JANUARY 2010 ggggggggg The Deadly Price of Pursuing Peace by evelyn gordon

WHEN the Oslo process began in 1993, one benefi t its adherents promised was a signifi cant improvement in Israel’s international standing. Now, 16 years later, Israel’s has fallen to an unprecedented low. Yet even today, conventional wisdom, including OBAMA’S NEXT THREE YEARS in Israel, continues to assert that Israel’s JOHN R. BOLTON #3 Commentary international standing depends on its A NEVER-ENDING willingness to advance the “peace pro- ECONOMIC CRISIS? DAVID M. SMICK cess.” So why has Israel’s standing fallen #3

WHY JEWS JANUARY 2010 : VOLUME 129 NUMBER 1 so precipitously despite its numerous HATE PALIN JENNIFER RUBIN concessions for peace since 1993? The #3 PHILIP ROTH mounting evidence makes it inescapable: COMES TO THE END Israel’s standing has declined so precipi- SAM SACKS tously not despite Oslo but because of Oslo. $5.95 US : $7.00 CANADA $7.00 : US $5.95 JCC Maccabi Games 2009 Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life

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N HER groundbreaking lead article this month, and deferential.” Obama, Bolton writes, “focuses not on which begins on page 17, Evelyn Gordon explores America’s virtues but on why it is ordinary.” I the catastrophic decline in Israel’s global standing What Israel learned, to its sorrow, is that the despite 16 years of “taking risks for peace” (Bill Clinton’s Palestinians had no interest in helping them become demand of the Jewish state), which is entirely unprec- ordinary. For America’s adversaries, as with Israel’s, edented in the annals of statecraft and diplomacy. Israel Barack Obama’s interest in retreat does not slake undertook these risks in large part to win the world their thirst for advance; rather, it makes them believe over. Instead, its actions have generated nothing but an- that the avoidance of confrontation on the part of the ger, outrage, contempt, violence, and open explosions of United States is an opportunity to secure the submis- the vilest anti-Semitism to be seen in respectable Euro- sion of others. That is what we learned, to our sorrow, pean company since the end of the Second World War. in the 1970s, when an impotent America watched as The relative positions of Israel and the United the Soviet Union and its allies began to move aggres- States could not be more different, of course. Israel sively in the Third World and revolutionary Iran kid- is tiny and isolated; the United States is gigantic and napped and held 52 Americans for 444 days without populous and still the richest and most powerful coun- fearing the consequences. For those who wish power try in the world, offering a global lifeline to and gain- at any cost, the pursuit of normaliut on the part of its ing succor from every continent. And yet there are les- enemies engenders not good feeling but contempt. sons the United States might learn from the example For all those who look to the United States for of the failure of Israel’s outreach and the conceptual leadership and as a moral beacon, American normaliut fl aw behind it. is ominous. It invokes the chaos of Yeats’s “The Second In the wake of the 1993 Oslo accords, Israeli Coming,” the world in which the best lack all convic- intellectuals began to speak favorably of normaliut, or tion, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. “normalness,” as the particular gift the deal with the Thus, even in those moments when President Obama Palestinians would bequeath to the Jewish state. An rejects the siren song of normaliut—as he has done end to Israel’s isolation would grant it full membership courageously in committing to a troop surge in Afghan- in bourgeois Western society. As the columnist Gidon istan—he speaks with an uncommon lack of convic- Samet put it in 1995, “Madonna and Big Macs are only tion. This will not do at a moment when an irredentist the most peripheral of examples of . . . a normaliut Islamofascist regime—whose apocalyptic millenarian which means, among other things, the end of the president speaks with complete conviction about wip- terrible fear of everything that is foreign and strange.” ing the Jewish state off the map—is coming ever closer One might say that, in the wake of George W. to possessing the world’s most devastating weaponry. Bush’s presidency, Barack Obama is promising his fel- That once unimaginable reality will soon be low citizens and the world a kind of American norma- upon us unless the president of the United States liut—only he is not promising full access to Madonna demonstrates passionate intensity of his own. He will and McDonald’s but rather universal health care and need to show an intensity of a kind that may not win European-style social democracy. To achieve this him the friendships he seems to think he needs, but normaliut, Obama needs to preside over a less inter- will win him something more important—the fright- nationally active United States. “Obama’s America,” as ened respect of those for whom the only check against John R. Bolton details in his splendidly pungent piece genocidal barbarism is a healthy fear of the power of beginning on page 24, “need only be restrained, patient, the United States. q

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January 2010 : Vol. 129 : No. 1

Articles

Evelyn Gordon The Deadly Price of 17 Pursuing Peace Israel’s efforts to resolve its confl ict with the Palestinians have not only failed; they have harmed its image.

John R. Bolton Obama’s Next 24 Three Years The president isn’t interested in foreign policy, but his ideas and approach mark him as the fi rst “post-American” president.

David M. Smick A Never-Ending 29 Economic Crisis? The 2008 meltdown was badly handled and the 2009 recovery may be a bubble. Portents for the future are worrisome indeed.

Jennifer Rubin Why Jews Hate Palin 35 The problems with her go beyond policy disagreements. They are about wildly differing views of the qualities necessary for American leadership.

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Jonathan S. Tobin The Trilby That Sank an Empire 41 Major Farron’s Hat, by David Cesarani

Brian C. Anderson Once on This Island 44 American Passage: The History of Ellis Island, by Vincent J. Cannato

Neomi Rao Taking a Constitutional 47 The Citizen’s Constitution, by Seth Lipsky

Ira Stoll Was FDR Too Ill to Govern? 48 FDR’s Deadly Secret, by Steven Lomazow and Eric Fettmann

Jamie M. Fly The Ever-Present Danger 50 The Hawk and the Dove, by Nicholas Thompson

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Sam Sacks Philip Roth Comes to the End 54 The Humbling, by Philip Roth

Terry Teachout Was Thelonius Monk’s Music Crazy? 57 Tough-minded, diffi cult, unpopular, yes; the work of a madman, no.

Michael Riedel When a Producer Was a Star 60 Ziegfeld: The Man Who Invented Show Business, by Ethan Mordden

Peter Lopatin Shaken Seltzer 62 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

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inaccuracy and impossibility, but the fi ction is the point. For World Celluloid Avengers War II–history buffs—Tarantino apparently among them—Basterds is a fantasy, an exciting and enter- To the Editor: cations—both positive and nega- taining “what if” story about Jew- REDERIC Raphael’s sardon- tive—of Jews fi ghting back and, ish commandos doing their worst F ic, slice-and-dice review of by extension, what might have against Nazis. Criticizing Basterds Inglourious Basterds reveals him happened had Israel been around for taking license with history is to be an Oscar-winning screen- in 1939. Harvey Weinstein, despite akin to slamming The Wizard of Oz writer who doesn’t understand the Mr. Raphael’s depiction of him by asking “How can a lion talk?” A signifi cance of a screenplay [“Jew as a “pretentious, vacuous clown little suspension of disbelief can go Süss in Reversüss,” October 2009]. primed with Hollywood gelt to do a long way in enjoying many fi lms, Basterds represents one of the few the Jews a favor,” has allowed an Basterds among them. fi lms to show identifi ably Jewish alternative view (albeit a clear fan- George Haber characters doing something other tasy in this case) of different, more Jericho, New York than passively accepting their fate sympathetic Jewish characters or performing peculiar rituals (for than we must often endure from 1 a prime example of the latter, see the average Hollywood production. A Serious Man). In his attempt to I take with a grain of salt Tar- To the Editor: show that Quentin Tarantino is the antino’s statement in Israel that T MAY be a matter of the gen- schlockmeister of the cinema, with the fi lm “isn’t a Holocaust movie Ieration gap, but I don’t think clear and heavy emphasis on the but a bunch-of-guys-on-a-mission Mr. Raphael “gets” Inglourious schlock, Mr. Raphael ignores far movie.” He also said: “When male Basterds. It is simply a World War more important questions. Jewish American friends heard II fantasy in which the worst- For example, he attaches no what the movie was going to be of-the-worst of the bad guys are signifi cance to the fact that he and about . . . their response was, ‘I killed by the good guys (most of his wife saw the fi lm in the kind of want to see that movie. I’ve seen whom are Jews), bringing the war French country town whose coop- those other movies [about Jewish to an early end. Nitpicking over eration, if not closet sympathy for victimization] already.’ And then historical inaccuracies in such a the Nazis, is not something widely they tell their fathers about it, and fi lm is misplaced. But Mr. Raphael discussed even 60 years after the they say, ‘It’s about f***ing time!’” commits a greater heresy—telling Holocaust. He has nothing to say Does Mr. Raphael not think it’s the reader, almost scene for scene, about the fact that no Jewish direc- about time? exactly what is going to happen. tor could ever have made this fi lm Doron Becker When I saw the fi lm, I knew little or even have thought about making Potomac, Maryland about it, and the climactic scene this fi lm. The fact that famously came as a surprise, which made Jewish studio heads and direc- 1 me like the movie even more. Mr. tors almost never make fi lms with Raphael has been in the business truly sympathetic and believable To the Editor: for decades, and he should know Jewish characters is a remarkable ITH all due respect to Fred- better. phenomenon whose signifi cance Weric Raphael, and notwith- Steve Heller appears lost on Mr. Raphael. standing his clever turns of phrase, Van Nuys, California The existence of the State of I think his review of Inglourious Israel with an effective military Basterds misses the mark. He slices allows one to consider the ramifi - away at the fi lm for its historical 1

Commentary 7 To the Editor: To the Editor: the carefully executed pacing and THINK Frederic Raphael misses T IS fi ne to dislike Inglourious suspense (Alfred Hitchcock), and Ia great deal of what Inglourious IBasterds, but I think Frederic the intelligent examination of hu- Basterds adds to legitimate dis- Raphael misses the point of the man frailty (James Ivory, Anthony course about the Holocaust. I see preface title: “Once Upon a Time.” Minghella). What we now seem to this fi lm less as another crass and This is not merely an homage to the be left with are fi lms of exploding cynical ploy to capitalize on Amer- spaghetti western. It is an accepted body parts, screaming, silly disas- ica’s obsession with the Holocaust device fi lmmakers use to telegraph ters, and decadent comedies of than as a clever attempt to under- that what you are about to see is a graphic scatology too numerous to mine this obsession. Given the fairy tale—not to be taken as his- number. Fortunately, we have witty towering status of the Holocaust in torically accurate. The fi lm must be and authoritative critics like Mr. American popular culture, and the seen and judged in that light. Raphael to remind us of what we scores of monotonous tearjerkers Scott Brooks are missing. still being produced, I’m grateful Los Angeles, California Stuart Tower for a fi lm such as this. Forest, North Carolina In presenting a fetishized, self- 1 obsessed, and shamelessly false 1 reimagining, Tarantino illustrates To the Editor: how mass-mediated history lodges HANKS to Frederic Raphael To the Editor, itself into our subjective imagina- Tfor fi lling out the details of the ANY thanks for Frederic Ra- tions, where it may become the raw plot: my sweetheart and I walked Mphael’s excellent “Jew Süss material of obscene fantasies. Film, out of this lousy movie just after the in Reversüss.” He is right to say he reminds us, has the power to shootout in the bar. The next night that Inglourious Basterds makes fabricate towering myths that feed we were at a dinner party where Quentin Tarantino “the Veit Harlan our obsessions and construct our a simpering pseud with a fi lm- of Hollywood.” But Raphael is mis- sense of truth. studies degree launched into a rave taken to accept Harlan’s explana- Ben Mendelsohn about the director’s “genius,” the tion for why he wrote and directed Brooklyn, New York touch of “burlesque,” and the “com- Jew Süss, acclaimed by Goebbels mentary” on the “pointlessness” of in his diaries as “an anti-Semitic 1 World War II. Apparently, by mak- fi lm of the sort we can only dream ing his Nazis so exaggeratedly evil, of.” Raphael quotes Harlan telling Tarantino was telling us that both his nephew-in-law Stanley Kubrick To the Editor: sides in the war were bad (when that he hadn’t been coerced but REDERIC Raphael ought to not absurd) and that we should that “they’d offered it to him, and Flighten up. As clever as his all keep a watchful eye for “Allied a job was a job.” Never mind that takedown is, he is mistaken that propaganda.” Harlan had earlier testifi ed in a Inglourious Basterds insinuates Roger Franklin Hamburg court, on successful ap- that Jews would have done the Williamstown, Australia peal of a minor war-crimes convic- same to Germans if given the tion, that the Nazis pressured him chance. The point of the movie 1 to make the fi lm. Never mind that is . . . well, there is never a point to a Jew Süss was not Harlan’s fi rst Quentin Tarantino movie. Nothing To the Editor: anti-Semitic outing, nor that the more than gratuitous violence and LOVED the carefully crafted director Géza von Cziffra related in puerile comic-book fantasy. I don’t I evisceration Mr. Raphael per- his memoirs that Harlan charmed think Tarantino himself would formed on Tarantino’s latest cin- Goebbels to nab the gig from the claim a more serious purpose. ematic travesty. The review was fi lmmaker originally slated for it. Basterds is a movie for teenagers. richly deserved. It is amazing what Harlan’s “wealth of new ideas,” Alan Carpien passes for talent in Hollywood masterful screenplay rewrites, and Washington, D.C. these days. Gone are the subtlety enthusiasm for the project all fi nd and clever repartee of great dia- praise in the Goebbels diaries. logue (Preston Sturges), the sweep- Likewise with Tarantino. It is ing Technicolor vistas (William understandable for Raphael, writ- 1 Wyler, John Ford, David Lean), ing already so à rebours about a hit

8 Letters : January 2010 new American movie, to end with to the members of the Resistance movies themselves did not make a the quiet suggestion that Quentin murdered there. So do many other killing. Tarantino and Veit Harlan were towns and villages. The rest of my correspondents professionals who made movies To accuse “the French” of all have their various kinds of verbal about Jewish killers to get ahead being furtive Nazis is prejudice- fun. In the way of writers, I prefer and make money. If only! Both mongering of the kind that, if the applause to the reservations men picked their projects and bracketed on a Jewish target, we or sarcasm, but that’s the kind of wrote their own material (Taran- should regard as insufferable. As softy I am. If I were a real man, I’d tino more than Harlan, who shared for the alleged want of fi lms with be coming after Alan Carpien with credit with paranoid Nazi scribe virile two-fi sted Jews in them, Ed a kosherized tomahawk, but what Eberhard Wolfgang Möller). Both Zwick’s Defi ance was a recent in- can you do with limited time? I am were convinced they were telling stance, Steven Spielberg’s Munich grateful, in particular, to Benjamin great stories about Jews as cunning another (if Israelis are to be ranked Letzler for the precision of his merchants, vicious killers, and de- as Jews). What is “wrong” with remarks about Veit Harlan. Agent bauchers of pretty blonde girls. these fi lms is not that their Jews Raphael should have known better And both are emblems of the death were not manly killers but that the than to believe the guy’s cover story. cults in their respective cultures. Benjamin Letzler Cambridge, Massachusetts 1 Oil Heat Frederic Raphael writes: ORON Becker fi nds some- Dthing “sympathetic,” it seems, To the Editor: 1973 price shocks and the events in Jewish characters who do not FOUND the musings of Thomas relating to the Iranian revolution play the violin, invent (e.g., anti- IW. Merrill and David M. Schizer of 1979 are evidence of supply inse- polio) vaccines, crack great jokes or on energy policy wanting in their curity and harmful price volatility. compose great works of art, devise casual empiricism and misguided But U.S. government data show logical or mathematical systems, in their policy prescriptions [“The that during both crises, imports and do all the other boring things Petroleum-Tax Giveback,” October of crude and refi nery inputs and that have soured the race’s repu- 2009]. The authors begin by trot- outputs showed no change from tation. Mr. Becker’s idea of a Jew ting out the usual statistics on how normal seasonal variations. to root for is one who, to gratify a much of the petroleum consumed Blame for the “shortages” and redneck boss/superstar, beats an by the U.S. originates in the Middle queuing that so many of us re- unarmed prisoner to death with East, Venezuela, Angola, and other member can be laid squarely a baseball bat because the latter regions known for instability and at the door of the federal gov- won’t tell where his buddies are hostility to America. Pardon my ernment, whose misallocation of hiding. Is that a role model or pun, but this is a crude perspective resources across “administrative what? Answer: it’s a what. on global oil markets. As it travels districts” led to oversupply in I do not know how much ac- from well to refi nery to distri- some locations and shortages in quaintance Mr. Becker has with bution channels, petroleum may others. (In 1979, for example, pet- provincial France or, in particular, change ownership a dozen or more rol was as scarce as a hen’s tooth with the South-West. The accusa- times. It is not only Iran and Russia within the 495 Beltway of Wash- tion that the Germans enjoyed that, in the authors’ words, “do not ington, but those Washingtonians “closet sympathy” in a town such as supply oil directly”; no one does. brave enough to venture to rural the one in which my wife and I saw The interaction of oil corpo- Virginia found as much fuel as a Inglourious Basterds is, oh, inglori- rations, brokers, and commodi- station wagon required for a week ous. As it happens, some 30 years ties exchanges together create an of busy activity.) after the end of the war, I was re- enormously resilient networked When Messrs. Merrill and Schiz- proached by a resident for driving system that has for many decades er turn to the Obama administra- a Mercedes. Sarlat has a memorial, delivered reliable energy across the tion’s energy policy, they are cor- with more than a few names on it, globe. The authors claim that the rect to observe that environmental

Commentary 9 objectives are the main driver. minds me of the legal fantasy of and-trade scams is that they are Oddly, though, they criticize the the 1978 Natural Gas Policy Act, based on this probable mistake and cap-and-trade scheme for limiting which regulated the price of natu- so are monumentally wasteful. carbon emissions on the grounds ral gas according to the depth and Will Johnston that it is both infl ationary and vintage of the well from which it Vancouver, Canada defl ationary and therefore at cross- was derived. Huge market disloca- purposes. But the key critique of tions resulted, and exploration was 1 cap-and-trade is that the economic discouraged. The only ones who incidence falls upon consumers, benefi tted were the government To the Editor: having been passed forward by lawyers hired to track down arbi- ROFESSORS Merrill and Schiz- producers of electricity. As con- trageurs and determine whether a Per’s article on Obama’s energy sumers have little choice about comingled unit of natural gas was policy (or, rather, lack thereof) con- using electricity, no conservation “new” or “old,” “deep” or “shallow.” tained thorough analysis of the is induced, and generators of elec- Although there may be environ- state of affairs, as befi tted esteemed tricity enjoy a windfall as they are mental reasons to reduce the use of academics. Their plan, though, insulated from the cost of compli- petroleum, energy independence closely mirrors a suggestion voiced ance. and security are spurious founda- by Charles Krauthammer numer- Messrs. Merrill and Schizer pro- tions upon which to construct ous times. But unlike Mr. Kraut- pose a sliding tax on petroleum a policy that interferes with our hammer, who, by the way, candidly that fl uctuates inversely to its price: remarkably resilient system of acknowledged that his plan is un- when prices fall, the tax goes higher petroleum-energy delivery. likely to be implemented, the au- to support transition to new tech- Lawrence Haar thors suggest that the “charge” be nology and encourage supply secu- Oxfordshire, England refunded to the consumers. rity, and vice versa. Unconsidered The authors’ idea seems to con- by the authors is that stabilizing 1 tradict the stated goal of the plan: commodity costs using put and call to infl uence American driving options to create a fl oor (or “collar”) To the Editor: habits. I humbly suggest that such and ceiling around prices has been OESN’T the authors’ plan a refund will be treated as, well, widely practiced by businesses and Dmean that people will be in- a refund on the purchase of gas, traders for decades. Such hedging is hibited from spending the same thus bringing the perceived price part of the basic toolkit for risk-and amount on petrol only in the fi rst at the pump to pre-plan levels and supply-chain managers. quarter the plan is in force? Be- negating any change of driving The authors’ key mistake is cause for subsequent quarters, they habits from the higher price. their assumption that price vola- will just keep getting reimbursed The article did manage to tility is an obstacle to long-range the previous quarter’s charge and introduce some levity into the planning. This is contrary to in- apply that toward their expen- otherwise somber discussion by dustry reality. Their plan would diture. Net-net, this will have an suggesting that politicians won’t merely have government do what affect equivalent only to the reim- be tempted to turn the proposed businesses from airlines to trans- bursement period— and that’s it! revenue stream into a new tax. It is port companies to utilities already Shahid Jamil quite refreshing to discover such undertake as a matter of sound London, England naiveté. corporate governance. Moreover, Alexandre Peshansky the refund feature in their plan 1 Newark, New Jersey already exists in competitive mar- kets. Companies that manage their To the Editor: 1 price risks are able to offer lower OW unfortunate that this ar- prices to consumers and thereby Hticle must tug its forelock To the Editor: increase market share. (Unless the in obeisance to the concept that HE AUTHORS argue that their authors also intend to ban the use carbon dioxide released by human Tplan is not a tax, because pro- of options and futures, a sensible activity is heating up the atmo- ceeds collected would be refunded manager could even hedge away sphere to a degree relevant to the to consumers. Would the same be the threat of their proposed tax.) weather. The real problem with true if the government increased In sum, the authors’ plan re- carbon-capture schemes and cap- taxes to fi nance more-traditional

