Cracks in the Ceiling, Part I

Late at night, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, sometimes I just see cracks…and sometimes I just think I’m cracking up. Too many thoughts. Make them stop. Let me sleep. But here they are, in no particular order…at least the ones that pertain to this blog. The fact that I had to spend $517 on a new toilet this week, is relevant to no one and frankly is none of your business.

* Steve Walt. Ah, Steve Walt. What a week it was. It produced a modicum of drama here for the debut of the new Foreign Policy.com website and for me, a virgin blogger, it was so darned exciting to watch as various corners of the blogosphere vibrated with opinions about Steve’s thought exercise, my response, his response to my response. And now this: my response to his response to my response. He accuses me of not maintaining my objectivity and rhetorical poise. First, who ever said I had rhetorical poise? Not me, certainly. Not my family. As for objectivity, who is he to say I am not being objective? Just because I don’t agree with him? What is it about me that he thinks makes it hard for me to be objective? Pretty insidious implications there. He takes umbrage at my accusing him of being on a jihad against Israel. First of all, since when is a jihad a bad thing? I don’t make cultural judgments of that sort. I also used the word crusade. Oh, and I was trying to being amusing and provocative. Won’t happen again. (You already know that.) And he also seems to be upset that I accused him of being in an anti-Israel lobby. Well, I am not really comfortable with labeling people part of a "lobby" just because they think it is in the U.S. interest to support our one reliable democratic ally in the region. Maybe we are just patriotic Americans trying to make realist foreign policy the old-fashioned way: based on reality. I’m not in a lobby, Steve. I’m just at my desk wondering why, if what he really wanted to be is a good friend to Israel, he called his book The Israel Lobby as if the problem were a group of people and not a policy. Hmmmm. Sorry if I misread the thought experiment that started this all, but I couldn’t help it: what a simplistic idea that those of us who felt Israel’s self-defense was justified would think differently if only we changed the Gazans from Palestinians to Jews. (Hamas is not an ethnic group nor is it the Gazan version of Hadassah; it’s a terrorist group, supported by other terrorists and committed to the destruction of Israel.). Walt is, however, pleased I lumped him in with Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski. I don’t blame him. You see, I actually am able to see these guys for more than the differences I have with them on this issue and I admire them and their work greatly, Brzezinski especially. (On many issues, most perhaps, I think he is the very best national security thinker on the Dem side of the field.) And, for the record, I agree that the U.S. has to weigh its historical support for Israel in the context of ever-changing circumstances and to be critical, bluntly so, when that is required. Maybe, despite being Jewish, I still have possession of my critical faculties (if not my rhetorical poise.)  Anyway, as some people (we won’t tell who) say on Passover, dayenu. Enough.