A day after leaving Media Matters For America, I feel a need for an explanation beyond what I posted at the MMFA site. It was provoked by all the right-wing "pro-Israel" types who don't believe I quit and insist I was fired because I attacked the dual holy of holies: Israeli government policies and the Israel lobby.
They are wrong. I left on my own, despite the protestations of MMFA management. But, in a way, the right-wingers are correct. I left MMFA because I did not want an organization that does such great work exposing Fox News and bringing down Glenn Beck and now leading the anti-Limbaugh effort to be hurt because of my stands on the Middle East.
But, followed to its logical conclusion that means that criticizing Israel and its lobby is, in fact, dangerous and I had to leave to protect an organization I love from people who, in their single-minded devotion to the Israeli government, will go after anyone and anything who stands in their way.
After all, the huge anti-Media Matters onslaught from the right (the one related to me not the incessant right-wing smears against MMFA) came over my use of the term Israel Firsters, by which I meant those people who put the interests of the Netanyahu government over those of the United States, people who wouldn't hesitate to criticize an Obama or a Bush but defend anything and everything that comes out of a right wing Israeli prime minister's mouth. This dynamic did not apply to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for obvious reasons.
Take Alan Dershowitz.
Here is what the famous lawyer had to say about me leaving Media Matters in Daily Caller:
"Liberal Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz had been at the forefront of public criticism of the group, calling for -- and now receiving -- Rosenberg's departure."
"Rosenberg was an extremist," Dershowitz told the Daily Caller. "He didn't engage in careful, nuanced critiques of Israel, which is fine. He engaged in hyperbole, name-calling. He just hated, hated, hated, with a passion, almost an eroticized passion of anything associated with Israel. He was like a spurned lover -- irrational."
"So it's an enormous improvement for Media Matters," he said.
Dershowitz, you may recall, joined the effort to "get" Media Matters and me after my 200th (or so) use of the term Israel Firster.
In fact, he denounced me in a full page ad that a bunch of GOP operatives, led by William Kristol, took out in the New York Times. That must have cost a hundred thousand dollars or so, demonstrating the importance the right attaches to going after critics of Netanyahu. And preventing the use of the term Israel Firster, which drives them nuts.
In an interview about the time the ad was published, Dershowitz said that he was both a liberal and a Democrat but that unless Media Matters fired me, he would spread the word against... President Obama (on the grounds that Media Matters is close to the president).
His logic:
"I don't know whether President Obama has any idea that Media Matters has turned the corner against Israel in this way," Dershowitz said. "I can tell you this: he will know very shortly because I am beginning a serious campaign on this issue and I will not let it drop until and unless Rosenberg is fired from Media Matters, or Media Matters changes its policy or the White House disassociates itself from Media Matters.
He continued:
I will speak to every Jewish group that invites me, and I think it's fair to say I speak to more Jewish groups than probably any other person in the world. I spoke to over a million Jews over the years. You know, just last Thursday spoke to 1200, just in the next weeks alone I'll be speaking and in the past weeks to thousands of American Jews. And believe me, I will not let them ignore this issue.
Think about it. Dershowitz says he is a liberal and a Democrat but would oppose a Democratic president (with whom he agrees on domestic American issues) because that president may be close to an organization that employed a staffer who opposes policies of the Israeli government.
In other words, the well-being of every American matters less to Dershowitz than one critic of Israeli policies.
What is that definition of Israel Firster again?
But I shouldn't use Dershowitz as a stand-in for the more serious McCarthyites who patrol the Israel debate. He has, in fact, become a caricature of the "pro-Israel" (actually pro-Likud) zealot.
In a new book by best-selling author Shalom Auslander (he wrote "Foreskin's Lament") called Hope: A Tragedy, Dershowitz is repeatedly invoked in a continuing joke. It seems that one character, an old Jewish woman, is obsessed with her suffering in the Holocaust. She hates all non-Jews and is always sure that the Nazis are coming back. Except the old lady is not a Holocaust survivor. She is a paranoid rich American lady from Long Island who never suffered a day in her life.
Here's the beauty part. Every time one of her imaginary "anti-Semites" appears near her home in Westchester County, she responds with her demented threat: "Get Mr. Alan Morton Dershowitz on the phone."
