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UNDERSTANDING JEWISH INFLUENCE III: NEOCONSERVATISM AS A JEWISH MOVEMENT
... This is far from the case. These movements were founded and centered around a mutually reinforcing core of strongly identified Jews seeking to advance their perception of Jewish interests, and the same can be said of neoconservatism (MacDonald, 2004). Conversely, even at these ratios, Jews have been underrepresented as leaders of historical populist movements (MacDonald, 1998a: Ch. 5) and immigration restriction movements, at least in the period prior to the 1965 immigration law (see below). ...
... Jews and the Left Cofnas's treatment of why Jews tend to be on the left lacks any appreciation of Jewish history, simply noting that "In recent history, Jewish involvement in politics has skewed left because a higher proportion of right-wing than left-wing movements were overtly anti-Semitic," thereby confining himself to an unspecified period of recent history and ignoring pre-1960s America where it would be difficult to impossible to find any important Jewish intellectuals or activists who were not on the left of the political spectrum, as well as ignoring where the power of the Jewish community was directed during that period, ignoring other motivations of the Jewish left (e.g., the belief that multiculturalism would prevent Jewish assimilation), and ignoring the Jewish motivations of neoconservatives in later decades. Neoconservatives have been the most important group of Jewish conservatives; they have been motivated mainly to influence U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction while pushing the Republican Party to the left on social issues like immigration (MacDonald, 2004). Indeed, it wasn't until the 1970s, during the Carter administration, that neoconservative Jews defected from the Democratic Party because of Carter's advocacy of an evenhanded approach vis-à-vis Israel and the Palestinians and for a return to the 1967 borders (see MacDonald, 2004); until then, American Jews had no high-profile representation on the intellectual or political right in America. ...
... Neoconservatives have been the most important group of Jewish conservatives; they have been motivated mainly to influence U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction while pushing the Republican Party to the left on social issues like immigration (MacDonald, 2004). Indeed, it wasn't until the 1970s, during the Carter administration, that neoconservative Jews defected from the Democratic Party because of Carter's advocacy of an evenhanded approach vis-à-vis Israel and the Palestinians and for a return to the 1967 borders (see MacDonald, 2004); until then, American Jews had no high-profile representation on the intellectual or political right in America. Then, with the rise of President Trump, many neoconservatives (e.g., Max Boot, Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin) abandoned the Republican Party, likely because of Trump's populist rhetoric and his proposals for a non-interventionist foreign policy. ...
The role of Jewish activism in the transformative changes that have occurred in the West in recent decades continues to be controversial. Here I respond to several issues putatively related to Jewish influence, particularly the “default hypothesis” that Jewish IQ and urban residency explain Jewish influence and the role of the Jewish community in enacting the 1965 immigration law in the United States; other issues include Jewish ethnocentrism and intermarriage and whether diaspora Jews are hypocritical in their attitudes on immigration to Israel versus the United States. The post-World War II era saw the emergence of a new, substantially Jewish elite in America that exerted influence on a wide range of issues that formed a virtual consensus among Jewish activists and the organized Jewish community, including immigration, civil rights, and the secularization of American culture. Jewish activism in the pro-immigration movement involved: intellectual movements denying the importance of race in human affairs; establishing, staffing, and funding anti-restrictionist organizations; recruiting prominent non-Jews to anti-restrictionist organizations; rejecting the ethnic status quo as a goal because of fear of a relatively homogeneous white majority; leadership in Congress and the executive branch.
Recent research on the political attitudes of social scientists is reviewed indicating strong liberal bias and willingness to discriminate against professors with non-liberal attitudes. I argue that the liberal tilt of academia is the result of the rise of a cohort of Jewish academics in the 1960s whose political attitudes reflected mainstream attitudes within the Jewish com-munity but were well to the left of European-Americans in general. The academic world is hierarchical, with elite institutions able to dominate the image of ideal professors and sup-press or marginalize non-liberal views. Since the 1960s Jews have been strongly overrepre-sented among academics, especially in the social sciences and especially at elite institutions. The body of the paper shows that this transformation had the characteristics of successful in-tellectual movements pointed to by Gross and Fosse (2012): (1) those involved in the move-ment had a complaint (anti-Semitism, cultural exclusion); (2) they were able to form cohe-sive, effective networks; (3) they had access to the most prestigious academic institutions.
(13) Why Are Professors Liberals?. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321716607_Why_Are_Professors_Liberals [accessed Dec 10 2017].