10 Letters : January 2010 transfer payments? I think all plants, that percentage will un- fi rms use hedging strategies to would agree that an increase in doubtedly increase, exacerbating manage the risk of oil-price swings, taxes to fi nance an increase in our oil addiction. as they should. The problem is welfare payments, Social Secu- Ira Charak that consumers do not use these rity benefi ts, or income-tax credits Willowbrook, Illinois techniques. When price volatil- would constitute “true” taxes. The ity strikes, consumers overreact alleged absence of a new govern- 1 or simply freeze up. The fi rms that ment bureaucracy or expenses to build autos or invest in alternative facilitate their plan does not make Thomas W. Merrill and energy have not yet fi gured out how the authors’ proposal any less of David M. Schizer write: to hedge for swings in consumer a tax. UR proposal is aimed at re- demand. Part of our point is that by Robert Aberman Oducing America’s dependence stabilizing consumer expectations Passaic, New Jersey on petroleum, thereby enhancing on the downside, we smooth out national security and mitigating economic bumps and facilitate the 1 the environmental harms associ- transition to alternative fuels. ated with petroleum consumption. We are in complete sympathy To the Editor: We would put a fl oor under the with Mr. Haar’s point that gov- N THEIR timely essay on the price of gasoline, stabilizing con- ernment intervention in energy Ifailure of the Obama admin- sumer demand for energy-effi cient markets has had very unfortunate istration to address the serious innovations. To stabilize prices in effects in the past. Our proposal issues associated with our oil “ad- this way, the government would is designed to keep government diction,” Thomas Merrill and Da- collect a per-gallon charge from intervention as simple as possible. vid Schizer state that the Yucca consumers, which would increase The government would prop up the Mountain project in Nevada is a with a drop in the price of oil and retail price of gasoline but not in “nuclear-fuel reprocessing facility.” decrease with a rise. The charge a way that subsidizes energy pro- In fact, as authorized by the 1987 would be rebated so that, on a net ducers and without government Nuclear Waste Policy Act Amend- basis, the government would not involvement in promoting specifi c ments, that facility is designed only collect any revenue. The amount energy-saving strategies. There is, to store spent unreprocessed fuel that any given consumer would pay of course, the option to do nothing, from commercial nuclear-power to the government would depend but that makes sense only if the ex- plants in the form in which it was on how much he consumes—the ternal costs associated with burn- discharged from the reactors—i.e., more he consumes, the more he ing petroleum fuel are negligible, intact fuel elements or assemblies pays—but the amount he receives or if the costs of intervention ex- of such elements appropriately would be fi xed at the average per ceed the benefi ts. We do not think encased in sealed containers of ex- capita consumption. Those who either proposition holds. tremely high integrity designed to are more energy effi cient would Shahid Jamil and Alexandre Pe- withstand incredible natural and receive a net payment, and those shansky suggest that our plan will man-made forces. who are less energy effi cient would have no incentive effect, because Messrs. Merrill and Schizer make a net payment. the added charge on petroleum also imply that so-called alter- We agree with Lawrence Haar fuels will be offset by the refund. native technologies, e.g., solar that oil is a fungible commodity. But the fi xed refund combined with and wind, might contribute to a Our point is that the level of de- the variable charge creates a strong reduction in petroleum consump- pendence on imported oil affects incentive to profi t from the differ- tion. Such technologies used in the balance of power between the ential by reducing consumption. the generation of electricity will U.S. and oil-producing nations. Ira Charak is right that Yucca have practically no direct effect The more dependent the U.S. is on Mountain is intended to be a long- on oil imports, since oil is cur- imports, the more accommodat- term storage facility not a repro- rently used to make only a tiny ing it must be in dealing with oil- cessing facility, and we regret the fraction of electricity, less than 1 exporting nations; many of them imprecision in our description. We percent in 2008. Of course, if the are unstable or hostile to American also agree that under current mar- Obama administration continues interests, or both. We also do not ket conditions, there is little direct to minimize or indeed eliminate doubt that major international oil substitution between solar or wind the expansion of coal and nuclear companies and other sophisticated and oil. But if the price of petro-

Commentary 11 leum fuel were to rise permanently, suggests. But would a law that, say, Such marketing strategies can- we could expect greater substitu- required people to open a retire- not succeed, because Israel is not tion in the future—for example, if ment account be a tax? We think simply a commodity, or even a col- consumers switch to rechargeable not. At the end of the day, though, lection of impressive commodities, electric cars or use electricity rath- the question of whether our pro- but a cause that has been viciously er than oil for home heating. posal is a “tax” is less important to maligned and whose merits need to Robert Aberman raises an inter- us than whether it would work. We be affi rmed anew. Let us put it an- esting question about the defi ni- need to pursue national-security other way: no one will change his tion of a tax, to which there is no and environmental goals in a way visceral disgust for a murderer be- single right answer. We use one def- that does not require government cause he is shown to be handsome, inition—a charge designed to raise judgments about which technolo- charming, and intelligent. An ef- revenue to fund the government. gies to promote, since, in our view, fort to stress such qualities could Given that defi nition, our charges the government does not have the be perceived as a smokescreen. are not taxes, because they are capacity to make these judgments If people believe that Israel not designed to raise revenue. We effectively. Cracking this policy nut stole Arab land, regularly kills in- agree that a tax increase that funds would go a long way toward secur- nocent Arabs, and makes no peace welfare payments is a “tax,” as he ing our nation’s future. gestures, then they will not sympa- thize with and support it just be- cause it can fi eld glamorous models in bikinis or showcase spectacular holiday resorts. The hard work of affi rming (not simply defending) Marketing Israel Israel’s cause cannot be simply ignored or left to take care of itself. Morton A. Klein To the Editor: Some of this involves, yes, beauti- Daniel Mandel ONATHAN S. Tobin is certainly ful beaches and vibrant city life as Zionist Organization of America Jon target in saying that Israel’s well as information about Israeli New York City current attempt at nation-branding advances in high-tech and medi- should not stand alone as a vehicle cal research. Ultimately, what we 1 for advancing understanding and are showing is an energetic and support for Israel’s cause [“Will the creative people building a country Jonathan S. Tobin writes: World Buy Israel’s New ‘Brand’?” “normal,” modern, and democratic AM GLAD to read via Michael October 2009]. Then again, I don’t but also connected to Jewish his- IKotzin that some backers of believe that is the way the effort is tory and tradition. This, too, counts the Israel Branding Project believe perceived by most of its developers for something in the campaign their marketing strategy is merely and supporters. It certainly is not to support Israel’s right to live in one aspect of a multifaceted frame- the way it is perceived by those of peace with its neighbors. work of Israel advocacy. As I wrote us working through communal or- Michael Kotzin in the piece in question, there is ganizations in Chicago, or by those Jewish Federation of nothing wrong with supporters groups that, like us, are engaged in Metropolitan Chicago of Israel attempting to promote a Israel advocacy in a multifaceted Chicago, Illinois more attractive as well as a more framework. realistic image of the country to At the same time, as we directly 1 the world. counter those who malign Israel’s However, a concept that dis- actions and reject Israel’s right To the Editor: misses the need to address attacks to exist, we fi nd that the brand- ONATHAN S. Tobin is abso- on the Jewish state’s legitimacy ing concepts provide a signifi cant Jlutely correct to unravel the and right of self-defense as mere asset in our overall efforts. Most shortsightedness and ineffective- crisis management, while talk of media coverage of Israel tends to ness of public-relations strategies beaches, science, and creativity stress its confl ict with the Arabs; designed to turn Israel into a popu- is seen as the main strategic ap- we connect people to aspects of lar brand name rather than to re- proach, is fundamentally fl awed. the Israeli reality that get lost. furbish its maligned image abroad. A marketing plan that does not

12 Letters : January 2010 understand that debunking the butes of Israeli life. But as Morton 1 “Israel equals apartheid” slander is Klein and Daniel Mandel rightly the country’s main image problem note in their generous comments To the Editor: must be judged as not being as so- about my article, at this moment in ONAH Goldberg’s claim that phisticated as its authors claim it to history, supporters of Israel cannot JBattlestar went off the boil due be. The notion that the Middle East afford to be distracted from their to a leftward political drift does not confl ict can be ignored or tran- responsibility to speak up for the stand up to scrutiny. An episode scended at the very moment when justice of their cause. To the extent after the New Caprica occupation, it is intensifying is an act of self-de- that Israel Branding does serve as “Dirty Hands,” is one of the few lusion, not sophistication. Encour- a distraction from that necessary works of contemporary television aging visits or product purchases duty, or as an excuse to de-empha- to take seriously the implications may be desirable goals, but they are size political issues that some fi nd of class for human life and is widely not the country’s main challenge troublesome, it must be seen as a acknowledged to have been terrifi c. for the foreseeable future. dangerous failure. (I address this subject in my con- It is understandable that those tribution to Blackwell’s Battlestar who love the country would like to Galactica and Philosophy.) Other accentuate the many positive attri- 1 episodes deal touchingly and with- out prejudice on genuine human and social dilemmas. The contradictions of Left-uto- pianism are not always fatal to science fi ction. (See the thrilling Science Fictions “Culture” series by Iain M. Banks and the “Fall Revolution” series by Ken MacLeod). In my view, the To the Editor: ly ambiguous, and it became clear reason the New Caprica episodes LARGELY agree with Jonah that things were not that cut and of Battlestar failed was a lack of IGoldberg’s take on the decline dry. The show’s insurgents weren’t subtlety and texture: the scripts of Battlestar Galactica, though peaceful, happy people minding worked too hard to signal their I would offer a few corrections their own business when the evil political subtext, and the Cylons’ [“How Politics Destroyed a Great Cylon occupiers came. In fact, there motivation for occupying the terri- TV Show,” October 2009]. Far from was plenty of bad behavior on both tory was not suffi ciently explained. being “campy,” the original 1978 sides, and the closer one looks, the David Roden series was considered to be spec- more there actually seems to be Bristol, England tacularly dark for television at the guarded (if perhaps unintentional) time; the robot “Cylons” were not support for the occupation. 1 implausible tin men, and their so- The show made no secret of its cietal rhythms were arguably more loathing for humanity, so it’s not textured than those of the human- like we’re really expected to sym- To the Editor: oid Cylons from the new show; and pathize with the insurgents. I agree AGREE that pop politics had a the 2003 miniseries ran four hours, that after New Caprica, the show Iwithering effect on Battlestar, not six. self-destructed through its indul- but I thought that the human- Where I specifi cally disagree gence in cheap propaganda. An- Cylon confl ict became a little more with Mr. Goldberg is on the plot other factor is the show’s reversal interesting when it ceased to be a turn involving the Cylons’ military of its original conceit of the Cylons one-dimensional morality tale. One occupation of the human terri- as terrorists; you can’t make up an liberal idea that I agree with is the tory New Caprica. Mr. Goldberg arc-driven plot as you go along. folly of the conservative fairy tale sees this as a crude allegory for And yet it’s hard for me to stay furi- that there is simply good (us) and the American intervention in Iraq ous with the outlook of a program evil (the other guys). that paints the U.S. in dark colors in which monotheism ultimately Trevor Pyle and the brutal Baathist insurgency triumphs over paganism. Chicago, Illinois in sympathetic hues. For me, the Rory Terrence New Caprica episodes were moral- Kaysville, Utah 1

Commentary 13 1 Jonah Goldberg writes: good and evil, but that was already AM gratifi ed for these responses present without the absurdities To the Editor: Ito my essay. But of all the criti- of the New Caprica plot twists. TOO was a fan of Battlestar, cisms lodged, only the factual cor- Kristen Davey is absolutely right Ibut disillusionment for me set rection about the length of the that the “with or against” theme in before the “Iraq” episodes. The original miniseries am I willing to has a long history. Jesus says, “He turn came when the leader of concede without a fi ght (and with that is not with me is against me” the humans, Commander Adama, my apologies). I am perfectly happy in both Matthew 12:30 and Luke clashed with his civilian superior, to admit that there were individual 11:23 of the Christian Bible. George Laura Roslin. Suddenly, and seem- episodes of either good quality or Orwell used the phrase—with ap- ingly endlessly, everything revolved redeeming value after the New proval—in his 1942 essay “Pacifi sm around the crushingly didactic Caprica turn, but the overall trend and the War.” But the phrase has theme of males’ diffi culty accepting pointed indisputably downward. inarguably been associated with commands from females. Ah, well: This is damning because a major George W. Bush in recent years and great ideas come and go, but liberal part of the program’s appeal was its has foolishly been made out to be clichés are forever. long story arc. The producers aban- always and utterly absurd. Jim Anderson doned the arc to placate a political Needham Heights, Massachusetts agenda. Trevor Pyle is absolutely right to say that it is more interest- 1 1 ing to see some nuance between

To the Editor: ONAH Goldberg cites an in- Jstance in a 2005 fi lm in which the line “You are either with us or against us” is used preposterously At Loon Lake by the chief villain. The idea, he explains, was to mock President Bush’s framing of America’s strug- gle against terrorism in this man- To the Editor: sible for the crucifi xion of Jesus. ner in the days after September 11. UTH R. Wisse writes that Rabbi Goldin’s hotel was a This line did not originate with R in 1946, the Andron family haven for many Jewish intellec- President Bush. I remember a song opened at Loon Lake what was at tuals, including Joseph Schecht- I learned as a boy in Communist the time the “only” kosher hotel man, head of the Zionist Revi- Czechoslovakia whose opening line in the Adirondacks [“The Shul at sionist Movement in America was “Who is not with us is against Loon Lake,” October 2009]. For and the biographer of Zeev Ja- us.” During those days of the Cold the record, the Blue Sky Lodge on botinsky. Rabbi Goldin was also War, anti-Western passions needed Schroon Lake in Pottersville, New the chaplain at Comstock, the constantly to be whipped up by York, existed at least as early as maximum-security state prison the authorities, lest we stray from 1945, when I served as a summer near Lake George. ideological purity or forget there busboy. I will brook no implica- Harold Kraushar was a “war” going on. When Bush tion that its kitchen was less than Brooklyn, New York invoked that idea, by contrast, it strictly kosher. was in the context of a real war, in The lodge was owned by an Or- 1 the face of a destructive, nihilistic thodox rabbi, Hyman E. Goldin, a aggression. But for the postmod- wide-ranging scholar and the au- To the Editor: ernists, he was just rudely dismiss- thor of many books published by ANY thanks to Ruth R. ing a rival ideology. the Hebrew Publishing Company MWisse for her charming and Alexander Budlovsky of New York. Best known and poignant essay. The communal Vancouver, Canada regarded was his The Case of the rhythms and discussions of her Nazarene Reopened (1948), which summer synagogue are so similar argued on numerous grounds to those of mine at Lake Waubeeka 1 that the Jews were not respon- in Connecticut that I kept wonder-

14 Letters : January 2010 ing if she had secretly been observ- ing us over the years. I have to disagree slightly with NOW AVAILABLE IN her peroration. I don’t think the dynamics she describes are partic- B EVERYWHERE! ularly permitted by the “freedoms OOKSTORES of America.” The experience of a small but diverse group of people extending themselves to hold on to something precious is common to Jewish communities throughout the world, and indeed to faith com- munities everywhere. Her story has universal resonance. Emilio Krausz New York City

1

To the Editor: HE Shul at Loon Lake” is a Tlovely piece of Americana in Ruth Wisse’s inimitable voice— candid, faithful, good-humored, and subtly exhortative. Long may she prosper. Marshall Keith Chicago, Illinois

1

Ruth R. Wisse writes: AM pleased that my account of Ithe Loon Lake Jewish Center 978-1594032615 | $23.95 has served as bait for information about similar phenomena: thanks “When it comes our fl awed fi nancial system, most to Harold Kraushar for the correc- tion that will hopefully turn into a writers generally lob big bombs and hope for, at longer reminiscence, and to Emilio best, maximum splatter. Nicole Gelinas by contrast Krausz and Marshall Keith for their sends a precision missile that neatly and elegantly kind words. The creation of small houses of worship is indeed a uni- takes the thing to pieces—and lays the ground for versal phenomenon, but I believe a better structure. Hail Gelinas.” students of religion recognize that America’s freedoms quicken their — Amity Shlaes, Senior Fellow, potential for transformation—and Council on Foreign Relations abandonment. At bookstores everywhere or call 800-343-4499 1 www.encounterbooks.com

Commentary 15 Now Available from Lexington Books!

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LEXINGTON BOOKS An Imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group www.rlpgbooks.com | 800-462-6420 www.winningtheunwinnablewar.com gggggggg The Deadly Price of Pursuing Peace Israel’s efforts to resolve its confl ict with the Palestinians have not only failed; they have also harmed its image By Evelyn Gordon

HEN the Oslo process be- verse as British academics, Canadian labor unions, the gan in 1993, one benefi t its Norwegian government’s investment fund, and Amer- adherents promised was a ican churches. Israeli military operations routinely signifi cant improvement spark huge protests worldwide, often featuring anti- in Israel’s international Semitic slogans. References to Israel as an apartheid standing. And initially, it state have become so commonplace that even a former seemed as if that promise president of Israel’s closest ally, the United States, had would be kept: 37 coun- no qualms about using the term in the title of his 2007 tries soon established or renewed diplomatic relations book on Israel. European polls repeatedly deem Israel withW Israel; a peace treaty was signed with Jordan; fi ve the greatest threat to world peace, greater even than other Arab states opened lower-level relations. such beacons of tranquility and democracy as Iran and But 16 years later, it is clear that this initial boost North Korea. Courts in several European countries, was illusory. Not only is Israel’s standing no better than including Belgium, Britain, and Spain, have seriously it was prior to the famous handshake between Yitzhak considered indicting Israeli offi cials for war crimes Rabin and Yasir Arafat on the White House Lawn in (though none has actually yet done so). And in Octo- September 1993, it has fallen to an unprecedented low. ber, when the United Nations Human Rights Coun- Efforts to boycott and divest from Israel are gaining cil overwhelmingly endorsed a report that advocated strength throughout the West, among groups as di- hauling Israel before the International Criminal Court on war-crimes charges, even many of Jerusalem’s sup- Evelyn Gordon is a journalist living in Israel. This posed allies refused to vote against the measure. In is her fi rst contribution to Commentary. academic and media circles, it has even become ac-

