Ethnic news

From On the Media:

Ethnic papers are often left out of the discussion when it comes to the death of the newspaper industry. And so it came as a surprise to us that the nation's oldest Spanish language paper, El Diaro La Prensa, is actually thriving. El Diaro executive editor Alberto Vourvoulias explains why.

You can listen or read here.

Holiday in Cambodia

The choice of music in the AJC video that's been circulating is.. cheeky.

How would a realist deal with Lieberman?

Ezra Klein writes on the ascension of Avigdor Lieberman to Israel's Foreign Minister:

But it's difficult to know what to root for any longer.

It's tempting to focus on the pluses and misunderstandings, and I've probably erred in that direction. Jeff Goldberg notes here that Lieberman is "actually a person interested in a cold compromise with the Palestinians." And continues, "It's a disaster because he's made himself into a racist." But that's only an intro, as it should be, to denounce Lieberman's views and analyze them according to a better standard not terribly dissimilar to Klein's.

I'm, personally, rooting for a very short-lived coalition and new elections shortly. (I think that's a good bet.)

But while Israel has lately been off-putting for a great many, it seems as though world leaders are taking Israel's needs more seriously. Here, I'm probably making the same mistake again, but...

Not only are international leaders apparently more serious about Hamas's arms smuggling, but the EU is threatening to boycott Durban II.

I guess in a world of realists, it doesn't pay for Israel to bank on idealists - but that's certainly not an outcome I'd hope for. On the other hand, it's not an outcome I'd expect either. Chas Freeman's Mearsheimer-and-Walt-style rant against the Israel Lobby doesn't suggest it. (For me that rant would be reason enough to oppose his appointment. Of course, that rant came as he withdrew his nomination, but it wasn't the only indication of such a view. And I don't support "I was angry" as a justification for a style of thinking that's never as transient as anger.) But it's hard to deny that excessive realism (I feel so conservative saying this) is enabling. So let's blame American realists for Lieberman?

So, coming from a completely different place, like Ezra, it's hard for me to know what to root for.

Idris Elba - in/out identification and the theater

Fresh Air had an interview with Idris Elba last week. I'll highlight his simultaneous identification as a literal Cockney and as a sort of perpetual foreigner. Also, his pride in accents and using them to blend in or stand out, to hide or reveal his identity.

Talk about smearing your critics!

From Jon Chait, who has more to say on Freeman "hopefully, for the last time":

And then, in an interview with the Nation, Freeman added this analysis of the force that did him in: I've decided I'm going to call it from now on the [Avigdor] Lieberman lobby. It's the very right-wing Likud in Israel and its fanatic supporters here. And Avigdor Lieberman is really the guy that they really agree with. This is confused in two ways. First, on its own terms: Lieberman is not a Likudnik but the head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. Second, I don’t think a single American who has criticized Freeman in any prominent way shares Lieberman’s worldview. My views on Israel generally track those of the Labor Party. My boss, Marty Peretz, leans a bit further to the right, but he has described Lieberman as a "gangster" and "repulsive." Jeffrey Goldberg, another pro-Israel Freeman critic, has called Lieberman "incorrigible." So here, again, Freeman misses the mark very badly.

Chait also offers the very useful, "Freeman is so deeply in the grips of realist ideology that he doesn't even understand it's an ideology." Read his post for the context of that.

Concise

In comments over at WWPD, PG writes:

I don't feel confident in saying that what happened to Freeman was unfair (though obviously it was unpleasant for him, but "unpleasant" is hardly a moral indictment unless you're Leon Kass). But I feel pretty confident in saying that his nomination was derailed in large part due to his views on Israel. To the extent that those views were characterized accurately, and that those views are not appropriate for the role he sought, there's nothing unfair nor unjust here, even if there were a massive teleconference for all American Jews to talk about how they would spread the message against him.

An Israel Lobby or a Jewish Lobby can be inherently unfair only if one believes that all positions or ethnicities in a democracy ought to have equal political weight regardless of either their popularity among citizens or their intrinsic worth, however that is measured. I don't consider it at all unfair that the pro-secularism lobby is larger than the pro-sharia lobby.

Of course, people might disagree on how to characterize his views and whether they are appropriate for the role he sought. It's really amazing how much people disagree on all sorts of things, and this case is no different - except that here Jews are accused of being unfair for disagreeing. See also, where I wrote:

Most anti-racists, I think would be thrilled if the complaints of minorities could affect advertising so effectively. Isn't that a major point of talking about racism in advertising?

Yet when Jews complain about something, this isn't the attitude. Jews "silence debate." For us to complain effectively is somehow unfair.

and

Yet what is criticized is rarely the reasoning of specific complainants, or even specific complainants (Morton Klein?), but more generally the process of Jews complaining about antisemitism. (And in doing so, Jews are typically described as scheming and disingenuous, either explicitly or implicitly in the assertion that they knowingly aim to stifle debate over Israel with an irrelevant claim.) This will not do.

With Freeman here again, there was a pointed failure to engage with what his critics said.

"Hardline Jews"

The following, though I'm not putting it in blockquotes so I can more easily copy the formatting, is quoted directly from Ami Isseroff:

The battle is not over and it won't be. The anti-Israel lobby lobby have already started their blood libel are casting Freeman as a latter day Simon of Trent. If you think I am exaggerating, read Robert Dreyfuss's rant in the Nation: :

Joining in on the trashing of Freeman were the (let's face it) hard-line Jews of the Democratic Congress, including Senator Charles Schumer of New York, Rep. Steve Israel (yes, he is actually named "Israel") of New York, and of course, that former Democrat, Joe Lieberman -- all of whom crowded into the amen corner with AIPAC...

At last the Jew word is out. "Hardline Jews" no less. And Dreyfuss and the Nation are not above juvenile wordplay with people's names, either. Don't let the "progressive" aura of The Nation or its pretensions to intellectuality fool you. Dreyfuss is a "hardline" right-wing anti-Semite who used to edit Executive Intelligence Review, described by Wikipedia as "the flagship journal of the Lyndon LaRouche movement." The demented jibe at Steve Israel's name speaks for itself. Dreyfuss's article is just one of many that mourn the innocent victim of the "hardline Jews."