America should use its post-Cold War hegemony wisely by deepening its ties with its NATO allies and thereby save itself from the temptations of overwhelming power.
This remarkable group of essays described the "culture wars" that consolidated a new, secular ethos in mid-twentieth-century American academia and generated the fresh energies needed for a wide range of scientific and cultural enter-prises. Focusing on the decades from the 1930s through the 1960s, David Hollinger discusses the scientists, social scientists, philosophers, and historians who fought the Christian biases that had kept Jews from fully participating in American intellectual life. Today social critics take for granted the comparatively open outlook developed by these men (and men they were, mostly), and charge that their cosmopolitanism was not sufficiently multicultural. Yet Hollinger shows that the liberal cosmopolitans of the mid-century generation defined them-selves against the realities of their own time:McCarthyism, Nazi and Communist doctrines, a legacy of anti-Semitic quotas, and both Protestant and Catholic versions of the notion of a "Christian America". The victory of liberal cosmopolitans was so sweeping by the 1960s that it has become easy to forget the strength of the enemies they fought. Most books addressing the emergence of Jewish intellectuals celebrate an illustrious cohort of literary figures based in New York City. But the pieces collected here explore the long-postponed acceptance of Jewish immigrants in a variety of settings, especially the social science and humanities faculties of major universities scattered across the country. Hollinger acknowledges the limited, rather parochial sense of "mankind" that informed some mid-century thinking, but he also inspires in the reader an appreciation for the inte-grationist aspirations of a society truly striving toward equality. His cast of characters includes Vannevar Bush, James B. Conant, Richard Hofstadter, Robert K. Merton, Lionel Trilling, and J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Almost thirty years ago, a prominent group of neoconservative hawks found an effective vehicle for advocating their views via the Committee on the Present Danger, a group that fervently believed the United States was a hair away from being militarily surpassed by the Soviet Union, and whose raison d'être was strident advocacy of bigger military budgets, near-fanatical opposition to any form of arms control and zealous championing of a Likudnik Israel. Considered a marginal group in its nascent days during the Carter Administration, with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 CPD went from the margins to the center of power. Just as the right-wing defense intellectuals made CPD a cornerstone of a shadow defense establishment during the Carter Administration, so, too, did the right during the Clinton years, in part through two organizations: the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP). And just as was the case two decades ago, dozens of their members have ascended to powerful government posts, where their advocacy in support of the same agenda continues, abetted by the out-of-government adjuncts from which they came. Industrious and persistent, they've managed to weave a number of issues --support for national missile defense, opposition to arms control treaties, championing of wasteful weapons systems, arms aid to Turkey and American unilateralism in general --into a hard line, with support for the Israeli right at its core. On no issue is the JINSA/CSP hard line more evident than in its relentless campaign for war --not just with Iraq, but "total war," as Michael Ledeen, one of the most influential JINSAns in Washington, put it last year. For this crew, "regime change" by any means necessary in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority is an urgent imperative. Anyone who dissents --be it Colin Powell's State Department, the CIA or career military officers --is committing heresy against articles of faith that effectively hold there is no difference between US and Israeli national security interests, and that the only way to assure continued safety and prosperity for both countries is through hegemony in the Middle East --a hegemony achieved with the traditional cold war recipe of feints, force, clientism and covert action.
With all the attention paid to neo-conservatives in the international media, one would think that there would be a standard definition of the term. Yet, despite their having been credited with a virtual takeover of US foreign policy during the first administration of President George W Bush, a common understanding of the term remains elusive. In this context, it may be useful to offer some description of their basic tenets and origin, if for no other reason than to distinguish them from other parts of the ideological coalition behind the administration's neo-imperialist trajectory; namely, the traditional Republican machtpolitikers, such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and the Christian Rightists, such as former Attorney-General John Ashcroft, Gary Bauer and Pat Robertson. The so-called neo-con godfather, Irving Kristol once remarked that a neo-conservative is a "liberal who was mugged by reality". True to that description, neo-conservatives generally originated on the left side of the political spectrum and some times from the far left. Many neo-cons, such as Kristol himself, have Trotskyite roots that are still reflected in their polemical and organizational tendencies and ideological zeal.
This paper argues that Western cultures have a unique cultural profile compared to other traditional civilizations:
1. The Catholic Church and Christianity.
2. A tendency toward monogamy.
3. A tendency toward simple family structure based on the nuclear family.
4. A greater tendency for marriage to be companionate and based on mutual
affection of the partners.