Commentary 17 ceptable to question Israel’s very right to exist—some- concession” that could arouse sympathy and admira- thing never asked about any other state in the world. tion from the world. If Israel has no claim, it is noth- None of these developments was imaginable back in ing but a thief. And no one would admire a thief for the days when Israel refused to talk to the Palestine returning some, but not all, of his stolen property, or Liberation Organization, had yet to withdraw from for offering to return some, but still not all, of the rest an inch of “Palestinian” land, and had not evacuated a if granted suffi cient compensation. Such behavior single settlement. would be universally condemned. Indeed, if Israel has Yet even today, conventional wisdom, includ- no claim to this land, even conditioning withdrawal on ing in Israel, continues to assert that Israel’s interna- an end to Palestinian terror becomes harder to justify. tional standing depends on its willingness to advance If the land is Israel’s, Israel can obviously refuse to cede the “peace process.” That invites an obvious question: it unless it receives peace in exchange. But if the land if so, why has Israel’s reputation fallen so low despite belongs to the Palestinians, many might argue that it its numerous concessions for peace since 1993? should be returned unconditionally. The answer is unpleasant to contemplate, but This latter notion, however, is precisely the the mounting evidence makes it inescapable: Israel’s picture Israeli discourse has increasingly painted standing has declined so precipitously not despite since 1993. Perhaps because pro-Oslo Israelis viewed Oslo but because of Oslo. It was Israel’s very willing- Israel’s own rights as too self-evident to need restat- ness to make concessions for the sake of peace that has ing, they inevitably focused on defending the Oslo ac- produced its current near-pariah status. cord’s new and domestically controversial claim: that Why should this be so? There are several reasons. Palestinians, too, have “legitimate and political rights” in the West Bank and Gaza. Thus, for instance, Labor IRST, Oslo led Israel to sideline its own party chairman (and later prime minister) Ehud Barak claim to the West Bank and Gaza, which said in a 1998 television interview that had he been a all Israeli governments (and interna- Palestinian, he would have joined a terrorist organiza- tional Jewish leaders) had stressed to tion, because “there is legitimacy for a Palestinian to some extent before 1993. Though there fi ght.” Such claims were rarely heard from mainstream had long been a lively debate as to Israelis prior to 1993: while the moderate Left had al- whether Israel ought to hold on to these ways favored ceding territory, it historically framed territories in practice, until 1993 all sides were ready to this as a necessity of peacemaking rather than a mat- Fassert that it had a valid claim to them in principle. The ter of Arab rights. argument in favor of Israel’s right to sovereignty there Moreover, as repeated Israeli concessions brought was simple: these territories are the historic Jewish only more Palestinian terror, making them harder to homeland, the heart of the biblical Jewish kingdom. justify in the name of peace, even right-of-center Israe- They were explicitly allotted to the future Jewish state li leaders increasingly justifi ed them in the language of by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate, which was Palestinian rights. Then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, never legally superseded. Although the 1947 UN parti- for instance, stunned the Knesset in 2003 by declaring, tion plan allotted part of the land to a putative Arab “I think the idea that it is possible to continue keeping state—a plan that Palestinians and other Arabs rejected 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation—yes, it is as a matter of principle—it was merely a nonbinding occupation, you might not like the word, but what is “recommendation” (as its own language stated). Thus happening is occupation—is bad for Israel, and bad for once the Arabs rejected it, the measure had no more the Palestinians.” validity than any other unsigned deal. Nor did any sov- But if Palestinians have “legitimate rights” to ereign state ever replace the Mandate on this territory: this land, it must belong to them. And if Israel is “oc- though Jordan and Egypt conquered the West Bank cupying” the land, it must not belong to Israel. That, in and Gaza, respectively, in 1948, neither conquest was plain English, is what “rights” and “occupation” mean. ever internationally recognized. Legally, therefore, the The problem was exacerbated by Sharon’s uni- territories remained stateless lands whose ownership lateral disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and Ehud is disputed; over time, the Palestinians simply replaced Olmert’s election the following year on a platform of Egypt and Jordan as the Arab claimants. unilaterally quitting most of the West Bank. Until then, None of this precludes an Israeli cession of these Israel had deemed evicting settlers from their homes areas; countries often waive territorial claims to se- a personal and national tragedy that merited sympa- cure peace agreements. But only if Israel has a valid thy and compensation. But then two successive Israeli claim can the act of ceding these lands be a “painful prime ministers declared that for both demographic

18 The Deadly Price of Pursuing Peace : January 2010 and security reasons, uprooting lowest estimate of Palestinian settlements was an Israeli inter- fatalities, which comes from the est. A plurality of Israelis even IDF, is 1,166. endorsed this view in a national ggggggg Moreover, Palestinian fa- election. And if so, dismantling talities in the West Bank, which settlements cannot be a “painful Israel cannot arrest suspects peaked at 667 in the second in- concession” for which Israel de- in territory it has ceded to tifada’s second year (September serves to be rewarded. 2001 to August 2002), dropped Granted, much of the Palestinian control. dramatically after Israel reoccu- world was disposed to accept Thus the only way to fi ght pied this territory in Operation the Palestinian claim even be- Defensive Shield in April 2002. fore Oslo. But as the sage Hillel terror emanating from They plunged by almost two- famously said 2,000 years ago, territory Israel has quit is thirds in the third year, to 242, “If I am not for myself, who will then to 199 in the fourth, 105 to be for me?” Oslo marked the by military means. 125 in each of the next three, and moment when Israel stopped 52 in the eighth, which ended defending its own claim to the West Bank and Gaza and in September 2008 (B’Tselem has yet to publish statis- instead increasingly endorsed the Palestinian claim. tics for 2009). In Gaza, by contrast, Palestinian fatalities And with no competing narrative to challenge it any soared after Israel withdrew in August 2005. In fact, the longer, the view of Israel as a thief, with all its attendant second intifada’s eighth year, which produced the lowest consequences, has gained unprecedented traction. number of West Bank fatalities since the fi ghting began, produced the highest number of deaths in Gaza—532, al- HIS alone would be devastating to most 100 more than the previous worst year. And the fol- Israel’s image. But the problem has lowing year was worse yet: the number of Gazans killed been compounded by another unan- during the January 2009 war alone—1,166 (at least)—is ticipated consequence of Oslo: the ter- seven times the 162 killed in Gaza’s single worst month ritorial withdrawals it entailed have until then. resulted not only in more dead Israelis This data fl ies in the face of conventional wis- but also in more dead Palestinians. dom, which holds that a continuous IDF presence in- Nothing undermines a country’s image more quickly creases the likelihood of deadly encounters. But when Tthan pictures of bleeding victims recycled endlessly on the IDF controls an area, it can usually arrest suspect- television and computer screens. That is precisely why ed terrorists rather than kill them. Israel cannot arrest worldwide protests against both the Second Lebanon suspects in territory it has ceded to Palestinian control. War in 2006 and Operation Cast Lead in Gaza last Thus the only way to fi ght terror emanating from ter- January—operations aimed at halting terror launched ritory the IDF has quit is by military means—namely, from territory Israel had evacuated to the last inch— killing the terrorists. And military action inevitably in- drew far larger crowds than protests against Israel’s volves collateral civilian casualties as well. That is true ongoing occupation of the West Bank. Death causes even of the most civilian-friendly form of military ac- more outrage than occupation. tion, precision aerial bombing. Haaretz reported that Statistics compiled by B’Tselem (the Israeli In- by 2007, the IDF had reduced collateral civilian deaths formation Center for Human Rights in the Occupied to less than 3 percent of all those killed in Israeli air Territories) clearly reveal the correlation between strikes. Yet, since human beings are imperfect, some withdrawals and increased Palestinian fatalities. Dur- mishaps will always occur: faulty intelligence will ing the fi rst intifada, from 1987 through 1993, when leave the army unaware of nearby civilians, or pilot Israel controlled the territories, Israeli forces killed error might send a bomb off course. And ground op- 1,070 Palestinians. That is only slightly more than the erations are far deadlier: just as the Gaza war was the 1,015 killed in a single year (September 2001 to August worst month of the intifada for Gazans, so was Israel’s 2002) of the second intifada, which erupted after the April 2002 incursion into the West Bank for residents Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had already left much of of that territory, with a Palestinian fatality level 50 per- Gaza and the West Bank, and less than 30 percent of cent higher than in the second-worst month. the 3,713 killed during a six-year period of the second Clearly, withdrawals would not have required intifada. Indeed, it is fewer than the number killed in military action, with its resultant Palestinian casual- just three weeks in the January 2009 Gaza war: the ties, had the Palestinians not turned every bit of terri-

Commentary 19 tory they received into a launch- military operations of 2006 and ing pad for terror attacks. But 2009, but many were launched that is exactly what they have during periods when Israel was done. In the fi rst two and a half ggggggg seemingly moving rapidly to- years after Oslo, Palestinian ter- ward withdrawal. After Israel rorists killed more Israelis than Israel’s frantic pursuit removed every last settler and they had in the preceding de- of peace has roused not soldier from Gaza in August cade. In 2000-04, according to 2005, for instance, Ehud Olmert the Shin Bet security service, admiration but rather ran for prime minister on a plat- Israel’s terror-related casualties the instincts of a predator form of doing the same in most exceeded those of the preceding of the West Bank. Polls showed 53 years. And between the mid- scenting blood. These him winning the March 2006 2005 disengagement from Gaza retreats have convinced election handily, which he did. and the 2009 war, Gazan terror- Hence, until the Second Leba- ists fi red almost 6,000 rockets radicals and Palestinians non War erupted in July 2006, and mortars at southern Israel, that it will abandon one might have expected the according to the Intelligence boycotters to rest on their lau- and Terrorism Information any red line. rels. Instead, this period wit- Center. Hence, every withdraw- nessed an unprecedented spate al has faced Israel with a stark choice: sit with folded of high-profi le boycott activity, including an article hands while its citizens are attacked, or take military headlined “Boycott Israel” in the prestigious maga- action that will inevitably produce Palestinian casual- zine published by the Davos World Economic Forum, a ties and consequent international outrage. cover story in the Guardian entitled “Israel and Apart- heid: A Special Report,” the adoption of a commercial SRAELI withdrawals have also had another boycott by the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ unintended consequence: they have ener- Ontario chapter, and the British academic boycott. gized anti-Israel radicals who, despite their This seemingly counterintuitive behavior has a small numbers, have contributed greatly simple explanation: among anti-Israel radicals, Israel’s to the anti-Israel climate by propelling increasingly frantic pursuit of peace has aroused not the boycott and divestment movement. admiration but rather the instincts of a predator scent- Because groups such as labor unions and ing blood. Over the past 16 years, even as Palestinian churches are generally viewed positively, when a wide positions have remained unchanged, Israel has repeat- Ivariety of such groups throughout the West all start edly ditched red lines that enjoyed massive consensus targeting one particular country for boycott and di- pre-Oslo, including no negotiations with terrorist orga- vestment, people without any prior knowledge of the nizations, no Palestinian state, no concessions on Jeru- facts might naturally assume that the accused country salem, no negotiations or withdrawals under fi re, and must indeed be guilty to merit such treatment. What no unilateral pullbacks. Worse, these retreats occurred those people fail to realize is that boycotts and divest- in exchange for ever diminishing returns, and often in ments are usually approved not by an organization’s response to pressure. This convinced the radicals (and full membership but by a handful of activists, which Palestinians as well) that Israel could be pressured into enables a few radicals to hijack the debate. When the abandoning any red line if the heat was turned high British lecturers’ union, NATFHE, approved an aca- enough. Hence the Ontario boycott, for instance, is ex- demic boycott of Israel at its annual conference in May plicitly designed to continue until Israel grants a Pales- 2006, for instance, the New York Times noted that only tinian “right of return,” thereby requiring Israel to com- 198 of its 67,000 members actually voted, and of those, mit demographic suicide. a bare majority—106—voted in favor. Theoretically, The retreats from Israel’s previous positions these delegates represent the members. In practice, began the minute Oslo was signed. The last Israeli ces- few members choose delegates based on their views on sion of territory—the return of Sinai to Egypt in 1982, the Israeli-Palestinian confl ict; most have more press- and the subsequent handover of the Taba resort seven ing concerns. years later—followed a nine-year cease-fi re and a full- And while boycott initiatives are popularly fl edged peace treaty backed by international guaran- viewed nowadays as a response to Israeli “war crimes,” tees, including a multinational force in Sinai. In con- not only did most such boycotts predate the major trast, Israel’s 1994 handover of Gaza and Jericho to the

20 The Deadly Price of Pursuing Peace : January 2010 PLO came in the wake of six years of terrorist violence Sixteen years of unrequited concessions have convinced (the fi rst intifada) and a mere interim agreement, with anti-Israel radicals that Israel is indeed vulnerable to no international guarantees. The Palestinians promptly this kind of pressure. Thus Israel’s very pursuit of peace violated their side of the Oslo deal, which was to end has spurred its enemies to go for the jugular. terror: in the 30 months after Oslo, as previously noted, Palestinian terrorists killed more Israelis than they ET this desperate quest for peace had during the entire preceding decade. Yet in 1995- also failed to win Israel points among 97, due in part to American pressure, Israel transferred the general public, because each six more West Bank cities to the Palestinian Authority new initiative raised new hopes of a (PA), in exchange for nothing but renewed Palestinian peace that was in fact never achiev- pledges to end violence. In July 2000, Israel offered the able. And it is human nature to be Palestinians some 88 percent of the territories, includ- angrier over disappointed hope than ing most of East Jerusalem. The Palestinians responded over having never hoped at all. What is worse is the very by launching the second intifada. But despite this gross factY that whenever negotiations broke down, it was Is- violation of Oslo, Israel capitulated to American and rael, rather than the Palestinian side, that came back international pressure and offered more territory, in- with a better offer, created the impression that both sides cluding the Temple Mount, in Washington in December thought peace would be achievable if Israel just gave 2000 and at the Taba talks in January 2001. enough. Thus the lack of peace must be Israel’s fault. Over the next four years, Palestinian terror In fact, though, it became clear almost immedi- claimed more Israeli victims than in all the years ately after the Oslo deal was signed that peace was un- from 1947 through 2000. Yet international pressure achievable, because Israel’s initial territorial conces- for Israeli concessions continued, and Israel again sions produced such a sharp rise in terrorist violence. capitulated: in August 2005, it evacuated 25 settle- Whether this stemmed from Yasir Arafat’s unwilling- ments—something it had previously conditioned on ness to control terror or his inability to do so was irrel- a full-fl edged peace treaty—for no recompense at all. evant: if ceding land for peace instead produced war, And when the Palestinians responded with daily rock- there were no grounds for believing that ceding more et fi re from evacuated Gaza, as well as with a landslide land, as Oslo required, would produce anything but electoral victory for Hamas, Israel responded by elect- more war. ing Olmert, who campaigned on a promise of unilater- Nor did this pattern change after Mahmoud ally quitting most of the West Bank and evicting some Abbas replaced Arafat in 2004. Even during Abbas’s 80,000 settlers (10 times the number removed from year in sole control of the PA, before Hamas triumphed Gaza). Finally, when the ongoing barrages from Gaza in the Palestinian elections in 2006, terror continued. and the Second Lebanon War combined to kill that According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Informa- plan, Olmert’s response was to sweeten Israel’s fi nal- tion Center, Palestinians killed 54 Israelis and wound- status offer. He proposed a withdrawal from 94 per- ed 484 that year (2005), while nonfatal attacks num- cent of the West Bank; territorial swaps to compensate bered in the thousands, including 1,059 rockets and for the remainder; international Muslim control over mortars fi red at Israel from Gaza. The rocket attacks Jerusalem’s holy sites; and the resettlement of several are particularly signifi cant, because the IDF left Gaza thousand Palestinian refugees in Israel. in August 2005, which meant Abbas could not accuse To Israelis, these ever growing concessions with Israeli forces of impeding his efforts there. Yet not no quid pro quo refl ect the depth of their desire for only did he never order his own forces to stop the peace. But to their enemies, they signal panic—a con- attacks, he explicitly and repeatedly declared that he clusion reinforced by verbal declarations like Olmert’s never would do so. Indeed, he began cracking down on famous 2005 statement to the Israel Policy Forum that Hamas only in 2007, after the Islamic group’s takeover Israel “desperately needs” peace because “we are tired of Gaza made him realize that it threatened his own of fi ghting, we are tired of being courageous, we are power, and has repeatedly offered to reverse this crack- tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies.” down as part of a proposed reconciliation with Hamas Or his even more shocking statement to Haaretz in (which Hamas has so far rejected). Again, it makes November 2007 that if “the two-state solution collaps- no difference whether he was genuinely reluctant or es . . . the State of Israel is fi nished.” If Israelis wrongly merely felt powerless: Israel cannot cede land if that believe that their country’s survival depends on reach- land will become a base for terror attacks against it. ing a deal, they are clearly vulnerable to being pressured Equally important, however, is that Palestin- into concessions that really will endanger its survival. ian negotiating positions preclude any deal. While it

Commentary 21 was initially plausible to believe that these positions until long after Olmert had left offi ce—fi nally telling would eventually moderate, a decade and a half with the Washington Post that the offer was unacceptable), no movement whatsoever has proved otherwise. No Olmert nevertheless told Haaretz in September 2009 Israeli government, for instance, could sign a deal that Abbas was not to blame for the talks’ failure and forfeiting all Israeli connection to the Temple Mount, was still a partner. And today, in his second stint as Judaism’s holiest site, to which Jews have prayed three prime minister, Netanyahu is again paying lip service times a day for millennia. To do so would be cultural to the idea that peace is achievable. and spiritual suicide. But even worse is the Palestin- American and European leaders are also guilty ians’ insistence on a “right of return” to Israel for 4.7 of endlessly proclaiming that peace is achievable, even million descendants of Palestinian refugees (accord- though they know better (this knowledge explains why ing to the UN’s almost certainly infl ated fi gure). Added most European leaders are less hostile to Israel than to Israel’s 1.5 million Arab citizens, these “refugees” their publics). But they cannot be more Catholic than would outnumber its 5.6 million Jews and could there- the pope. As long as Israel’s government maintains by simply vote the Jewish state out of existence. That this fi ction, other world leaders can do no less. And so would not be cultural and spiritual suicide but actual the world is constantly being told that peace is around physical suicide. And how can peace even be seriously the corner only to be constantly disappointed, which negotiated with someone who insists that its price is inevitably produces frustration and rage. And even your disappearance from the map? worse, Israel’s very efforts to achieve peace—its refusal Yet rather than stating clearly that peace is not to acknowledge that peace is unachievable, its habit and never will be possible unless the Palestinians end of responding to every failure with a better offer— has terror and stop insisting that any deal result in the led the world to conclude that Israel is to blame for the Jewish state’s eradication, Israeli prime ministers endless disappointments. never stopped assuring their fellow citizens and the world that a deal was possible. It began with Yitzhak EVERSING the devastating damage Rabin, who instead of acknowledging that the upsurge Israel’s international standing has in terror proved Oslo a failure began incanting a man- suffered since 1993 will be diffi cult tra about fi ghting terror as if there were no negotia- at best. But it will not be possible at tions, and negotiating as if there were no terror. The all unless Israel and its friends over- implication was clear: terror is not an insurmountable seas understand that the desperate obstacle; peace is still achievable. pursuit of peace is not the solution In his fi rst go-round as prime minister, Benjamin but the problem. Only then can Israel and its support- Netanyahu continued the illusion: he not only cam- R ers halt the destructive behavior of the past 16 years paigned in 1996 on a slogan of bringing “peace with and start doing what is needed to reverse the decline. security,” again implying that peace was possible, but First, Israel and its supporters must reiterate Is- he continued negotiating with, and ceding territory rael’s own claim to the territories at every opportunity. to, Arafat. These would have been reasonable moves While many have grown accustomed to disavowing in the context of a viable peace process, but would be Israel’s right to this land, Israelis of all political stripes senseless if peace were actually unachievable and ter- were outraged by President Barack Obama’s Cairo ritorial concessions only produced more terror. To the speech, in which the only justifi cation for the existence uninformed, the obvious conclusion was that peace of a Jewish state was assumed to be the Holocaust— was achievable—in which case Netanyahu’s visible dis- while the Jews’ historical claim to the land of Israel taste for both negotiations and concessions would cer- was thrown down the memory hole. By taking this tainly be an impediment. stand, Obama may have unwittingly provided the im- Similarly, when Palestinians responded to Prime petus for reviving a broad-based assertion of Jewish Minister Ehud Barak’s July 2000 offer with the second rights. For instance, on July 17, the left-wing Haaretz’s intifada, Barak did not declare peace unachievable; he star columnist Yoel Marcus wrote that Obama’s “disre- went to Washington and Taba and offered additional gard of our historical connection to the land of Israel” concessions. Again, the implication was that he still was “extremely upsetting.” Marcus concluded that “as thought peace was possible if he offered enough— a leader who aspires to solve the problems of the world so if peace remained elusive, the fault must lie with through dialogue, we expect him to come to Israel and Israel’s stinginess. Then, despite Abbas’s failure even declare here courageously, before the entire world, to respond to Olmert’s far-reaching offer of Septem- that our connection to this land began long before the ber 2008 (Abbas remained mute for nine months, Israeli-Arab confl ict and the Holocaust, and that 4,000

