekly telephone report Paul Wolfowitz expressed his anxiety to Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister about the situation in the Middle East. “How are you doing?” asked Wolfowitz. “OK, OK,” answered Sharon, “but you must go to Syria.” Wolfowitz pondered, “this will be tougher to get the president’s okay on.” Sharon could not help but scream, “He does not know Damascus from Des Moines, Iowa. Move it Paul. You can always tell him that this man of peace thinks it’s kosher,” concluded Sharon with a hysterical laugh.”

The idea here is that these “neocons” have an insidious influence on the Bush administration. Their goal? To manipulate Americans in general and the Bush administration in particular into doing Israel’s dirty work. Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle are the two most often cited although I’ve on occasion heard David Frum & Douglas Feith’s names mentioned. You even hear some people get all skittery about the influence of pundits like Jonah Goldberg and Bill Kristol.

I have no idea how rational people can buy into this cockeyed theory. If you look at the big four players in Bush administration foreign policy, you’ll find three hawks (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice) & then there’s Colin Powell who is a bit more dovish. Then there’s the President himself who seems to work out of the Ronald Reagan cowboy diplomacy playbook. I could add that more than 70% of the American people supported the invasion of Iraq in the last poll I saw including a majority of Democrats. So how can anyone look at this overwhelming support for an invasion, pick a handful of Jews and go, “you caused this to help Israel!” It’s just ludicrous.

Furthermore, I hate to break this to Pat Buchanan, Arab News, the French, the anti-war movement, etc, but Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Jonah Goldberg, etc, have mainstream Conservative views on foreign policy. The overwhelming majority of American Conservatives are hawkish, Pro-Israel, and strongly supported using the military to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Furthermore, the majority of all Americans would have supported invading Syria in the last poll I saw so I’m sure the numbers among Conservatives are probably 70%+ there as well. So again, there’s nothing unusual about the positions taken by the prominent Jewish Conservatives who kooks think are somehow manipulating the President into settling scores for Israel. Just how do you look at foreign policy position supported by almost every prominent Conservative in the US from Rush Limbaugh to Ann Coulter and go, “See! See! There are some Conservative Jews who support it too! That means it’s all a plot the Jews have come up with to support Israel!” Of course, that makes no sense whatsoever.

That’s why I always suspect anti-semitism when I hear someone ranting about “neoconservatives” (by which they usually mean Jewish Conservatives) influencing Bush administration foreign policy. There’s simply nothing to distinguish the views of people like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle from their superiors other than their Jewishness. So to pick that out and spin conspiracy theories about it says more about the person doing the spinning than the “neoconservatives” they’re speculating about…

***Update***: Here’s a guide I wrote to Blogosphere Jargon[2] a while back that clears up what a neoconservative actually is as opposed to how the term is commonly and incorrectly used these days.

Endnotes:
  1. Protocols of the Elders of Neocons: http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=25493
  2. Blogosphere Jargon: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/special/jargon.php

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