5. A de-emphasis on extended kinship relationships and its correlative, a relative
lack of ethnocentrism.
6. A tendency toward individualism and all of its implications: individual rights
against the state, representative government, moral universalism, and scienc
This is the first book to analyze the history of neoconservatism and trace its influence on foreign policy, using new information from interviews and archives. Ehrman focuses on key individuals-Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Norman Podhoretz, and Elliott Abrams, showing the development of their ideas and their place in American conservatism today
Beginning in the ancient world, Jewish populations have repeatedly attained a position of power and influence within Western societies. I will discuss Jewish background traits conducive to influence: ethnocentrism, intelligence and wealth, psychological intensity, aggressiveness, with most of the focus on ethnocentrism. I discuss Jewish ethnocentrism in its historical, anthropological, and evolutionary context and in its relation to three critical psychological processes: moral particularism, self-deception, and the powerful Jewish tendency to coalesce into exclusionary, authoritarian groups under conditions of perceived threat. Jewish populations have always had enormous effects on the societies in which they reside because of several qualities that are central to Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy: First and foremost, Jews are ethnocentric and able to cooperate in highly organized, cohesive, and effective groups. Also important is high intelligence, including the usefulness of intelligence in attaining wealth, prominence in the media, and eminence in the academic world and the legal profession. I will also discuss two other qualities that have received less attention: psychological intensity and aggressiveness. The four background traits of ethnocentrism, intelligence, psychological intensity, and aggressiveness result in Jews being able to produce formidable, effective groups—groups able to have powerful, transformative effects on the peoples they live among. In the modern world, these traits influence the academic world and the world of mainstream and elite media, thus amplifying Jewish effectiveness compared with traditional societies. However, Jews have repeatedly become an elite and powerful group in societies in which they reside in sufficient numbers. It is remarkable that Jews, usually as a tiny minority, have been central to a long list of historical events. Jews were much on the mind of the Church Fathers in the fourth century during the formative years of Christian dominance in the West. Indeed, I have proposed that the powerful anti-Jewish attitudes and legislation of the fourth-century Church must be understood as a defensive reaction against Jewish economic power and enslavement of non-Jews.1 Jews who had nominally converted to Christianity but maintained their ethnic ties in marriage and commerce were the focus of the 250-year Inquisition in Spain, Portugal, and the Spanish colonies in the New World. Fundamentally, the Inquisition should be seen as a defensive reaction to the economic and political domination of these "New Christians."2 Jews have also been central to all the important events of the twentieth century. Jews were a necessary component of the Bolshevik revolution that created the Soviet Union, and they remained an elite group in the Soviet Union until at least the post-World War II era. They were an important focus of National Socialism in Germany, and they have been prime movers of the post-1965 cultural and ethnic revolution in the United States, including the encouragement of massive non-white immigration to countries of European origins.3 In the contemporary world, organized American Jewish lobbying groups and deeply committed Jews in the Bush administration and the media are behind the pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy that is leading to war against virtually the entire Arab world.
The history of Zionism illustrates a dynamic within the Jewish community in which the most radical elements end up pulling the entire community in their direction. Zionism began among the most ethnocentric Eastern European Jews and had explicitly racialist and nationalist overtones. However, Zionism was viewed as dangerous among the wider Jewish community, especially the partially assimilated Jews in Western countries, because it opened Jews up to charges of disloyalty and because the Zionists' open racialism and ethnocentric nationalism conflicted with the assimilationist strategy then dominant among Western Jews. Zionist activists eventually succeeded in making Zionism a mainstream Jewish movement, due in large part to the sheer force of numbers of the Eastern European vanguard. Over time, the more militant, expansionist Zionists (the Jabotinskyists, the Likud Party, fundamentalists, and West Bank settlers) have won the day and have continued to push for territorial expansion within Israel. This has led to conflicts with Palestinians and a widespread belief among Jews that Israel itself is threatened. The result has been a heightened group consciousness among Jews and ultimately support for Zionist extremism among the entire organized American Jewish community.
The work of Leo Strauss is not typical of American academics. He has explicitly rejected the premises and methodologies of modern scholarship. In its stead, he claims to have rediscovered other, more ancient methods of discovery to guide his research. As a result, his conclusions do not necessarily reconfirm what we think we already know. Hence his work represents a challenge to current scholarship. For if Strauss 's conclusions are true, then a radical rethinking of the history of philosophy, political philosophy and psychology is required. It would be much easier if we could simply say that Strauss's methods and conclusions are wholly misguided.
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