22 The Deadly Price of Pursuing Peace : January 2010 years ago, Jews already stood “peace process” culture. And on the ground where he now that is true not just for the in- stands.” If even a hard-core Oslo ternational arena but for Israeli supporter such as Marcus can ggggggg domestic opinion as well. Most be provoked into reasserting Israelis know perfectly well that Israel’s claim to the land, then Israel must stop projecting peace is not currently possible, there is hope for reviving such a sense of panic, through and why, but they still think it sentiments across the Israeli is essential to speak as if this political spectrum. both words and deeds, were not true. Nevertheless, Ne- Second, Israel must cede which merely emboldens its tanyahu’s leadership represents no more land until the Pales- a unique opportunity because, tinians prove they can and will enemies. It has thrived for in marked contrast to most Is- keep it from becoming a base 61 years despite the raeli politicians, serving as the for anti-Israel terror. And if national explainer is something rocket fi re from Gaza resumes, absence of peace. It can at which he excels. Both his Israel will have to consider re- continue thriving for as speech at Bar-Ilan University occupying it, as that may be in June 2009—where he out- the only alternative to peri- long as necessary. lined his approach to the peace odic wars that inevitably cause process—and his address to the heavy Palestinian casualties. There is not currently United Nations General Assembly in October struck much of an appetite for such a course of action within a real chord with mainstream Israelis. Netanyahu is Israel, but that could easily change if the rocket barrag- capable of explaining, in a way Israelis can readily un- es resume, just as Israelis’ initial reluctance to return derstand, why his country’s national discourse about to the West Bank was swept aside by escalating ter- peace needs to change. The same principle applies to ror from that territory in the early part of this decade. overseas opinion; in 2006, during the Second Lebanon And while a return to Gaza would certainly cause an War, Netanyahu was not even a member of the govern- initial wave of outrage abroad, so did Operation De- ment, but he was still one of the most sought-after, if fensive Shield in 2002, when Israeli troops returned not the most sought-after, Israeli interviewees by the to Palestinian cities in the West Bank following a wave foreign media. This is a moment in history when some- of deadly suicide bombings. Yet that criticism died one must fi nally start telling the world the truth about down fairly quickly, and today Israel hears very few the situation, and the prime minister is uniquely quali- complaints about the IDF’s ongoing total control over fi ed to do it. the West Bank. What it does hear complaints about, Finally, Israel must stop projecting a sense of on an almost daily basis, from both world leaders and panic, through both words and deeds, which merely human-rights activists, is evacuated Gaza—not just Is- emboldens its enemies. Israel has not only survived for rael’s military operations there but also the blockade, 61 years despite the absence of peace; it has thrived. Its another defensive measure aimed at compensating population has increased more than seven-fold; its per for the absence of troops. So it seems reasonable to capita income has risen nine-fold; it has maintained assume that a reoccupation of Gaza would follow the a strong democracy in a region where democracy is same pattern: initial outrage that would gradually die otherwise unknown. And it can continue surviving down as the Palestinian death toll dropped and life and thriving without peace for as long as necessary. in Gaza improved, thanks to the end of the blockade, That is, unless its own mistakes destroy it. Right resumption of trade across the border, and improved now, that is what is happening: Israel’s growing pariah employment opportunities. status poses a far more serious long-term danger to its Third, Israel and its supporters must start tell- survival than any extant military threat. Yet because ing the truth about the impossibility of peace at pres- this pariah status is largely due to its own actions, Israel ent—and about the reasons for the impasse. This is by has the power to reverse the trend. That process must far the hardest task for those seeking to change the begin with recognizing where the problem truly lies. q

Commentary 23 Obama’s Next Three Years The president isn’t interested in foreign policy, but his ideas and his approach mark him as the fi rst “post-American” president By John R. Bolton

HERE is Barack Obama’s nopolized his efforts abroad are seen by the president foreign policy headed? himself as little more than Bush-era loose ends, not the In answering, one must defi ning transactions of his own foreign policy. All new accept a measure of hu- presidents encounter irritating constraints on their mility. Predicting Ameri- aspirations, but Obama is more irritated than most can policy makes more at having to endure any sense of continuity with his fools than sages. That goes predecessor. His criticism of Bush continues unabated double for foreign policy, as analysts must anticipate even as he fairs no better in the same stubborn terrain. notW only the actions of the United States but of foreign Obama is not looking to build his foreign-policy provocateurs as well. legacy on top of disputes that predate his arrival. He is In the case of Barack Obama, there is an addi- working to move past these, toward the day when he tional caveat: the high-profi le concerns that have mo- can implement his own foreign policy and national- security agendas. Accordingly, the best way to predict John R. Bolton, who served as the United States Obama’s foreign policy in the next three years lies permanent representative at the United Nations from not in examining how he deals with the accumulated 2005 to 2006, is a senior fellow at the American Enter- baggage of Iraq, Afghanistan, Middle East peace, and prise Institute. His recent articles for Commentary the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. Im- include “The Coming War on Sovereignty” (March portant as those are, they constitute what Obama has 2009) and “Israel’s Diplomatic Isolation” (May 2009). had to confront. We should ask instead what he will

24 January 2010 attempt to establish once he has become less encum- on why it is ordinary (thus explaining why, as I have bered by the inherited issues. Here, the record shows written elsewhere, he is fi rmly “post-American”).* It is three critical characteristics. America’s ordinariness that should enjoin it from im- First, Obama has no particular interest in for- posing its will upon other nations. Obama is our fi rst eign and national-security policy. That is not what he sitting president to express this sentiment. In April, he has spent his professional and political career, such as articulated this point with absolute clarity. Asked if he it is, doing, and it is not where his passions lie. There believed in American exceptionalism, the president can be no question that the challenges of remaking responded, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just America’s health-care, fi nancial, and energy-produc- as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exception- tion systems claim the bulk of Obama’s attention. alism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Second, Obama does not see the rest of the world In other words, “No.” as dangerous or threatening to America. He has made it In this vein, the boundless naïveté in the presi- clear by his actions as president that he does not want dent’s UN speeches abundantly demonstrate Wood- to engage in a “global war against terrorism.” The rising row Wilson’s patrimony. In September, he said to the power of other nations, creeds, and ideologies, however UN General Assembly: unsavory, pose no grievous challenge to which the Unit- ed States must rise. We are not at a Dean Acheson–style, It is my deeply held belief that in the year post–World War II “present at the creation” moment. 2009—more than at any point in human his- Therefore, Obama reasons, why behave in reactive, out- tory—the interests of nations and peoples moded ways when there are many more interesting and are shared. . . . In an era when our destiny is pressing domestic projects to nurture? shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. Obama’s America need only be restrained, pa- No one nation can or should try to dominate tient, and deferential. Take, for example, Obama’s No- another nation. No world order that elevates vember 2009 trip to China, during which the media one nation or group or people over another highlighted how unyielding Beijing was, thus confi rm- will succeed. No balance of power among na- ing their “rising China/declining America” conven- tions will hold. tional wisdom. In fact, it was more Obama’s submis- siveness and less China’s assertiveness that made the In 1916, Wilson said that “the interests of all na- difference on issue after issue: trade policy and Chi- tions are also our own,” and later advocated “peace nese currency manipulation; Taiwan; Beijing’s unwill- without victory.” He said, “There must be, not a bal- ingness to limit growth for the sake of global-warming ance of power, but a community of power; not or- theory; and Iranian and North Korean nuclear-weap- ganized rivalries, but an organized common peace” ons programs. Obama repeatedly came away empty- founded on “the moral force of the public opinion of handed, even on blatantly cosmetic aspects of the visit: the world.” If you removed the dates from these two where he would speak, to whom, and how it would be sets of comments, most people would have to guess broadcast. which was Obama’s and which was Wilson’s. Third, Obama’s vision is embedded in a cara- Through these prisms—Obama’s focus on domes- pace of naive internationalism, a very comfortable fi t tic issues, his belief in the absence of major internation- when national security is neither that interesting nor al threats, and his fascination with multilateralism for that important. Obama is the fi rst president since De- its own sake—we can project forward the president’s cember 7, 1941, to espouse a determinedly unassertive foreign policy. Conveniently for Obama, pushing his global role for the United States, one ironically verg- priorities will involve international negotiations where ing on an essentially neo-isolationist view of America. presidential authority is virtually exclusive. That does Obama’s December 1 announcement of troop increas- not mean, of course, that he can determine the fi nal out- es in Afghanistan is not to the contrary, since he pro- come where congressional action such as Senate treaty claimed the beginning of withdrawal in virtually the ratifi cation is required, but Obama and his negotiators same breath. Afghanistan, like Iraq, is the very para- will be able to dominate in crafting the agreements digm of legacy issues Obama does not want to con- themselves. Three policy areas loom large and will al- front. Failures such as his Middle East peace process low Obama to showcase, in various combinations, the and dealing with Iran and North Korea have simply led three core characteristics of his worldview. to resignation and inattention. However, Obama’s is not your grandfather’s * “The First Post-American Presidency,” Standpoint, July/August, isolationism. He focuses not on America’s virtues but 2009

Commentary 25 The fi rst policy on the table will almost certainly sustaining its nuclear forces anywhere near U.S. lev- be American arms reduction, achieved through budget els. “Mutual and balanced” reductions thus commit decisions and arms-control agreements, both bilateral Russia merely to their most optimistic projections of agreements with Russia and multilateral pacts with their own capabilities and serve essentially to restrain other nations. At a time of profl igate federal spend- the United States. In fact, “equal” levels severely and ing, only the Department of Defense’s budget is con- disproportionately disadvantage the United States be- strained. With economic stimulus all the rage, Obama cause of our obligations to provide nuclear umbrellas has rejected enlarging the standing military; decided for NATO, Japan, and others. Russia has no compa- against increasing defense procurement to replenish rable need. the weapons and other equipment consumed by wars Multilaterally, Obama has been even more activ- in Iraq and Afghanistan; and stalled progress on criti- ist, enshrining his objectives in Security Council Reso- cal high-tech military systems. These expenditures lution 1887 (indeed, even chairing the council session that adopted it) and convening a global summit on “nuclear The president believes strongly, despite security” in 2010. Obama has the evidence, that lowering U.S. nuclear promised U.S. ratifi cation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty capabilities toward zero will induce (which was actually defeated by majority vote in the Senate in would-be proliferators like Iran to give 1999). He has pledged to renew up their own programs. negotiations for a Fissile Materi- al Cutoff Treaty as well as a trea- ty for the prevention of an arms (and others) are central to future power-projection ca- race in space. He favors creating and strengthening pabilities, and all would result in tangible assets and so-called nuclear-free zones around the world and has greater policy options, in contrast with the pathetic urged all states not already party to the Nuclear Non- “shovel-ready” programs of the actual stimulus. This proliferation Treaty to join as non-nuclear-weapons disparity is not accidental. states, meaning that Israel, Pakistan, and India would Even worse, both Obama’s Prague speech on a have to give up their nuclear weapons (which won’t nuclear-weapons-free world and the fi rst U.S. Nuclear happen in any of their cases). Finally, Secretary of State Posture Review since 2001, heavily determined by the Clinton promised active U.S. involvement in draft- White House, point toward unilateral nuclear disar- ing an Arms Trade Treaty for conventional weapons, mament by the United States, whatever the success which is a thinly disguised route to achieve domestic of international negotiations. The president believes gun-control objectives long blocked in the normal leg- strongly, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, islative process. that lowering U.S. nuclear capabilities toward zero All these objectives will meet fi erce domestic will induce would-be proliferators around the world— opposition in the Senate and elsewhere. But make no Iran and North Korea take note—to give up their mistake; Obama knows where he wants to go and is own nuclear-weapons programs. This is what Obama working hard to get there. means by “strengthening” the regime established by Obama’s second leading policy concern is inter- the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and what Gordon national agreement on global warming. This is not the Brown has already proposed in giving up one of Great place to re-debate global warming, but the climate- Britain’s four nuclear-missile submarines. change True Believers clearly see little appeal in any- On several occasions in 2009, Obama and Rus- thing less than statist, command-and-control direc- sian President Medvedev announced agreements on tion of global behavior. Obama’s efforts will draw the future dramatic cuts in both nations’ nuclear arsenals U.S. more fully into this fold. and strategic delivery systems. Obama has already Political reality may have doomed the possibil- unilaterally reduced U.S. efforts in the missile-defense ity of a full-up treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol in fi eld, and there is every prospect of returning to some 2009, but that setback has not dimmed Obama’s mul- version of an antiballistic missile treaty. The Russians, tilateral enthusiasm. Environmentalists have focused of course, are delighted to agree to these reductions. blame for the absence of a legally binding treaty on the For even if the international price of oil were again to United States, as Congress is unable to enact cap-and- rise dramatically, Russia would remain incapable of trade in Obamamania’s fi rst year. In response, Obama

26 Obama’s Next Three Years : January 2010 will likely move more aggressively in multilateral ne- In many respects, the renunciation of “torture” in gotiations to create a successor to Kyoto despite con- interrogating captured terrorists, the commitment to gressional inaction. In so doing, he will be following a close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and the now familiar strategy for American leftists, which is to criminal trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other internationalize problems on which they cannot make defendants in U.S. courts are about making sure that progress domestically. They have attempted in recent “international law is not an empty promise.” These steps decades, with varying degrees of success, to do so on a are, perilously, also decisions about retreating from a war host of issues: gun control, the death penalty, abortion, paradigm to a law-enforcement paradigm in dealing with and the “rights of the child” among them. terrorism. But it was not coincidental that Obama’s fi rst The strategy is to reach agreement with like- applause line in the General Assembly came when he re- minded leaders of other countries, whose govern- ferred to renouncing “torture” and shutting down Gitmo. ments are likely to be far to the Left of America’s politi- There is much more global governance in the cal center of gravity. Then, treaty or other international works. The Obama administration sought and won re- agreement in hand, activists return to the Senate to election to the new UN Human Rights Council, a body announce that the rest of the world is determined to that the Bush administration voted against creating do “X” and that America cannot allow itself to be “iso- in 2006 and that it subsequently refused to join. The lated” along with Somalia, Burma, China, or other as- new council has proved itself just as antithetical to sorted holdouts. Thus, on global warming, Obama will American interests as was its predecessor, the UN Hu- likely focus on international approaches to reach his man Rights Commission, but mentioning yet another goals, perhaps using executive agreements rather than reversal of Bush policy won Obama a further round of treaties to bypass the Senate and domestic political applause in the General Assembly. roadblocks. Similarly, he will increase efforts to ratify There will undoubtedly be more such applause the Law of the Sea Treaty, which global-warming activ- to come. Secretary Clinton has committed to ratifying ists are touting as a backdoor to increasing environ- the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Conven- mental regulation. tion on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Third—both enabling and following from the Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of fi rst two foreign-policy imperatives—“global gover- Persons with Disabilities. Whatever the pros and cons nance” and “international law” will become growth of these agreements, the larger question is how much industries under Obama. To the UN Security Coun- “law” the Obama administration is prepared to make cil, Obama said, “The world must stand together. outside the ever growing U.S. Code we already possess. And we must demonstrate that international law is To Obama’s internationalist sensibility, the offense, of not an empty promise, and that treaties will be en- course, is that laws “made in the U.S.A.” by freely elected forced.” This dovetails nicely with the sentiments of the in- coming president of the Euro- As our post-American President Obama pean Union, former Belgian well knows, the European Union is Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, who made clear in a continuing font of ideas on global his November 19 acceptance speech that “2009 is also the governance, always eager to share its fi rst year of global governance own “democracy defi cit” worldwide. with the establishment of the G-20 in the middle of the fi nan- cial crisis. The climate conference in Copenhagen is representatives of our own citizenry are too “exception- another step toward the global management of our al” and too “parochial” to hold weight in this intercon- planet.” As our post-American President Obama well nected world. Mere “municipal” laws, as internation- knows, the European Union is a continuing font of al-law scholars refer to them, don’t pass John Kerry’s ideas on global governance, always eager to share its “global test” of legitimacy for American foreign policy. own form of bureaucratic control and accompanying President Obama clearly wants to fi x that problem. “democratic defi cit” worldwide. Now the new Euro- Secretary Clinton opined, in Nairobi last summer, pean president has a rapt pupil in the Oval Offi ce and that it was “a great regret but it is a fact we are not yet acolytes scattered throughout Washington’s foreign- a signatory” to the Rome Statute, which created the In- policy establishment. ternational Criminal Court. So it was no surprise when

Commentary 27 the State Department confi rmed on November 16 that nance, and defense, all key elements of national sov- the United States will now participate as an observer in ereignty. His undisguised indifference to repeated meetings of the court’s members. Observer status is man- diminutions of that sovereignty is entirely consistent ifestly a step toward the administration’s ill-disguised with the views of his European admirers, who, at their ultimate objective of re-signing the Rome Statute, rati- level, would like to see their nation-states dissolve into fying it, and becoming a full member of the court. Obvi- the European Union. In the end, however, the United ously, all these and other steps have implications not only States is exceptional and will not melt into any larg- for the United States but also for close allies like Israel, er or global union; it will simply become less able to which were protected by earlier U.S. opposition. protect itself and its constitutional decision-making Barack Obama’s blueprint for the United States system. That is clearly where our fi rst post-American spells trouble for American autonomy, self-gover- president’s policies will take us. q

28 Obama’s Next Three Years : January 2010 A Never-Ending Economic Crisis? The 2008 meltdown was badly handled and the 2009 recovery may be a bubble. Portents for the future are worrisome indeed By David M. Smick

n 2008, the global economy experienced a defi cits jumped by 737 percent over the previous year. brutal fi nancial retraction not seen since In the 12 months following the outbreak of the the 1930s. The value of virtually every asset crisis, global trade declined by 25 percent, global in- in the world was reappraised downward, vestment by 15 percent, and global GDP by nearly $4 led by housing in the United States. The trillion, or an amazing 6 percent. Global industrial pro- situation was like an unstoppable force of duction in the advanced economies dropped a whop- nature. In response, most of the world’s ping 15 percent. Worldwide unemployment rates have central banks, including the Federal Reserve in the skyrocketed, nearly doubling in the United States alone. United I States, slashed short-term interest rates to near Wage growth is nonexistent. The Obama White House zero percent and fl ooded the fi nancial system with says things could have been worse. It’s hard to see how. liquidity. World governments produced fi scal-stimulus It is also hard to see why, since hitting bottom in packages of mind-boggling size. March 2009, the Standard and Poor’s stock index has Global governments spent an astonishing $17 rebounded more than 60 percent, NASDAQ by more trillion to support the world economy in the form of than 70 percent, with emerging-market stock indexes bailouts, guarantees, and stimulus packages. To put jumping over 90 percent. The U.S. fi nancial-services this number in perspective, $17 trillion represents one industry is up an incredible 125 percent since March quarter of global GDP. Aggregate government budget 2009. Global equity markets are booming. This sug- gests better times ahead. The question is where? In the David M. Smick is chairman and CEO of the Wash- United States, or elsewhere in the world? The question ington, D.C., advisory fi rm Johnson Smick Interna- is also whether this powerful equities rally is based on tional Inc., founder and editor of the quarterly the sound economic fundamentals. Clearly a certain type International Economy, and the author of The World of fi nancial bet, called a “dollar carry trade,” is at work: Is Curved, now in paperback. investors borrow money in dollars at low interest rates

