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April 2, 2004
Jewish neo-cons are "outed"
B.C. magazine sparks furor by singling out influential American
Jews.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
A Vancouver-based magazine with an international readership has
caused something of a furor by publishing a list of "neo-cons"
it says are driving American foreign policy – and singling
out those on the list who are Jewish.
The current (March-April 2004) issue of Adbusters carries
an article titled "Why won't anyone say their Jewish?"
The article's author, Adbusters editor-in-chief Kalle Lasn,
posits that the neo-conservative thinkers who hold policy sway in
the Bush administration are made up disproportionately of Jews.
The magazine ran a sidebar of what it said was a carefully researched
list of the top 50 neo-con thinkers influencing the White House,
then placed an asterisk next to those on the list who are Jewish.
Among the names were current and former administration officials,
think tank members, journalists and academics, such as Paul Wolfowitz,
Norman Podhoretz, Richard Perle, Daniel Pipes and Charles Krauthammer.
In total, 26 of the 50 on the list were asterisked as being Jewish.
Adbusters is described on its Web site as "a not-for-profit,
reader-supported, 120,000-circulation magazine concerned about the
erosion of our physical and cultural environments by commercial
forces."
In the brief accompanying article, Lasn stated: "Friends help
each other out. That's why the U.S. sends billions of dollars every
year to Israel. In return, Israel advances U.S. strategic interests
in the Middle East."
It continued: "A lot of ink has been spilled chronicling the
pro-Israel leanings of American neo-cons and [the] fact that a the
[sic] disproportionate percentage of them are Jewish. Some commentators
are worried that these individuals – labeled 'Likudniks' for
their links to Israel's right wing Likud party – do not distinguish
enough between American and Israeli interests. For example, whose
interests were they protecting in pushing for war in Iraq?"
Lasn acknowledged that the article was approaching a touchy subject.
"Drawing attention to the Jewishness of the neo-cons is a tricky
game," Lasn wrote. "Anyone who does so can count on automatically
being smeared as an anti-Semite. But the point is not that Jews
(who make up less than two per cent of the American population)
have a monolithic perspective.... The point is simply that the neo-cons
seem to have a special affinity for Israel that influences their
political thinking and consequently American foreign policy in the
Middle East."
The article acknowledged the difficulty in determining who should
be defined as a "neo-con," then added that some on the
list shape policy directly, as members of the administration, while
others do so indirectly, as commentators, activists and writers.
"What they all share is the view that the U.S. is a benevolent
hyper power that must protect itself by reshaping the rest of the
world into its morally superior image," concluded the article,
adding: "And half of the them are Jewish."
The debate the article has produced on the magazine's Web site is
intense.
One reader wrote that the "magazine has gone from attacking
materialistic capitalism to searching for a cabal that controls
all. Assuming that such a conspiracy exists was the first mistake
of the Adbusters editors.... Lasn's list of suspected Jews
among a group of 50 neo-conservative intellectuals is similar to
the lists of suspected Jews in the Soviet Politburo that one encounters
in right-wing and fascist writings from the 1920s and 1930s, and
it is equally anti-Semitic."
Another reader wrote: "In the past, Adbusters has enlightened
me about the world. It has shown me to look beyond the face-value
of issues, ads and many other things. Now, however, I am extremely
disappointed. I thought that Adbusters wanted world unity,
tolerance of all peoples, and a loss of stereotypes and perceived
difference between ethnicities/races. However, this article seems
to prove me wrong. There is no free thinking or creativity in this
article. It only draws on previous anti-Semitic views."
Many readers commended the magazine on the article. The passionate,
articulate and sometimes profanity-filled debate continues to rage
on the magazine's Web site at www.adbusters.org.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
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