But Dershowitz is far from alone. In fact, he is not very important. The serious enforcers who suppress any criticism of Israeli policies and who are also implicated in fomenting Islamo-hatred in this country (remember the New York mosque controversy) is the lobby, led by AIPAC but whose less savory work is carried out by its allies, paid and unpaid. AIPAC confines itself to keeping the president and Congress in line by the selective use of campaign contributions.The dirty work is done by others.
Bottom line. The bad guys didn't "get" me. But they did create the climate that made me decide to leave. Keep taking bows, boys.
Only problem: you can't shut us up.
The things I've been saying for years are now conventional wisdom. After all, does anyone seriously argue anymore that our Middle East foreign policy is not dictated by the lobby and its network of donors?
Except maybe Alan Morton Dershowitz when he isn't bragging about it.
The people I no longer call Israel Firsters have, once again, proven my point.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
And by the way... Who is MJ? Never heard of him. Media might matter, but he certainly doesnt.
While Rosenberg tries to walk it back some, and claim that it is really aimed uniquely at the current democratically elected Netanyahu government, he, and all those others who support his use, and their own use, of such a derogatory term know the truth - it underlies their efforts to negate, nullify, and disqualify all those who strongly believe that a self-reliant, democratic, defensible nation state of the Jewish People is in the best interest of America, and the American population.
Disagree? - Fine!
Propose solid, fact-based arguments in opposition? - Fine!
Use delegitimizing terms, refuse to let those who disagree with you have a voice, disqualify them and their opinions without factual refutation, in an effort to end support for Israel - not fine at all.
I was born and grew up in Israel. I have never found Bibi to have a vision for a future in the area that did not base itself on regressing to the late 60s or early pre 1973 power for Israel. Bibi may do well in the treasury but has no capacity for leadership of a nation. He failed before and he will not succeed now or ever.
Anyone living ubder a notion that a right wing government is good for Israel is harboring a fool's daydream and a national nightmare. In the entire history of humanity no right wing goverment has ever been in any way benevolent or productive.
That is a valid opinion, and shared by many. But to suggest that those who don't share your opinion are "illegitimate" is not.
You may disagree with the Prime minister of Israel, and his government's policies. You are certainly free, and encouraged to return to the country of your birth, and vote in the elections there for parties and politicians who support your positions. But you do not have the right to disqualify the democratic choices that the Israeli electorate makes, especially on issues of security, safety, and survival; and certainly not from the safety of another country.
Maybe it does refer to an American who puts Israel ahead of his own country as described by Rosenberg.
Just an accurate statement about someones behavior.
Why would you want to censor this?
I'm heartened that they have come to their senses, the fewer outlets for a unprofessional loose cannon like Rosenberg, the better. Are you listening Huff Post?
The term "Israel Firster" is a fairly accurate description of Dershowitz.
"Training: As participants gain familiarity with facts and figures, they simultaneously undergo a ‘practical activism’ curriculum that helps them develop strategic tools to communicate effectively about Israel, as well as workshops that teach the nuts and bolts of good activism. Hasbara Fellows learn the basics of effective communication, including how to stay on message, confidently answer difficult questions, and steer the conversation to relevant topics. These techniques are absorbed through multiple role-playing sessions where participants gain comfort with speaking about Israel in various scenarios..."
http://www.hasbarafellowships.org/israel-program/about-the-fellowship
Hasbara fellowships at $3000, but no charge to students to advocate on campus and in the media.
http://www.hasbarafellowships.org/israel-program/additional-fees
Make your opponent appear to be insane.
" I speak to more Jewish groups than probably any other person in the world. I spoke to over a million Jews over the years.."
I'm more powerful than you.
It is amazing that anyone listens to Dershowitz.
'there cannot be peace when injustice and inequality continue'….agreed….
so stop the roktts and make peace for a change…..rather than working on obliterating
israel.
I think Norman Finkelstein does.
"I accept that the lobby is very influential and shapes [U.S.] policy on Israel-Palestine. But when Walt and Mearsheimer start generalizing about the influence of the lobby on Iraq, Iran policy and elsewhere - that's where I think they get it wrong. I just can't find any evidence for it."
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/focus-u-s-a/norman-finkelstein-bids-farewell-to-israel-bashing-1.422684