Commentary 29 to buy assets with higher yields, often offshore. Here’s 2009—a time when GDP, helped by the stimulus, grew the danger: carry trades have a history of appearing at a healthy 2.8 percent rate over the previous quar- suddenly and then vanishing just as suddenly. ter, when the economy was contracting. A number of A Goldman Sachs analysis argues that once the analysts believe that the reason for this continued re- “sugar rush” of cash-for-clunkers and other forms of traction is the bond market. It costs about $314,000 in stimulus wears off, and industries replenish their in- capital for the private economy to create a job—versus ventories, GDP growth next year will drop to a modest about $1.2 million per job created as a result of stimu- rate of 1.5 percent. According to the Federal Reserve lus spending. The theory is that public-investment dol- staff forecast, 3 percent if everything goes perfectly, lars thrown at the stimulus may have crowded out the which they admit never happens. And even that pro- delivery of capital to small businesses in the private jection is a dour one when you consider this: the his- sector, which create most new jobs. tory of recessions is that the harder the fall, the higher This is only a theory for now. What is certain is the rise. Growth rates of 5, 6, or even 7 percent after a that we had better get ready for an American work- steep downturn are not uncommon. Therefore, a 1.5, 2, force full of long-term anxiety and anger. And even if or even 2.5 percent growth rate in 2010 would be stun- unemployment rates start to come down, they won’t ningly disappointing news. And not just disappoint- drop as much as they should. That’s because the num- ing; it would have enormous implications for the size ber of workers forced into part-time status has soared of future public debt. That’s because the Obama ad- and the average number of hours in a work week has ministration’s budget and tax-receipt forecasts assume dropped. Thus, with any economic rebound, employ- that the economy will grow at a much higher rate, next ers will lengthen the work hours of existing employees, year and for years to come. not hire new employees. That would be nice. But unlikely. There are two If I sound too pessimistic, let me note for the re- fi erce headwinds that will most likely continue to hold cord that the U.S. stock market has surprised the world back consumption and make this recovery disturbing- with its performance. Economics is more an art than a ly weak: the fi rst is rising joblessness, and the second science. So maybe stock-market investors, collectively, is the soaring U.S. public debt itself. are seeing something the pessimists are missing: an explosion in “animal spirits.” The Jobless Crisis The economist Lawrence Kudlow foresees a The offi cial U.S. unemployment rate has nearly dou- “barn burner” of a U.S. economic recovery just around bled since Obama’s election. The so-called household the corner. Kudlow is right, but only if this remark- survey shows an even worse jobless situation. To a able equity-market rally has a positive “wealth effect” certain extent, the president inherited this situation. on consumers, particularly affl uent consumers who But he also has allowed the perception to persist that are responsible for more than half of retail sales. That if only we could get the economy moving again, fueled might happen, but the equity market seems to be re- by his stimulus package, the jobless rate would quickly sponding more to a perceived pickup in global de- come down. Not so. mand, spurred heavily by China, than to a robust U.S. For the U.S. unemployment rate to halve from the rebound. 10 percent rate it hit in October to 5 percent over the Indeed, the risk here is that there will be an “eq- next fi ve years, which should not be an unrealistic goal, uity crash” when the predicted rebound does not come the economy would need to produce 250,000 jobs per to pass. It may be that the reason the Federal Reserve month each month straight, according to the analyst is leaving short-term rates so low is that offi cials think John Mauldin. What are the chances of that happen- the wealth effect generated by the stock market may ing? Probably zero. It’s never happened before. Sadly, be our only hope of a sustainable rebound. In other average offi cial U.S. monthly job growth the past two words, if the stock rally is all you’ve got, don’t kill it, as decades has been 90,000. Even during the most spec- tenuous as it might be as a stimulus for consumption. tacular year for job creation, 2006, average monthly job If it lasts long enough, the carry trade could also po- growth was only 232,000. Therefore, reducing unem- tentially attract more long-term investors now on the ployment to where it was before the crisis may be im- sidelines. So for Fed Chairman Bernanke, it’s a choice possible. (Factor in state- and local-government layoffs between the risk of another asset-bubble crash and a in 2010 as a result of collapsing fi nances and the em- potentially slow, painful period of economic and fi nan- ployment situation looks even more parlous.) cial suffocation and rising public debt. The most disturbing portent is that the econ- Here’s where things stand to date. As a result of omy lost twice as many jobs in the third quarter of the crisis, U.S. consumers experienced a $13 trillion

30 A Never-Ending Economic Crisis? : January 2010 The United States is about to enter a fi scal trap, chasing its tail just to pay off its creditors. That is an experience heretofore confi ned to Third World regimes. hit to their collective balance sheets through stock cal nightmare that could doom the U.S. economy to and real-estate losses. That’s a horrifying number, slow growth and second-rate status. Our public debt given that the nation’s gross domestic product is only already amounts to nearly $40,000 for every living $14 trillion. The good news: Americans have gained American, or $160,000 per family. And the burden is about a third of these losses back as a result of the quickly rising. stock market’s recent gains. Yet housing prices remain Because the U.S. fi scal situation is unlikely to problematic. signifi cantly improve any time soon, some analysts Today Fed offi cials say that the global stock- are predicting that hyperinfl ation is just around the market boom since last March has restored about $14 corner. The Federal Reserve will be forced to monetize trillion to global wealth. But if this $14 trillion doesn’t today’s mountain of debt. This is the thinking of the so- have a sustainable effect in turning around worldwide called Austrian School of Economics—that regardless consumer sentiment, there is little more the central of the size of the output gap, infl ationary expectations banks and governments of the world can do. With the will soar once the economy begins to recover simply exception of China, they are largely out of fi scal ammu- because of the Fed’s huge monetary overhang. nition. No wonder they are investing so much hope in a These analysts make an interesting case. The change for the better in the consumer’s mood. infl ation argument could be compared to having a cinderblock attached to a large rubber band at one end The Public-Debt Crisis of a long conference table. At the far end of the table, The consumer’s mood is likely to be affected, and not you keep pulling on the band, but the block won’t for the good, by the coming public-debt crisis. Take budge. Then you hit a tipping point and the block fl ies a look at the Congressional Budget Offi ce’s most re- across the room, hitting you in the face. cent projections. Within a decade, the CBO says, the And yet it is diffi cult to fi nd examples of hyper- U.S. government will be borrowing $722 billion just infl ation unaccompanied by aggressive wage infl ation. to service its debt. And that doesn’t include the likely With today’s unemployment, it is diffi cult to imagine borrowing needed for shortfalls in Social Security and upward pressure on wages any time soon, certainly not other entitlement programs. The U.S. is about to enter before 2012 at the earliest. Unit labor costs just experi- a fi scal trap, chasing its tail just to pay off its creditors. enced their biggest decline since 1948. That is an experience heretofore confi ned to Third The Fed is betting on exactly this: several more World regimes. Their currencies lose all credibility, years of a disinfl ationary threat followed eventually and they suffer from high and crushing interest rates, by a potential upsurge in infl ationary expectations. only to end up wards of the International Monetary But nothing about this scenario can be taken with any Fund. certainty. In the 1990s the Japanese were betting that Indeed, the debt itself may be a reason for con- given the size of their monetary overhang and their tinued weak consumption and the long-term under- massive debt, infl ation would eventually soar. That performance of the U.S. economy. This, of course, is never happened. the logic that buttressed the 19th-century economist One has to be sympathetic toward Bernanke’s David Ricardo’s idea that the mere fear of rising debt predicament. To confront the fi nancial crisis in 2008, can inhibit consumer confi dence. People anticipate the Bernanke Fed quickly fl ooded the paralyzed, cred- future tax hikes to pay for the debt, or infl ation and it-starved fi nancial system with liquidity through a higher interest rates to fi nance the debt, or all of the variety of new and highly creative methods. The Fed- above. eral Reserve has more than doubled the size of the li- Public-opinion polls tell the tale. Americans are abilities on its balance sheet. The idea was to avoid experiencing deep feelings of anxiety, and not sole- the mistake of passivity committed by Fed offi cials in ly because of short-term concerns about recession, the 1930s. But what long-term unintended economic double-digit unemployment rates, or lack of health consequences these policies will present in the future, care. They are worried about a pending national fi s- nobody knows.

Commentary 31 What we do know is that despite today’s mas- bles, initiated by a country with enormous industrial sive liquidity, the monetary stimulus so far has had a overcapacity, may not be sustainable. Even the Chinese surprisingly muted effect on the real economy. That’s are worried about fi nancial bubbles. In August, for ex- probably because the velocity of money—the speed ample, Beijing announced a modest slowdown in its with which money is demanded and changes hands— government lending program. And what happened to is declining. The question is whether this decline in commodity prices? They tumbled. This suggests that the velocity multiplier is having the same effect as if commodity prices were merely responding to Chinese the Fed had reduced the money supply, limiting the stockpiling. Today the Chinese have enough steel- and economy’s oxygen supply. iron-ore-producing capacity to meet the needs, incred- Here’s the great mystery. The bold monetary ibly, of the United States, Japan, Russia, and the 27 na- stimulus may have helped stabilize the fi nancial sys- tions of the European Union combined. With the U.S. tem, but its effect on prices has been modest. For exam- consumer forced onto the sidelines, the world now ple, despite the Fed’s aggressive actions, from August seems to be looking to China, a rapidly aging society 2008 and for the following 12 months, the Consumer with no social safety net, to make a quick transition to Price Index in actual percentage points dropped more a consumer-led economy. That seems a stretch. Chi- than three times as much as it did during the compa- nese state-run banks and corporations may be loaded rable period during the Great Depression. That is wor- with cash, but Chinese consumers are not. risome because if the situation were to persist, housing prices would fi nd it diffi cult to reach bottom. The Banking Crisis Sensing these persistent disinfl ationary pres- The economics profession and most of Wall Street sures, the Fed has kept short-term rates at near zero. remain deeply divided over the long-term signifi - Yet long-term rates, the 10-year Treasury bond, have cance of the George W. Bush/Barack Obama effort nearly returned to their pre-Lehman-collapse levels. to spend $700 billion bailing out the banks. Here’s Many market participants believe that today’s 10-year the troubling part of the bank-bailout story: other Treasury rate refl ects less a confi dence in a coming U.S. nations have followed in America’s footsteps, with economic boom than a fear of a coming Armageddon major and growing government involvement in their of public debt as the Treasury continues to auction off banking systems. As a result of governments’ grow- ever larger amounts of government paper. ing presence in fi nancial affairs, the world of banking The state of U.S. monetary policy has never been will never be the same. more confusing. The San Francisco Fed just came out Today we have a dollar-based global fi nancial with a study concluding that the Fed funds rate would system dominated by roughly 25 government-subsi- need to be 4 percent lower to have any meaningful dized international megabanks, with some of the big- effect in reducing the unemployment rate. That rate gest owned by China. These giant fi nancial institutions is already near zero percent. Their conclusion is that control roughly $50 trillion in bank assets. That’s 60 every $800 billion added to the Fed’s balance sheet is percent of the world’s total bank assets. Unfortunately, equivalent to a 1 percent drop in the short-term rate. today only fi ve of these 25 megabanks are American- So the study concludes, believe it or not, that the Fed owned, according to Leto Market Insight. We now have needs to add a couple of trillion dollars more to its al- a global fi nancial system largely controlled directly by ready bloated balance sheet. foreign banks and indirectly by their governments. Such thinking is not completely deranged. That’s When the history of this period is written, it is because the Fed’s fi ght to counter disinfl ationary pres- likely that Barack Obama and George W. Bush will sures occurred at precisely the time that China, using probably be lumped in the same category on the sub- a massive emergency government-lending program, ject of the banking bailout. Both offered the big Wall was stockpiling commodities. China’s actions sent Street banks an incredible $700 billion in taxpayer most global commodity prices, including oil, through funding with no stipulation that the banks actually the roof (although, as far as oil is concerned, global lend the money, which today they aren’t doing. speculators and today’s liquidity conditions added Before the outbreak of the fi nancial crisis, the signifi cantly to the rise in prices). Thus, at the height U.S. fi nancial-services industry represented an incred- of the fi nancial crisis, Chinese actions helped push up ible 40 percent of corporate profi ts and 30 percent of global commodity prices—and they may unwittingly the stock market’s value. This, of course, was an un- have kept the American economy from going over the sustainable situation that made little sense. The ques- disinfl ationary edge. tion is, what will replace this large hole in our GDP left But now these Chinese-induced commodity bub- by the shrinking of our fi nancial-services industry?

32 A Never-Ending Economic Crisis? : January 2010 The big cleanup never happened. Banks that are too big to fail are still too big. Washington seems unwilling to confront the fi nancial-services industry in the right way.

For a number of years, there probably will not be a the bank balance sheets? Why wouldn’t American replacement. policymakers have learned from Japan’s mistakes in The perception now is that Washington has en- the 1990s?” Of course, the healthy banks returned the tered a new era of “political banking.” The well-con- money precisely because of the fear that if they kept nected receive all the breaks. The U.S. Treasury bailed the money, Washington would question their bonus out the banking sector so that it could start lending and salary structure. As a result, banks are lending the again. But the big banks aren’t lending; they are buy- smallest portion of their deposits in 15 years. ing securities as a means of bolstering their balance A year ago, leading bankers like J. P. Morgan’s Ja- sheets and profi ting from the steepening yield curve. mie Dimon and Goldman Sachs’s Lloyd Blankfein and In other words, just like the Japanese banks in others would have lost their jobs if Washington had the 1990s, they can borrow from the central bank for forced the banks to clean their balance sheets of their next to nothing, because the large Wall Street banks toxic assets, as was the Treasury’s original game plan. have access to the Fed’s discount window for cheap This would have been risky. There would have been loans. Even a high-risk fi rm like Goldman Sachs now blood on the fl oor. But the result would have been a has access to the U.S. taxpayer safety net via the Fed’s leaner, cleaner banking sector far more amendable to discount window. The banks use that borrowed money lending. But the big cleanup never happened. Politi- to buy guaranteed government debt, taking the differ- cally inspired timidity carried the day. Banks that are ence in yields as riskless profi t. too big to fail are still too big. Washington seems un- There is a reason the banks aren’t lending: they willing to confront the fi nancial-services industry in don’t have to add to their reserves when they buy gov- the right way. ernment securities, which they would have to do if they lent to job-creating businesses in the private sec- The Innovation Crisis tor. While the U.S. banking industry’s current practice The broader question is whether America has the of buying securities and not lending may help repair means of getting itself out of its economic malaise. It bank balance sheets, the situation is killing the U.S. is risky to bet against the American spirit of creative economy. As an alternative to seeking bank fi nancing, problem-solving. After the Second World War, a vic- America’s large corporations thankfully have had ac- torious America grew out from under a massive debt cess to a healthy corporate-bond market. They sold that totaled a whopping 125 percent of GDP. But that more than a trillion dollars in bonds in 2009, the most was after four years of pent-up demand followed by ever in a single year. But that has not been the case unprecedented optimism. By contrast, consumers to- for medium- and small-sized companies, and entre- day are in a gloomy period of long-term deleveraging. preneurial start-up ventures, which have been cred- A year ago, Washington thought it had a credit supply it-starved since the outbreak of the fi nancial crisis. problem, so it bailed out the banks. It turns out we also President Obama himself has said that these smaller had a credit demand problem. Consumers aren’t bor- fi rms and start-ups are responsible for 70 percent of rowing. At the same time, their fundamental economic our economy’s net new jobs. But they are barely on expectations may have been reduced. People are expe- Washington’s radar screen, even as the unemployment riencing a new, less materialistic sense of well-being. rate soars. If this is the new era of reduced consumption, In October, a Japanese offi cial visited my of- Washington has no choice but to try to stimulate pri- fi ce in Washington and asked this provocative ques- vate investment and innovation. Private investment tion: “Why didn’t the U.S. Treasury, when the healthy is key, but private innovation entails risk-taking. And bailed-out banks such as Goldman Sachs and J.P. Mor- my great fear is that we have moved from a period of gan asked to return their TARP bailout money, insist reckless fi nancial risk-taking to a situation even more that the banks fi rst spend the next three years lending dangerous, with no fi nancial risk-taking at all as our ef- the TARP money before returning it? Wouldn’t it have forts increasingly focus on stability as an end in itself. been better to save the economy fi rst and then repair Today if you are a brain-dead, bailed-out bank,

Commentary 33 fi nancing is not a problem. But if you are out there alone net new jobs since 1980 have come from start-ups in with a brilliant idea that could someday employ thou- existence fi ve years or less. Jobs come from the deploy- sands of people—if you are, in other words, the next ment of innovative ideas by start-ups that thrive in a Google—obtaining fi nancing will be tough because the dynamic climate of economic buoyancy. normal avenues of risk capital will assume you’ll fi nd it Innovative risk-taking is a delicate process dif- diffi cult to pull off a successful stock offering. fi cult to nurture. The next Google cannot be legislated The good news is that deep economic recessions into existence. Innovative breakthroughs entail the have a history of producing aggressive bouts of inno- unpredictable. There is an elusive, almost metaphysi- vation. The Obama administration needs to encourage cal process that makes planning and certainty diffi cult. this process. It needs to pivot quickly to devise policies Something as common and essential as the ballpoint that help reignite the investment-led engines of our pen was conceived by an insurance executive on his economy. vacation. The automatic transmission, invented by a We also need to become serious about manufac- struggling supplier, had little to do with the massive turing, which in the United States hit a low of 13.7 per- engineering departments of Detroit’s automakers. cent of real GDP in 2008. In the recent fast-buck era of What Washington can provide is a climate con- fi nancial leverage, we have forgotten that 70 percent of ducive to innovative risk. But that is not in the cards in America’s research and development, and roughly the today’s partisan climate, where the tax, regulatory, and same percentage of our science and technology labor fi nancial futures are as terrifyingly uncertain as at any force, comes from fi rms engaged in manufacturing. time in postwar history. This is why the mind boggles that the stimulus pack- In the end, at the heart of any economy are peo- age didn’t have a huge investment tax credit. ple. Economies are infl uenced by more than numbers, A more vibrant U.S. manufacturing sector re- by more than the size of central-bank liquidity injec- quires a predictable global-trade and currency system tions or the size of a fi scal-stimulus package. They are that reverses today’s steady march to a new mercantil- ruled by psychology. They are ruled by the speed with ism. Like never before, the world needs a new Bretton which people are willing to work with the liquidity the Woods international agreement to provide a fi nancial central bank provides. That’s why, at the end of the day, doctrine of stability. the defi nition of liquidity comes down to one word— Washington wants to create more jobs. But that confi dence. means coming to terms with how private-sector jobs If America’s leaders are unable to instill that con- are actually created. The issue here is not just size but fi dence, the American people are certain to fi nd new also age. According to the Census Bureau, nearly all ones who can and will. q

34 A Never-Ending Economic Crisis? : January 2010 Why Jews Hate Palin The problems with her go beyond policy disagreements. They are about wildly differing views of the qualities necessary for American leadership By Jennifer Rubin

OR more than a year, Sarah Palin has faith. For her detractors, both conservative and liberal, been a national Rorschach test. The she is uncouth, unschooled, a hick, anti-science and views expressed about her reveal the anti-intellectual, an upstart, and a religious fanatic. distinctions and confl icting percep- There is no group so fi rmly in the latter camp as Ameri- tions of often antagonistic groups can Jews. And there is much to learn in their reaction of Americans—the religious and the to Palin, both about her and about the sociological secular, the conservative and the lib- makeup of American Jewry today. eral, the urban and the small town, the elitist and the While Palin enjoys support from some promi- F populist. And now, with the publication of her autobi- nent Jewish conservatives, it is not an exaggeration ography, Going Rogue, and Matthew Continetti’s The to say that, more so than any other major political fi g- Persecution of Sarah Palin, the Rorschach tests are be- ure in recent memory (with the possible exception of ing administered anew, and with increasing fervor. For Patrick J. Buchanan), she rubs Jews the wrong way. In her conservative admirers, she continues to exemplify a September 2008 poll by the American Jewish Com- independence, moxie, common sense, the superiority mittee (AJC), Jews disapproved of Palin as the pick for of the common American over the nation’s elites, and McCain’s vice-presidential running mate by a 54 to 37 the embodiment of modern womanhood and Christian percent margin. (By contrast, 73 percent approved of the selection of Joseph Biden as Obama’s.) Ask an aver- Jennifer Rubin, Commentary’s contributing age American Jew about Palin and you are likely to get editor, writes daily for our blog, Contentions. Her most a nonverbal response—a shiver, a shudder, a roll of the recent article for the magazine was “The Labor Move- eyes, or a guffaw. Naomi Wolf, the feminist writer, sput- ment’s Dangerous Wish List” (October 2009). tered that Palin was the “FrankenBarbie of the Rove-

Commentary 35 Cheney cabal,” articulating the mixture of contempt in the Jewish community. The most infl ammatory of and fear that seemed to grip many Jewish women. The these was her alleged support for Patrick J. Buchanan. disdain is palpable and largely emotional. While 78 As Continetti writes, percent of American Jews voted for the Obama-Biden ticket, it is fair to say that most did not harbor animos- The notion quickly took hold over the press ity toward or contempt for Senator John McCain; the corps that Palin was a supporter of paleocon- same cannot be said of their view of Palin. Prominent servative writer and commentator Patrick Jews like Reagan-era arms-control offi cial Kenneth Buchanan. . . . Buchanan’s positions on World Adelman, who expressed great admiration for McCain, War II, Israel, the Iraq war, social mores and proclaimed that the selection of Palin was beyond trade are outside the Republican mainstream. reason: “Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being ac- Support for Buchanan would have been a ma- ceptable in high offi ce, I would not have hired her for jor liability for Palin. even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency.” What is it about Palin that so grates on American Such support would have been considered an Jews? It is more than that she is a conservative and acute liability, of course, by American Jews, who know that the vast majority of Jews are not, although this and properly loathe Buchanan for his anti-Semitism. cannot be ignored. As recent polling by Gallup amply The press ran with the story, despite its falsity, demonstrates, Jews remain the most Democratic of that Palin was a Buchananite. She had, in fact, sup- any religious group (66 percent of Jews say they are ported the wonkish and pro-Israel Steve Forbes for Democrats or lean Democratic, compared with only 47 president in 2000. Her association with Buchanan percent of Catholics, 43 percent of Protestants, and 20 consisted solely of her attendance at a speech during percent of Mormons) and the most supportive of Presi- a 1999 visit to Alaska by the candidate at which she dent Obama. Only African-Americans demonstrated a wore a Buchanan button, “out of politeness,” she later higher percentage of support (95 percent) for Obama’s explained. Nevertheless, the image took hold and was candidacy and have remained comparably loyal. While used to good effect by Obama’s team to frighten Jews. there is a range of opinion within the Jewish commu- Robert Wexler, a Florida congressman tasked with nity, as revealed by an AJC 2009 poll—which showed overcoming Jewish concerns about Obama, unleashed that majorities of Conservative and Reform Jews ap- a blast almost immediately upon the announcement of proved of the Obama administration’s handling of McCain’s choice, declaring: U.S.-Israel relations, while only 14 percent of Orthodox Jews did—only 16 percent of Jews now identify them- John McCain’s decision to select a vice selves as Republican. presidential running mate that endorsed Pat It follows, then, that Palin’s vocal and unabashed Buchanan for president in 2000 is a direct af- conservatism on social and economic issues does not front to all Jewish Americans. Pat Buchanan sit well with most American Jews. But it is not impos- is a Nazi sympathizer with a uniquely atro- sible for a conservative to capture at least some mea- cious record on Israel, even going as far as sure of support from the American Jewish community. to denounce bringing former Nazi soldiers George W. Bush scored about a quarter of American to justice and praising Adolf Hitler for his Jewish votes in 2004. It is doubtful that Palin would “great courage.” At a time when standing up receive a fraction of that. (Bush’s father set the low bar, for Israel’s right to self-defense has never been 11 percent, in 1992.) Rarely does one hear an American more critical, John McCain has failed his fi rst Jew reply, “I don’t like her position on health care” or test of leadership and judgment by selecting a “I’m pro–gay marriage and she isn’t.” This is not just running mate who has aligned herself with a about differences over issues or party labels. There is leading anti-Israel voice in American politics. something more fundamental at play. It is frightening that John McCain would On one level, part of the explanation lies in mis- select someone one heartbeat away from the understanding and media-induced panic. As Conti- presidency who supported a man who embod- netti documents in his telling book,* the media frenzy ies vitriolic anti-Israel sentiments. that surrounded Palin upon her surprise selection by McCain at the end of August 2008 led to distortions An Obama spokesman chimed in the same day, and outright falsehoods that had particular toxicity telling a Florida paper that “Palin was a supporter of Pat Buchanan . . . a Nazi sympathizer.” * The Persecution of Sarah Palin, Penguin, 256 pages, $25.95 The notion was planted that Palin herself was, by

36 Why Jews Hate Palin : January 2010 association, anti-Israel, and Jews remained convinced church-state matters played directly into the fears of of that, despite her unfl inching support for the Jew- liberal and largely secularized Jews (stoked since the ish state, the presence in her gubernatorial offi ce of an emergence of the Moral Majority and heightened by the Israeli fl ag, and her eagerness to attend a rally protest- increased political activism of evangelical Christians) ing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to the UN in the fall that she would seek to impose a specifi cally Christian of 2008 (which was canceled at the behest of Obama agenda on the nation. Again, Palin’s actual record went supporters, no doubt to deprive Palin of that platform). largely undiscussed. In a radio interview during her But this invented affi liation with Buchanan is tenure as governor, Palin specifi cally declared that she inadequate to explain the anti-Palin fever gripping would not push for a creationist curriculum. During American Jews, which can best be understood as the the 2008 race, she told interviewers that local schools result of her alignment with a series of issues and cul- should be teaching science and designing their own tural markers that antagonize a large segment of the curricula. However, Jews, like all voters, were bombard- American Jewish community. If one were to invent a ed with news reports to the contrary. political leader designed to drive liberal, largely secu- In her fi rst national interview, Charles Gibson of lar, urban, highly educated Jews to distraction, one ABC News mangled the details of a June 2008 talk she would be hard pressed to come up with a more effec- gave at the Assembly of God church she attended in her tive fi gure than Palin. hometown of Wasilla. “You said recently,” Gibson told Although she made her way in Alaska politics as a politi- cal outsider and governed with If the media repackaged Palin as an a focus on ethics reform and especially strident pro-lifer and social- energy policy, Palin came to be far more identifi ed during the conservative extremist to marginalize presidential campaign with a cluster of highly fractious social her with mainstream voters, that effort issues—abortion, contraception, was particularly effective in turning off and church-state separation. In point of fact, as governor she Jewish voters, for whom these issues are refused to convene a special leg- islative session on abortion and among the most potent. appointed a Planned Parent- hood board member to the state supreme court. No her, “in your old church, [that] our national leaders are matter. The image that voters received of her was of sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.” Palin an extremist on social issues intent on rolling back the had actually said something far different. She had en- long-fought-for gains liberals had achieved. And af- couraged the assembled to “pray for our military men ter all, she was unabashedly pro-life, a woman whose and women who are striving to do what is right also Down-syndrome son literally became the poster child for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, for the Alaska Right to Life organization. are sending them out on a task that is from God.” This This, to say the least, did not go over well with was an unexceptionable sentiment; Abraham Lincoln American Jews. Jews are overwhelmingly pro-choice, made the same point when he famously declared that more so than any other group. (In a 1980 NBC poll, 89 “I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. percent of Jews responded that the decision to have But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this an abortion should be the woman’s alone.) And the nation should be on the Lord’s side.” In reporting her vast majority of Jewish women, as Norman Podhoretz words falsely, Gibson was building on the very carica- writes in Why Are Jews Liberals?, “think that the ab- ture of the Religious Right that works to such devastat- solute right to an abortion had been inscribed on the ing effect on American Jews in particular. Indeed, even tablets Moses brought down from Sinai.” If the media when it comes to her support for Israel, Palin’s position repackaged Palin as an especially strident pro-lifer is rejected by many liberal Jews because of a suspicion and social-conservative extremist as part of the effort that her enthusiastic backing of the settlement move- to marginalize her with mainstream voters, that effort ment is based on eschatological expectations that rein- was particularly effective in turning off Jewish voters, force their own prejudices against Evangelicals. for whom these issues are among the most potent. Certainly, Palin’s status as an unabashed conser- Likewise, the distortions of Palin’s views on vative and as exemplar of the Religious Right would

Commentary 37 have been suffi cient to alienate the majority of Ameri- dentialed thinker (the better the university, the more can Jews. Yet if that were all, and that is plenty, Palin unquestioned the credential) and that possessing this still would not provoke the degree of hostility with knowledge is the key to a successful presidency. This which most Jews regard her. Something else bothers was not the prevailing conception of the presidency them more. That something else is Palin herself. through most of American history; indeed, the very idea of a technocratic president is of recent vintage. MERICAN Jews are largely urban, clustered The argument that such knowledge might be acquired in Blue States, culturally sophisticated, with or accessed when necessary by a person who has dem- A more years of college and postgraduate edu- onstrated a more instinctual skill set—the capacity to cation than the average American. According to Tom make decisions and to lead people—does not resonate W. Smith’s 2005 Jewish Distinctiveness in America: with those for whom intellectual rigor has been a de- A Statistical Study, “Jews attach great importance to fi ning characteristic and a pathway to success. seeking knowledge and highly value education and Palin’s intellectual unfi tness in the eyes of Jews science. Their pursuit of education leads them to was exaggerated during the course of the campaign as higher occupational status, better vocabulary scores, they, like other Americans, received an incomplete im- and more vociferous newspaper reading. It also infl u- age of her abilities and talents. In Going Rogue, Palin ences many attitudes and values, which, in America, devotes dozens of pages to eye-glazing particulars about tend to become more liberal with higher education.” Alaska state budgets, energy deals, and the new meth- It is not surprising, then, that Jews historically have odology her administration devised for calculating Alas- not warmed to politicians who do not project intellec- ka’s share of revenue from resource development. By of- tual sophistication. George W. Bush is in fact an avid fering this level of detail in her book, Palin is attempting, reader and a possessor of two Ivy League degrees, but she and her boosters hope, to establish her bona fi des his populist persona and avowed contempt for liberal as a fi scal sharpshooter and cagey negotiator who took academics were red fl ags to Jews. her job very seriously and whose skills were cultivated So it was with Palin, and, if possible, even more without reliance on an elite university education. But so than with Bush. Although she grew up in a house- that understanding of Palin’s work as a public servant— hold where her mother read poetry aloud, and Palin as someone who solved diffi cult problems and did so by herself read voraciously as a teenager and initially working across partisan lines—was obscured during the chose a career in journalism, she, like Bush, soft-ped- 2008 campaign by the successful effort to paint her as aled her intellectual interests—and, more important, a know-nothing lightweight with a stunted vocabulary. suggested that her policy views and problem-solving That latter image was forged in a disastrous CBS abilities were derived not from what she had learned interview with Katie Couric. During the course of it, in books but rather from character and instinct. For Palin appeared miffed when asked to name her favor- those for whom an Ivy League education is the essen- ite news publications. Whether this was evidence of tial calling card for leadership of any sort, an elite- her lack of interest in reading and current events or bashing populist with a journalism degree from the whether it was a display of intellectual modesty (she University of Idaho who lacks both a mellifl uous grasp would later say she refused to answer out of irritation), of policy and a self-consciously erudite vocabulary was Jews found such reticence hard to fathom and quickly always going to be a hard sell. As Continetti observes came to believe it was not reticence but utter igno- with savage irony, “The American meritocratic elite rance. When rumors circulated that she had “banned places a high priority on verbal felicity and the atti- books” (she had not), that image became intensifi ed, tudes, practices and jargon that one picks up during as pro-Obama media outlets suggested ominously graduate seminars in nonprofi t management, govern- that she was not simply lacking in sophisticated book ment accounting and the semiotics of Percy Shelley’s learning but was literally anti-book. ‘To a Skylark.’” Given that Jews are overrepresented in Her personal life made her even more alien these sorts of professions, it is not surprising that they to American Jews. She comes from the wilderness, would be among those most put off by Palin. brags about hunting and eating native animals, and Jews, who have excelled at intellectual pursuits, is a proud gun owner. Then there is the matter of understandably are swayed by the notion that the the composition of her family. Outside the Orthodox presidency is a knowledge-based position requiring a community, where large families are increasingly the background in the examination of detailed data and norm, having fi ve children, as Palin does, is aberrant to sophisticated analysis. They assume that such knowl- American Jews. According to Smith’s study, Jews “have edge is the special preserve of a certain type of cre- fewer brothers and sisters than any other ethnic/racial

38 Why Jews Hate Palin : January 2010 or religious group (2.4 vs. an average of 3.8)” and “the bility. Palin was another story, even if the story was smallest current household size of any ethnic/racial or in large part fi ctional. As Continetti documents, Palin religious group (2.5 vs. an average of 2.9).” had to live through a sex-infused attack. There was Palin calls herself a “hockey mom” and brags Topco’s “This Is Not Sarah Palin Infl atable Love Doll” aloud about the athletic prowess of her children, while and a plethora of phony Internet photos displaying Jews are more likely to sport “My child Is an Honor Palin in everything from an American-fl ag bikini to Student” bumper stickers. Palin’s oldest, Track, has nothing at all. Respectable columnists like Kathleen joined the military, while many Jews lack a family Parker suggested that Palin had basically seduced military tradition. Not for the Palins the quiet pride McCain to get the vice-presidential nomination (“his in good grades and good boards; the family’s esteem judgment may have been clouded”), while reporters is tied up more in Sarah’s husband Todd Palin’s “iron described her October 2009 UN visit as “speed dating.” dog” snowmobile racing skills. And there is the matter of social class. As she And, of course, there is Palin’s youngest. Pro- recounts in Going Rogue, Palin and her husband had life Americans saw Palin’s son Trig, born with Down labored at jobs most professional and upper-middle- syndrome in April 2008, as an affi rmation of Palin’s class Jews would never dream of holding—waitress- deeply held beliefs, a rare instance in which a politi- ing, picking “strawberries in the mud and mosqui- cian did more than mouth platitudes about a “culture toes . . . for fi ve cents fl at,” sweeping parking lots, and of life.” But in affl uent commu- nities with large Jewish popula- tions, Down-syndrome children Palin’s should have been a success story are now largely absent due to about upward mobility. Instead she was the widespread use of diagnostic testing and “genetics counsel- on the receiving end of class animosity ing.” Trig was not a selling point with many Jewish women who from elites that had never before been couldn’t imagine making a simi- asked to accept the notion that someone lar choice—indeed, many have, in fact, made the opposite one. outside their socio-economic circles Palin’s unprecedented suc- cess as a working-woman poli- could be qualifi ed for the presidency. tician—from PTA member to governor in 12 years, even as she raised a family with many “messy, obscure seafood jobs, including long a Teamster husband living elsewhere for his job six shifts on a stinky shore-based crab-processing vessel.” months out of the year—was overlooked or dismissed Her populist appeal and identifi cation with working- as Jewish women and others focused obsessively on class voters are rooted in a life experience that is re- trivialities. Palin had been a star high-school basket- moved by one or two generations from the lives of most ball player in her teens and entered a beauty pageant American Jews. Her life is what they were expected to (to put herself through school), both of which served rise above. to transform her, in Wolf’s eyes, into “Sarah ‘Evita’ Pal- As Continetti argues, Palin should have repre- in . . . Rove and Cheney’s cosmetic rebranding of their sented a success story about upward mobility through fascist putsch” and, for others, into a “bimbo” who was hard work, but instead she was on the receiving end an “insult” to women (in Gloria Steinem’s words). Even of class animosity from elite media and opinion mak- worse, Palin was and is more overtly sexual and more ers who had never before really been asked to accept athletic than her critics. And she was slammed for it, the notion that someone outside their socio-economic called a “sexy librarian,” a “slutty fl ight attendant,” or circles could be qualifi ed for the nation’s highest offi ce. even more noxiously, in the words of a reporter for Sa- Palin is unique among recent presidential candidates lon.com, “a Republican blow-up doll.” in that regard. Democrats John Edwards and Dick Ge- Popular Jewish and non-Jewish female politi- phardt made a fetish of their families’ modest means, cians—from Senator Diane Feinstein to Madeleine but by the time they achieved prominence, they had Albright to Hillary Clinton—have been modest to the fi rmly ensconced themselves in the upper middle point of frumpiness in appearance and professional class, as is true of virtually all national politicians these in style, and therefore perfectly acceptable to Jewish days. Palin was married to a blue-collar worker who la- women who aspired to similar positions of responsi- bored alternately on a fi shing boat and an oil pipeline.

Commentary 39 In a real sense, by the way she lives and the style have to make voters comfortable with the idea that she she has adopted, Sarah Palin is the precise reverse im- is neither ignorant nor lacking in intellectual agility. age of an American Jewish professional woman. The Unless she is content to write off signifi cant seg- two are polar opposites. The repulsion is almost mag- ments of the electorate (and she may be), Palin can- netic in nature. not simply play to her natural base by castigating elite politicians and opinion makers as indifferent or hostile S IT conceivable that Palin could make inroads (which many are) to the values of ordinary Americans; in the Jewish community? On the one hand, she she must also demonstrate that she can go toe-to-toe I doesn’t have anywhere to go but up. Certainly her with them in articulating positions on the issues that willingness to speak in favor of the special relationship all candidates are expected to address. And she must America has with Israel could mitigate some of the explain why her particular life skills and experience are damage done to her reputation, once news of her sup- more reliable indicators of successful leadership than port for the Jewish state and opposition to the admin- elite credentials. Much of the country may be primed istration’s effort to put “daylight” between the U.S. and to hear a critique of the shortcomings of Ivy League– Israel fi nally gets through to the Jewish community. educated elites, but voters will expect to hear just how And if Palin is determined to convince skeptics it is that Palin’s background, philosophy, and proposals that they have her all wrong, she will need to, as many would mark an improvement over the present. well-meaning conservatives have advised, sharpen her All that, even if done expertly, may only mini- approach to a range of issues beyond energy policy mally lessen the animosity toward her. Palin’s anti- (where she has demonstrated expertise) and refi ne her elitism and her embrace of social conservatism, which vision of what she dubs “commonsense conservatism.” are now integral to her persona, will in all likelihood While she is an expostulator of the idea, prominent continue to make her unpopular with the great major- throughout American political history, that a leader ity of Jews. She is not about to change her appearance, with a commonsense approach to decision-making is her stance on abortion, or her disdain for media elites. best suited to governing the United States, she must And Jews are not about to cast aside their preference accept the obligation to speak with authority and com- for those leaders whom they perceive as intellectually mand about pressing public-policy issues. She will worthy—and socially compatible. q

40 Why Jews Hate Palin : January 2010 Politics & Ideas

The Trilby That Sank an Empire

Major Farran’s Hat: ating defeat and retreat from Pales- resident there. Though his riveting The Untold Story of the tine in 1947. Now, to be sure, even if account of crime and non-punish- Struggle to Establish British Major Roy Farran had not ment is the centerpiece of Major the Jewish State been exposed by his missing topper Farran’s Hat, Cesarani’s ancillary By David Cesarani as the abductor of a Jewish teenag- interest is to lay bare the fallacies Da Capo, 320 pages, $26 er who was subsequently tortured that underpinned Britain’s counter- and murdered, the British would terrorist strategy—the same strate- Reviewed by Jonathan S. Tobin not have been able to hold on to a gy that led Roy Farran to lose his hat fractious possession where, even at the spot on Jerusalem’s Ussishkin N English nursery more so than in most other post– Street where 16-year-old Alexander rhyme tells the tale World War II colonial confl icts, the Rubowitz was last seen alive. of how for “want of a forces of empire had everything go- As Cesarani ably shows, there nail a shoe was lost,” ing against them. are few worse examples in the an- which leads eventu- Still, the tale of Farran’s hat did nals of counterterrorist warfare ally A to the loss of a horse, a rider, a play a role in determining Britain’s than the record of Britain in Pal- battle, and a kingdom, “all for the grudging acceptance that the strug- estine from 1945 to 1948—and the loss of a horseshoe nail.” Major Far- gle was lost. The fallout from the failure was due primarily to the ran’s Hat, David Cesarani’s new discovery of the major’s hat, which fact that the government of Prime work of popular history, recounts the implicated him and his superiors in Minister Clement Atlee could nev- 20th century’s great horseshoe-nail the barbaric murder of Alexander er make up its mind about what it story, in which the loss of a mere Rubowitz in May 1947, was a per- wanted in Palestine. The military gentleman’s hat played a signifi cant fect illustration of the incoherence wanted to hold on to its air and role in the British Empire’s humili- of the British imperial claim to be naval bases indefi nitely. Britain’s upholding the rule of law in Pales- foreign-policy establishment was Jonathan S. Tobin is execu- tine even as the empire roughly im- also hostile to Zionism and hoped tive editor of Commentary. posed itself on the Jews and Arabs to maintain good relations with the

Commentary 41 Arab world by preventing the estab- ing entry to Holocaust survivors, parently said little to please his cap- lishment of a Jewish state. But given Britain undermined its moral au- tors. A day later Farran admitted to American sympathy for the Jews in thority to rule a Palestine Mandate, his commander, Colonel Bernard the wake of the Holocaust, an im- which had, after all, been under- Fergusson, that he had personally poverished Britain lacked both the taken in 1922 to create a national smashed Rubowitz’s head in with political will and the resources to home for the Jews. several blows from a rock and then keep Palestine for itself. By the end of 1945, Irgun and left the bloody body where he hoped Whereas the Arabs were disor- LEHI attacks on British targets had it might be devoured by animals. ganized and divided, the Jews were won not only the sympathy of the One more missing Jew amid preparing to fi ght as the politi- Jewish population but also the co- the chaos of a three-way war might cal maneuvering for a Jewish state operation of the Haganah. A clan- have been soon forgotten—but un- heated up. Lined up against the destine committee to coordinate the fortunately for Farran, the grey tril- British was the Haganah, a national efforts of the three groups eventual- by with his name inscribed on the militia acting under the authority of ly collapsed. But its existence proved sweatband was found by children the Labor-party-dominated Nation- that the Brits’ calculation that they on the street, and it was eventually al Council, which ran Jewish Pales- could hang on with the help of the brought to the police investigating tine. In addition to this mainstream Jews had been wrong. It is into this the boy’s disappearance. group were two more militant orga- context that the Farran affair landed The publicity engendered by the nizations: the Irgun Zvai Leumi, led in the laps of British authorities in discovery of Farran’s hat rendered by future Israeli Prime Minister Me- Jerusalem and London. the government’s stonewalling of nachem Begin, and a much smaller Farran, a decorated veteran of the Rubowitz family’s inquiries splinter group, the openly terror- commando actions against the untenable. Within weeks, the Pal- ist Lohamei HaHerut b’Yisrael, or Germans during World War II, estine Police, a British force that LEHI, known to the British as the was deployed to Palestine to lead was not privy to Farran’s opera- Stern Gang (after its founder Avra- a special squad tasked with track- tional plans, traced the disappear- ham Stern, who was killed in 1942). ing down the Jewish underground. ance back to him. Farran fl ed to The latter two factions were bent Armed with only a vague prejudice Syria before he could be arrested. on expelling the British through against Zionism and Jews, with no Eventually he was enticed to re- violence, while the Haganah’s po- intelligence worthy of the name or turn to Palestine, where, after an- litical masters preferred diplomacy knowledge of the languages spoken other comic escape and surrender, and public relations. But all three in the country, operating blindly, he was court-martialed in Septem- shared the same ultimate goal of and lacking cooperation from the ber for his role in Rubowitz’s death. Jewish independence. population, Farran’s unit never But the trial did nothing to re- Britain’s initial strategy was to had a chance of doing much harm inforce respect for British rule. Evi- isolate the Irgun and the LEHI with to the Irgun or the LEHI, let alone dence in army records of the crime the help of other Jews. That worked the Haganah. The hope the Brit- was not brought to light; Farran’s for a while, since Begin’s impudent ish high command had neverthe- written confession was ruled in- declaration of war on the British in less invested in Farran and his men admissible; and Fergusson was al- 1944 while the Allies were still fi ght- was ultimately destroyed by the lowed to avoid testifying about his ing Nazi Germany struck most Jews Rubowitz affair. knowledge of the murder because as folly at best and insanity at worst. The 16-year-old Rubowitz was a he might have incriminated him- But after the German surrender in supporter of LEHI but not a mem- self. The preordained verdict of 1945, the belief that resistance to ber of its small operational force. On “not guilty” was handed down, and the British was solely the desire of May 6, 1947, he was either transport- Farran was spirited back to Eng- extremists no longer held true. ing propaganda posters or attempt- land as Jewish Palestine seethed. London’s continued refusal to ing to put them up in Jerusalem The Atlee government, howev- let in more Jewish immigrants, when Farran’s squad nabbed him. er, faced embarrassing questions a measure enacted in 1939 to ap- Frustrated by his inability to make about Farran from Parliament. pease the Arabs on the eve of a a dent in any of the Jewish groups, As Menachem Begin later wrote world war and widely considered Farran drove Rubowitz out of the in his memoirs, it was precisely to have contributed to Hitler’s an- city to the desert near Jericho and the limits that the British placed nihilation of European Jewry, unit- brutally interrogated him. The boy on themselves as representatives ed the Jewish community. By refus- could not have known much and ap- of a democratic country unwilling

42 Politics & Ideas : January 2010 to commit mass atrocities that en- medals and penned a hastily writ- sured the empire’s defeat. Under Farran ten autobiography detailing his the bright spotlight of the interna- ¶ exploits (while denying knowledge tional media, the British military’s turned of Rubowitz’s death), which sold a effort to fi ght a dirty war against to extralegal phenomenal 300,000 copies. the Jews was undermined by the But three days short of one year expectation of their own govern- violence because after Rubowitz’s abduction, a par- ment (and Britain’s allies) that it cel was delivered to Farran’s fam- rule Palestine justly. Farran’s de- he was fi ghting ily home. Though addressed to Roy, plorable actions, the inept prosecu- groups whose it was opened by Farran’s 25-year- tion of his crime, and his acquittal old brother, Rex, whose stomach summarized this contradiction. existence was was ripped open by the force of the Subsequent successful attacks a legitimate LEHI bomb inside the package. by the Irgun, along with the Haga- The group’s English cell had been nah’s efforts to bring Jews into the expression of ordered to try to assassinate the country despite a British blockade, Jewish political three Britons most hated by Jews: convinced London to accept the UN Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, partition plan, which was adopt- ambitions. General Evelyn Barker (a former ed in November 1947. Employing a Palestine commander known for passive stance, the British evacuat- his anti-Semitism), and Farran. ed their forces as a war between the ciples. Counterterrorism can only But Rex Farran was the only per- new State of Israel and its Arab an- be successful when those whom it son they managed to kill. No one tagonists began the following May. seeks to protect actually want to be was ever charged with the crime, Though the record of the Brit- protected and cooperate with the and the LEHI member who sent ish military in Palestine was one of forces fi ghting the terrorists. Far- the bomb evaded detection and re- abject failure, the lesson went un- ran found himself turning to extra- turned home to Israel. learned, as those involved in the legal violence because he was try- Roy Farran eventually left Eng- effort were later recruited to take ing to root out Jewish groups that land and settled in Calgary, Canada, part in counterterrorist campaigns were in many cases not only acting where he built successful careers in in Malaya, Kenya, and other parts to protect their own people but also both journalism and politics, rising of the shrinking empire. Cesarani whose existence was a legitimate at one point to be solicitor general sees the “ultimate signifi cance” of expression of suppressed Jewish of Alberta. Though the LEHI was the Rubowitz case in the way Brit- political ambitions. Any attempt to satisfi ed with its indefensible effort ain’s security services felt free to link Farran’s tactics with contem- at securing revenge, Farran contin- conduct themselves in a criminal porary targeted killings of al-Qa- ued to be pursued for decades by manner in other parts of the em- eda or Taliban operatives cannot members of the Rubowitz family, pire, since they had seen Farran get be sustained. Similarly, the State of who made futile attempts to revive away with it and were operating Israel’s attempts to forestall Arab the legal case against him and lat- far from the media limelight that terrorist attacks on its population er merely begged for information shone on Palestine in 1947. cannot be compared with the last about where he had left the boy’s Less insightful is the author’s gasps of the British Empire in the body. Farran rebuffed all such in- misleading injunction that British same territory. quiries and never answered jour- and other NATO troops now tasked nalists’ questions about the case. with counterterrorism in Iraq and S FOR Farran himself, his He died in 2006 at the age of 85 and Afghanistan in particular avoid the war record and the anti- was buried with honors as a hero same mistakes. The circumstances A Semitic backlash created and distinguished public servant. Western troops fi nd themselves in by the toll of British casualties in Alexander Rubowitz is remem- today bear no resemblance to the Palestine made him something of bered with a memorial on Mount situation faced by the British in a hero to the English people after Herzl, Israel’s pantheon of heroes. Palestine. The lesson to be learned he returned home. While a war There is also a plaque at the spot here is not one about the folly of between Jews and Arabs raged in on Ussishkin Street where he was unleashing a ruthless fi ghter like Palestine during the winter of 1947- abducted. His body has never been Farran but instead one of fi rst prin- 48, Farran was honored with more found.q

Commentary 43 charges,” which in a pre-welfare- state era meant being dependent on private alms. Immigrants were supposed to work—and in an ex- Once on ploding industrial and manufac- turing economy, physical vigor was a must, so the immigration fi lter should catch and turn back “the This Island sickly, weak, or mentally defi cient.” Dark hereditary fears also haunt- ed many offi cials and civic leaders, American Passage: shows, was messy and all too hu- to say nothing of the broader pub- The History of Ellis Island man, marked by frequent offi cial lic: would these wrenchingly poor By Vincent J. Cannato incompetence and graft, authori- alien arrivals, many of swarthy HarperCollins, 487 pages, $27.99 ties riven with confl ict, and occa- complexions, weaken the (large- sional tragedy. At the deepest level, ly Northern European) American Reviewed by Brian C. Anderson Ellis Island embodied the tensions racial stock? that remain at the heart of the im- Fear of immigrants briefl y rose OR most of us, Ellis Is- migration debate. “The nation’s to fever pitch with the early arriv- land, a tiny scrap of immigration law was predicated al at Ellis Island of the Massilia, a dirt and rock in upper on the idea that a self-governing steamship bearing Italian émigrés, New York Harbor, once people could decide who may or Russian Jews fl eeing czarist op- a hanging ground for may not enter the country,” Can- pression, and the horrifi c ailment F pirates, is a proud symbol of immi- nato writes. But how best to recon- called typhus. Authorities didn’t grants’ striving and ultimate tri- cile that ideal with America’s tradi- detect the illness among the Jew- umph. “Hard work, the dignity of tion of welcoming newcomers or ish passengers—the Italians were labor, the fi ght for what’s right”— the universal rights in our found- unaffected, having had separate these were the words that best re- ing documents? accommodations on the ship—un- fl ected Ellis Island’s spirit, the auto Ellis Island opened for business til they had passed inspection and executive Lee Iacocca once en- on January 1, 1892; its purpose was arrived on Manhattan’s Lower East thused. His own parents were to serve as a fi lter separating desir- Side, where boarding houses soon among the millions of new arriv- able from undesirable immigrants. became sick houses. New York als—most of them Jews or South- Cannato sees immigration control health offi cials quarantined ap- ern European Catholics—who fi rst as an expression of the spirit of Pro- proximately 1,000 people, includ- reached American soil by passing gressive reform prevalent around ing all the Jewish Massilia immi- through the island’s inspection the turn of the 20th century, as the grants, on North Brother Island, gateway during the fi rst quarter of United States became a modern in- off the Bronx coast, dampening the the 20th century. It was one of the dustrial state. “The impulse,” he ob- outbreak within a month. great migrations in human history. serves, “was the same impulse that The fi nal death toll was just In American Passage, his com- banned child labor, regulated rail- 45, but the crisis strengthened prehensive new history of Ellis Is- roads and monopolies, opened set- the position of immigration foes land, Vincent Cannato acknowl- tlement houses, created national like Boston Brahmin Prescott Hall, edges the myriad benefi cial ways parks, battled the corruption of ur- who formed the Immigration Re- in which this dramatic population ban political machines, and advo- striction League in 1894. Hall and shift remade America. But Can- cated for temperance.” Yet deciding his allies vociferously argued that nato is an unsentimental observ- whom to admit and whom to deny all the Jews and Italians and oth- er. The reality of Ellis Island, he proved diffi cult. er Southern Europeans fl ooding Several broad concerns about into the country would bring more Brian C. Anderson is editor of immigrants motivated political plagues, and greater crime, too, if City Journal and author of several leaders and Ellis Island authori- their numbers were not sharply books, including South Park Con- ties when wrestling with this is- regulated. servatives and Democratic Capital- sue, Cannato argues. First, new- Yet despite the widespread anx- ism and Its Discontents. comers should not become “public iety about the population surge,

44 Politics & Ideas : January 2010 NOW IN WILLFUL BLINDNESS PAPER- A MEMOIR OF THE JIHAD BACK! by Andrew C. McCarthy | ISBN: 978-1594032653 | $16.95 “Finally, from the legal front line, a devastating account of the peril we put our country in when we treat terrorist atrocities as if they were mere crimes. Andy McCarthy was there when the jihad began. Read this book and you’ll understand why this war is a war, and why we have no choice but to fi ght it and win it.” — Rush Limbaugh

NOW IN CLIMATE CONFUSION PAPER- HOW GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA LEADS TO BAD BACK! SCIENCE, PANDERING POLITICIANS, AND MISGUIDED POLICIES THAT HURT THE POOR by Roy W. Spencer | ISBN: 978-1594033452 | $14.95 “Climate Confusion is the best book length treatment of global warming science that is available to the literate citizen. The title says it all. Spencer explains the broad agreement over the existence of some climate change and the existence of some human role, but he also explains why these have little to do with the implausible and overheated projections of environmental disaster.” — Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, MIT THRIFT REBIRTH OF A FORGOTTEN VIRTUE by Theodore Roosevelt Malloch | ISBN: 978-1594032608 | $16.95 “Rockefeller himself believed that thrift was essential to well-ordered living. This book, if followed, could help all of us put our personal and public lives back in order.” — Steve Forbes, Chairman and CEO, Forbes, Inc. and Editor-in-Chief, Forbes magazine EUROPE’S GHOST TOLERANCE, JIHADISM, AND THE CRISIS IN THE WEST by Michael Radu with a Foreword by Robert Spencer | ISBN: 978-1594032622 | $35.00 “Europe’s Ghost is the book I’ve been waiting for — a serious, in-depth analysis of the Muslim immigration crisis in Europe. Avoiding both hysteria and political correctness, this admirable, timely work combines impeccable scholarship with moral integrity and intellectual clarity.” — Ralph Peters, author of The War After Armageddon and Wars of Blood and Faith WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS AND HOW IT KNOWS IT by James Franklin | ISBN: 978-1594032073 | $23.95 “James Franklin has given us another lucid, fascinating, and accessible book on the philosophy of science, with instructive detours into the global warming debate, evolutionary biology, and the sausage-making aspects of scientifi c work — peer review and grant-chasing.” — John Derbyshire, author of Prime Obsession At bookstores everywhere or call 800-343-4499 www.encounterbooks.com Ellis Island proved an open entry- The grounds fell into disrepair, way. As Cannato notes, during the Ellis even outright “rot,” Cannato says, fi rst three decades of the facility’s ¶ and it wasn’t until the 1980s and existence, eight out of 10 immi- Island’s a new period of mass immigration grants immediately won admis- fl ow of new that the nation began to pay atten- sion, and 98 percent ultimately tion to the island again—now as “a made it to America. Roughly 12 mil- arrivals would new Plymouth Rock,” a symbol of lion immigrants passed through slow in the America’s immigrant experience. Ellis Island during this tumultuous Iacocca helped lead a philanthropy period. Ellis Island’s gates would 1920s as the drive that resulted in parts of the remain wide open under ostensibly island reopening as a museum of restrictionist commissioners like public, wary immigration. Ellis Island has be- William Williams and extremely of European come a signifi cant tourist draw, tolerant commissioners like Rob- with 2 million visitors a year. ert Watchorn, as well as under com- mores and American Passage is thick with petent, decent inspectors and cor- radicalism after detail on Ellis Island’s day-to-day rupt and abusive ones. A growing operations. Everything is in here, nation’s need for new workers and the butchery from groundskeeping to politi- American ideals of openness kept of World War cal infi ghting, so much so that the restrictionists at bay and public some readers might fi nd them- fears in check. I, became selves bogged down. Thankfully, President Theodore Roos- more hostile to Cannato, who teaches history at evelt’s immigration stance refl ect- the University of Massachusetts in ed both the anxiety and the open- immigration. Boston and is the author of a previ- ness. In 1902, Roosevelt seemed ous book on New York Mayor John sympathetic to the restrictionists, ism after the butchery of World Lindsay, enlivens his text with deft calling for the weeding out of im- War I, became more hostile to profi les of the offi cials, advocates, migrants of “low moral tendency” immigration. Congress passed and immigrants whose lives inter- and “unsavory reputation.” Five strict country-of-origin quotas on sected with Ellis Island. An elegant years later, though, he was em- new arrivals, ending the island’s writer, he restrains from excessive phasizing the positive: “Not only ostensible raison d’etre as an editorializing, so that even those he must we treat all nations fairly, immigration fi lter. “The era of clearly disagrees with, such as the but we must treat with justice mass immigration was effectively nativist Hall, come off somewhat and good will all immigrants who ended,” Cannato explains. sympathetically. come here under the law. Wheth- The Great Depression put fur- Cannato remains stubbornly er they are Catholic or Protes- ther downward pressure on immi- neutral about our own immigra- tant, Jew or Gentile; whether they gration. By the early 30s, the num- tion debates but warns against come from England or Germa- ber of people leaving America was using the past too freely to win ny, Russia, Japan, or Italy, mat- three times greater than the num- points in them. That’s sensible ters nothing.” Cannato sums up ber arriving. Ellis Island served advice, since today’s immigrants, the president’s “straddle”: “In his chiefl y as a detention center for disproportionately from Mexico openness to ethnic and religious enemy aliens during World War II and other south-of-the-border na- groups, he satisfi ed immigrants and for noncitizen radicals during tions, arrive in a very different and their defenders. In his rhetor- the Cold War. One detainee in 1952, economy from the one that greet- ical concerns about the quality of Cannato recounts, was the Marx- ed their early-20th-century pre- new immigrants, he satisfi ed re- ist literary critic C. L. R. James, who decessors—an economy that val- strictionists, but at the end of the wrote a book on Herman Melville ues education and skills that day all of his talk about restriction while waiting for the adjudication many of them lack. Regardless of was little more than bluster.” of his case; he wound up back in one’s views on immigration poli- Ellis Island’s fl ow of new Britain, deported. In 1954 the gov- cy, American Passage tells an im- arrivals would slow dramatical- ernment shuttered Ellis Island, rec- portant story—a story now insep- ly in the 1920s as the public, wary ognizing that the facility had lost arable from our sense of national of European mores and radical- its rationale for being. identity—and tells it well.q

46 Politics & Ideas : January 2010 provide a sort of Schott’s Miscella- ny of constitutional facts, interest- ing and informative, without any Taking a aspiration to thoroughness. To take one example: Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, provides that Congress has the power “To declare Constitutional War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concern- The Citizen’s Constitution: The enduring importance of the ing Captures on Land and Water.” An Annotated Guide Constitution as our paramount law Most Americans are familiar with By Seth Lipsky serves as the background and justi- the idea of Congress declaring war, Basic Books, 352 pages, $25.95 fi cation for Seth Lipsky’s The Citi- and Lipsky lists the fi ve formal dec- zen’s Constitution. This slim volume larations of war enacted by Con- Reviewed by Neomi Rao bills itself as an annotated Constitu- gress. Then he seeks to explain the tion to assist the nonlawyer in his little-used power of granting letters N 2008, the Supreme Court understanding of the document— of marque and reprisal, noting that took on the case of District far more detailed than a pocket these letters authorize private citi- of Columbia v. Heller, which Constitution but much less exten- zens to carry out attacks and raids concerned gun-ownership sive than treatises designed for law- on other nations or their inter- rights. While the case was yers and scholars. Lipsky, the found- ests. He then provides examples of I under consideration, newspapers ing editor of the New York Sun, calls how the Confederacy used such let- across the country and talking his modest and enlightening en- ters during the Civil War. Lest one heads on chat shows parsed the terprise a “newspaperman’s guide” think such letters entirely a histori- confusing language of the Second written by an editor who follows the cal anachronism, Lipsky notes that Amendment: “A well regulated Mi- “plain language school of the law.” after September 11, Representative litia, being necessary to the securi- The Citizen’s Constitution pro- Ron Paul proposed legislation au- ty of a free State, the right of the ceeds with care for the Constitu- thorizing the president to issue let- people to keep and bear Arms, shall tion, annotating every clause and ters of marque and reprisal to pri- not be infringed.” a great many individual words. It vate individuals to seize Osama bin Debate swirled around the his- gives roughly equal attention to Laden or other al-Qaeda operatives. tory of the Amendment, the place- each clause and does not linger lon- Then for the clause section “con- ment of commas, and the relation- ger on the more familiar or impor- cerning Captures on Land and Wa- ship between its clauses. Given the tant provisions. This treatment im- ter,” Lipsky discusses a controversy interest in gun ownership and regu- presses upon the reader the import between President George W. Bush lation, when the issue came before of each word to the overall docu- and Senator John McCain over how the Supreme Court, the American ment and directs attention to pro- suspected terrorists should be treat- people, not just lawyers and schol- visions that are often overlooked. ed. McCain argued that the ability ars, were interested in the meaning Lipsky’s annotations to the con- to make rules concerning captures of the precise words of the Amend- stitutional text seek to aid compre- gave Congress the power to prohib- ment. The debate was not about hension by providing a glimpse it detainees from being subjected gun-control policy but about law. of the elaborate history that has to “cruel, inhuman, or degrading The text of the Constitution mat- grown alongside the Constitution, treatment.” The Bush administra- tered to Americans. And when the a history that includes Supreme tion argued that Congress could not Supreme Court ruled for the fi rst Court decisions as well as interpre- limit the president’s authority over time that Americans had a right to tations by presidents and members captured terrorist suspects. Lip- gun ownership outside the stricture of Congress. Some annotations rest sky relates a disagreement be- of a militia, its ruling was accepted on historical examples from Eng- tween Democratic Representative with surprising equanimity. lish history, the Federalist Papers, Jane Harman and David Adding- or judicial decisions, while others ton, counsel to then Vice President Neomi Rao, a new contributor, emphasize modern-day controver- Richard Cheney, about whether this is an assistant professor at George sies that illustrate the ongoing rel- power over “captures” was intended Mason School of Law. evance of the Constitution. They to apply only to piracy. This modern

Commentary 47 dispute over who has authority over point through its own format and the specifi c requirements of the the treatment of terrorist detainees structure. Constitution: fi delity to its sim- points to a persistent area of con- The swearing-in of President ple but powerful commands. The stitutional disagreement—how the Obama provided Lipsky with a fas- chief justice misplaced just one president and Congress exercise cinating example. The Constitution word. But the Constitution does and share war powers. provides a unique oath of offi ce for the not require the president to take Short annotations cannot en- president (Article I, Section 1, Clause something like the oath of offi ce tirely do justice to the glosses that 8), which many scholars have argued or pretty close to the oath of offi ce. have been placed on the Constitu- confi rms the president’s singular The Constitution prescribes a par- tion by more than 200 years of his- place in the American system of gov- ticular oath for the president, and tory and practice. Even so, a few of ernment as protector and preserver of Obama made sure to swear that Lipsky’s seem incomplete, even for the Constitution. So when Chief Jus- precise oath, as opposed to some- a newspaperman’s account. For ex- tice Roberts misspoke the oath during thing very close to that oath. ample, in describing the prohibi- President Obama’s inauguration, the The Citizen’s Constitution does tion on “cruel and unusual punish- president took the oath again, “out not aim to tackle thorny debates ments” in the Eighth Amendment, of an abundance of caution,” as Greg about constitutional interpretation Lipsky discusses a recent Supreme Craig, then counsel to the president, or provide comprehensive cover- Court decision holding that capi- explained. Lipsky suggests that “in age of constitutional controversies. tal punishment for the rape of a the legal sense the caution might have It does, however, provide interested child violates it. Lipsky provides been in overabundance.” citizens with an accessible starting details about the case but does not Whether or not this do-over was point for understanding the mean- discuss the controversy that has legally required for Obama to take ing and history behind this great erupted over the Supreme Court’s offi ce, the decision to take the oath document that forms an essential test evaluating “cruel and unusual” again suggests the importance of part of the American idea. q punishment according to “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Nor does he explain that some recent Was FDR Too decisions have measured “evolving standards of decency” against in- ternational norms and practices— Ill to Govern? an issue that has generated signifi - cant controversy about the use of international law in constitutional FDR’s Deadly Secret FDR’s famous broad smile, some interpretation. These are not ob- By Steven Lomazow and well-muscled arms, and beneath all scure points of constitutional law Eric Fettmann this, folded awkwardly on a towel, a but ones that recur in public debate PublicAffairs, 288 pages, $25.95 pair of spindly, withered legs. and that could have been illuminat- To hear Lomazow and Fett- ed to a greater degree. Reviewed by Ira Stoll mann tell it, Roosevelt’s legs, crip- These shortcomings of complete- pled by polio or perhaps Guillain- ness are offset, however, by the over- ARLY in FDR’s Deadly Barré, were only the beginning all approach of The Citizen’s Consti- Secret, a fascinating of his health problems. Accord- tution, which treats each provision and grisly new book ing to their account, his illnesses of the Constitution with respect and by Steven Lomazow and conditions would grow during care. The Founding Fathers wrote it and Eric Fettmann, his presidency to include severe in this manner, and we should con- E there is a photograph of Franklin iron-defi ciency anemia, a “serious sider it in the same light. No portion Delano Roosevelt in a bathing suit, urinary tract infection,” prostate of the Constitution is superfl uous. taken before Roosevelt became cancer, an essential tremor, conges- Each provision serves as an essen- president. The portrait depicts tive heart failure, hypertension, a tial part of the structure of the gov- “chronic sinus condition,” seizures ernment and a component of the Ira Stoll is editor of Future- as the result of a stroke and most supreme law of the land. It is a vir- OfCapitalism.com and author of important, melanoma, or skin can- tue of this book that it makes this Samuel Adams: A Life. cer, which the authors describe

48 Politics & Ideas : January 2010 alternately as “highly probable” least casts Roosevelt’s presidency any of the personages, military or and “undeniably certain.” in a new light. political, who would ordinarily have In constructing their unusual But what color light? That comes had the most complete knowledge of medical biography of Roosevelt, down to a question not of reporting the problems involved.” Kennedy’s the authors display impressive detective work or diagnostic skill letter was answered by, of all people, reporting fl air. (Lomazow is a but rather of historical judgment. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who criti- neurologist, while Fettmann is a One could argue that Roosevelt’s cized RFK for an “astonishing mix- veteran newspaperman who has ability to win re-election and lead ture of distortion and error.” worked for the New York Post for a successful war effort despite all However much one agrees with nearly 40 years.) A missing T-shirt these illnesses should make us Kennedy on the substance, it’s hard of Roosevelt’s, drenched in blood think of him as an even greater to imagine how a different out- from a 1944 surgery to remove a man than we had thought. By this come might have been produced. wen from the back of his head, reasoning, he gets extra credit for The comparatively healthy Winston was discovered by the authors to forging ahead despite adversity, in Churchill didn’t perform any better be in the possession of the son the same way that we admire Lance than Roosevelt. Nor can one easily of a Navy pharmacist’s mate who Armstrong more for winning the imagine a President Thomas Dewey took it after the operation. They Tour de France as a cancer survi- taking a much harder line against also obtained an “unedited pri- vor than we would if he had been the Soviets at Yalta had Roosevelt vate fi lm” of a 1944 speech dur- a champion cyclist who had never decided not to run because of health ing which FDR suffered an angina suffered from the disease. concerns. (This is to say nothing of attack. No detail of Roosevelt’s That is not, however, the argument an even more frightening thought— health is left unexplored, which advanced by the authors of FDR’s that Roosevelt’s retirement might means that squeamish readers Deadly Secret. Instead, they fault the have led to the succession of his 1944 may fi nd themselves wincing at president and his doctors for deceit in vice president, Henry Wallace, the the mention of the presidential concealing from the public the extent man who would later run an effec- perineum or at the news that of the illness, suggesting, essentially, tively pro-Soviet campaign for presi- Roosevelt “was urinating pus.” that Roosevelt at a certain juncture dent in 1948.) It is also doubtful that The authors’ account is also should have left the White House and even a healthy Roosevelt would have sprinkled here and there with graph- retired to a sick bed. subjected the Russians, whose Red ic and telling details of the nonmedi- Army suffered enormous casualties cal variety. We learn, for example, HE strongest case to be in World War II, to a Versailles-like that at one press conference, FDR made that Roosevelt’s ill- humiliation—though one can make displayed a Nazi Iron Cross and said T nesses hampered his abil- the alternative case, based on the it should be presented to a colum- ity to function effectively turns on same fact set, that the Soviet negoti- nist of the New York Daily News who Yalta, the February 1945 conference ating position at Yalta was weak. was one of the president’s most bit- at which the American president As a remedy against exposing ter critics. It is enough to make the and Winston Churchill essentially America again to the threat of a se- Obama administration’s treatment ceded Poland to Josef Stalin and cretly sick president, the authors of Fox News look timid. his Soviet Communist dictatorship. fl oat the idea of assigning an inde- Diagnosing a living patient be- It’s a long-running debate, and pendent board of doctors to moni- fore him on an examining table Lomazow and Fettmann intrigu- tor the president’s health. They today presents a doctor with suffi - ingly quote on this point Robert F. report that Congress considered cient challenges. Diagnosing some- Kennedy, “who until recently had the idea in the 1960s but rejected one who has been dead for more been an aide to Senator Joseph R. it on the grounds that forcing the than 60 years is particularly diffi - McCarthy.” chief executive to undergo an exam cult, especially given the scarcity of Kennedy, in a 1954 letter to the “would violate presidential dignity.” Roosevelt’s medical records. But if editor of the New York Times, ob- This concern about presidential Roosevelt was suffering from even served that the Yalta agreements had dignity is one that, alas, the authors, a fraction of the diseases Lomazow “caused some of the heartbreak and for all their reportorial indefatiga- and Fettmann say he was, the dis- problems of postwar Europe.” FDR, bility, show little sign of sharing. closure, even if it falls short of the Kennedy charged, “made the agree- Perhaps this is a quaint concern “profound historical revelation” ment with Russia with inadequate in the nuclear age. Still, the Consti- that the authors tout, at the very knowledge and without consulting tution provides plenty of checks and

Commentary 49 balances on an ailing president. It leaves the power to declare war, ap- propriate funds, and enter into trea- The Ever- ties in the hands of the Congress, which also has the power to impeach the president. The judicial branch has the power to review the execu- Present Danger tive branch’s actions and overrule them if they are illegal. These checks and balances were The Hawk and the Dove: Paul which the weapon’s designers and further elaborated in the 25th Amend- Nitze, George Kennan, and the Harry Truman had not grappled ment, ratifi ed in 1967, which provides History of the Cold War before the president authorized a procedure whereby the vice presi- By Nicholas Thompson the destruction of Hiroshima and dent and a majority of the Cabinet can Henry Holt, 416 pages, $27.50 Nagasaki. Could this compressed notify Congress that the president is hellfi re serve also as a deter- “unable to discharge the powers and Reviewed by Jamie M. Fly rent that might actually prevent the duties of his offi ce” and thus trig- a nuclear holocaust? Were there ger a takeover by the vice president as N the fi nal volume of his any circumstances under which “Acting President.” There’s a further magisterial history of World nuclear weapons could be used to provision for Congress to decide the War II, Winston Churchill advance strategic goals? Was lim- issue if the president insists he is able describes his thoughts in ited nuclear war even feasible? to perform his duties but the vice pres- July 1945 after U.S. Secretary In the thick of these debates ident and Cabinet maintain that he is I of War Henry Stimson told him of for much of the Cold War were incapacitated. the successful test of an atomic the foreign-policy grandees George The most important of these weapon. “To avert a vast, indefi nite Kennan and Paul Nitze, subjects of checks and balances is the require- butchery,” Churchill writes, “to Nicholas Thompson’s dual biogra- ment that the president stand for elec- bring the war to an end, to give phy, The Hawk and the Dove: Paul tion every four years, combined with peace to the world, to lay healing Nitze, George Kennan, and the His- a limit of two terms, imposed by the hands upon its tortured peoples by tory of the Cold War. Though nei- 22nd Amendment, which was ratifi ed a manifestation of overwhelming ther man ever served as a member in 1951. Modern presidential candi- power at the cost of a few explo- of the Cabinet—Nitze was primar- dates must also endure endless cam- sions, seemed, after all our toils and ily a behind-the-scenes Washing- paign appearances, grueling debates, perils, a miracle of deliverance.” ton player and Kennan a diplomat and press scrutiny, which provide am- Despite Churchill’s moral clarity and academic—they were, argu- ple opportunity to test—and reveal—a about the utility of this powerful ably, more important and more in- candidate’s health and stamina. new device, few experts would fl uential than most of the men they Lomazow and Fettmann record write with such certitude about advised, taught, and argued with. how FDR’s political opponents tried nuclear weapons in the decades to use the health issue against him that followed. For most of the Cold ENNAN and Nitze began to throughout his career. It was never War, a debate raged in Western se- work together after World the deciding factor for a majority curity circles, and especially within K War II, when they served on of voters. Taking that judgment out the United States, about a military the newly created Policy Planning of the competitive political process, tool that physicist Edward Teller Staff at the State Department. Ken- however messy, and putting it into described as “so terrible that no nan headed the offi ce, where Nitze the hands of a panel of unelected amount of protesting or fi ddling served as his deputy and eventual medical “experts” is the sort of elitist with politics will save our souls.” successor. Over time, they came idea that Roosevelt’s New Deal brain Once the United States real- to disagree about almost every trust might have fl oated early in the ized that the Soviet Union was strategic issue facing the United administration, when the president developing its own nuclear ca- States in the decades after the end was in relatively good health. It’s pabilities, questions arose with of the Cold War, including whether proof that there’s not necessarily any the United States should develop correlation between physical health Jamie M. Fly is executive direc- a hydrogen bomb in response to and wise policy. q tor of the Foreign Policy Initiative. the Soviet acquisition of nuclear

50 Politics & Ideas : January 2010 weapons, as well as the appropri- zer Prize. He was also frequently ate strategy for handling the Soviet Nitze saw called to testify in front of Con- threat. ¶ gress, including in February 1966, Kennan, at the time a foreign- his work when he argued against escalating service offi cer stationed in the So- as the logical the war in Vietnam. viet Union, had made his name in Nitze, in government during key 1946 because of his cogent analysis conclusion moments of the war throughout of the emerging postwar situation the Kennedy and Johnson admin- between the United States and of Kennan’s istrations, also had his concerns the USSR. His “Long Telegram,” a earlier work on about Vietnam, but he did not document he wrote in Moscow and express them forcefully until 1968, cabled back to the State Depart- containment. when he, then deputy secretary of ment in 1946, quickly shot around But his defense, wrote a letter to Lyndon Washington and served as the Johnson refusing to defend the basis of his landmark 1947 article, “biblical” tone administration’s war policy in front “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” in discussing a of Congress. He escaped dismissal In it, Kennan offered a solution to only because the new secretary the competition emerging between Soviet threat to of defense, Clark Clifford, needed the two postwar powers. Ken- the survival of him to run the department. In nan argued that Soviet ambitions July 1976, Nitze was one of seven could be dealt with by containing the republic and foreign- policy experts invited to the regime’s reach—and, thus con- to civilization brief Jimmy Carter on national- tained, the system would eventu- security issues. He had decided to ally collapse under its own weight. itself disgusted back Carter over his friend Henry Kennan would spend much of the Kennan. “Scoop” Jackson in the Democratic coming decades trying to refi ne his primary, but unlike most of those view of the policy he had dubbed in the room, he was not invited “containment” after it was used to what Thompson calls a “bibli- to join the Carter administration argue for a more militant U.S. strat- cal” tone to describe the Soviet when Carter won the White House. egy toward the Soviet Union than threat—it included sentences like Some accounts tie this to his views he claimed he had intended. “the issues that face us are momen- supposedly being inconsistent with Nitze, who had previously tous, involving the fulfi llment or Carter’s, but Thompson attributes worked as an American offi cial sur- destruction not only of this Repub- it not to Nitze’s hard-line positions veying the results of the U.S. bomb- lic but of civilization itself”—a tone but instead to his high-handed ing campaigns against Germany that caused Kennan to describe manner during the briefi ng. and Japan, was one of those who himself later as “disgusted about That set the stage for Nitze’s developed a more confrontational [NSC-68’s] assumptions concern- bold turn against the Carter admin- view of containment. His “Long ing Soviet intentions.” istration and its approach to the Telegram” moment came with the In the decades that followed, Soviet Union. Nitze co-founded the drafting of a classifi ed 1950 docu- Nitze held a string of positions Committee on the Present Danger, ment called NSC-68 arguing for in successive administrations—as- a bipartisan group of prominent an arms buildup to counter the sistant secretary of defense, Navy former government offi cials and Soviet threat, a plan that came to secretary, deputy defense secre- public intellectuals dedicated to dominate American military policy tary, arms-control negotiator, but educating the public about the for the next quarter century. Nitze a Cabinet position eluded him. danger posed by the Soviet Union. saw his work as the logical conclu- Kennan rejoined the government (For his part, Kennan formed the sion of Kennan’s earlier work on several times to serve in ambas- American Committee on East-West containment—he later described sadorial posts, but he struggled Accord, a rival group fi nanced in the document as having “more in these positions and was unable large part by U.S. businesses op- realistically set forth the require- to exert the kind of infl uence he erating in the Soviet Union, which ments necessary to assure [sic] had enjoyed in the late 1940s. He took as its slogan “U.S.-Soviet rela- success of George Kennan’s idea became a prolifi c writer, writing 17 tions should be put on a business- of containment.” But NSC-68 used books, two of which won the Pulit- like basis.”)

Commentary 51 The Committee on the Present Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initia- N A pivotal period during the Danger quickly turned its attention tive and became involved in several 1940s and 50s, Churchill, Ken- to the second iteration of the Stra- battles with its conservative sup- I nan, and Nitze all showed a tegic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT porters within the administration. moral clarity and sense of certainty II). President Carter had concluded Eventually, Kennan and Nitze de- about the nature of the threat faced the treaty with Leonid Brezhnev veloped remarkably similar world- by the West. These are traits that in June 1979 in an effort to limit views—which is to say, Nitze spent have been purged from today’s Dem- the manufacture of new nuclear the rest of his life moving away from ocratic party. Instead of Truman-era weapons and of the missile systems his association with hard-line poli- strategy sessions about the conse- used to deliver them. Its provisions cies. Kennan wrote Nitze a letter in quences of nuclear war, foreign- would effectively have enshrined 1999, when both men were in their policy salons in the age of Obama Soviet numerical superiority in 90s. Nitze had just published a New discuss climate change, the never- regard to nuclear warheads. York Times op-ed in which he had ending Middle East peace process, Nitze’s committee conducted an written, “I see no compelling reason and why America’s political system all-out offensive against the rati- why we should not unilaterally get supposedly makes it diffi cult for the fi cation of SALT II. Working with rid of nuclear weapons.” Wrote Ken- United States to work in partnership a contact at the CIA, Nitze made nan: “In the light of our longstand- with other nations. sure that senators became aware ing friendship and mutual respect, This is in part because accurately of the presence of a secret Soviet it is a source of deep satisfaction to assessing the threat, as Kennan and brigade in Cuba. That revelation, me to fi nd the two of us, at our ad- Nitze found in the years after World coupled with the Soviet invasion vanced ages, in complete accord on War II, is diffi cult and frightening. of Afghanistan in December 1979, questions that have meant so much Debating the comparative merits served as a double death blow, to us, even when we did not fully of environmental proposals is more forcing the Carter administration agree, in times gone by.” reassuring than confronting the to withdraw the treaty. Carter lost thorny problem of Islamofacism his re-election bid the next year to HOMPSON tells Kennan’s and rogue regimes that seek to pos- a member of the Committee on the and Nitze’s stories through sess (and perhaps to use) nuclear Present Danger, Ronald Reagan. T the use of their personal weapons. The Obama administra- As Thompson notes, the impact papers as well as previously un- tion thus far appears to be following of the Committee on the Pres- revealed Soviet material. He does in the footsteps of Nitze’s erstwhile ent Danger went well beyond the a remarkable job of bringing to foe Jimmy Carter, pursuing dis- debate over SALT II: “It provided light new insights into their lives armament at all costs to prevent one of the fi rst opportunities for and careers via this material. His a nuclear holocaust by states or Scoop Jackson Democrats to bond depiction of Nitze is well-rounded entities that don’t sign treaties or with Barry Goldwater Republicans, and well-developed, peppered with attend international summits. This helping to forge the coalition that intimate anecdotes. His Kennan, approach has been coupled with would shape American politics for however, is a distant, complicated President Obama’s constant efforts the next thirty years.” fi gure, ever mysterious. This may to improve the image of the United Nitze re-entered government as be in part because, as his obituary States in the world, in part by re- an arms-control negotiator for the in the New York Times noted, Ken- peatedly apologizing for his nation’s Reagan administration, at which nan was “often a gloomy, sensitive, supposed historical wrongs. point this old Democratic hawk and intensely serious man,” but it Confronting the current threats parted ways with the Republican- also most likely refl ects the fact facing the United States requires party consensus. He became a pas- that Thompson is Nitze’s grandson a dose of Churchill’s moral cer- sionate arms-control advocate, go- and therefore had more access tainty combined with Kennan’s ing so far as to exceed his guidance and certainly more in the way of and Nitze’s ability to assess the from Washington in an effort to personal knowledge to work with. challenges facing America and obtain a deal with the Soviets in Thompson’s attempt to provide a offer specifi c policy guidelines for what became a famous (and failed) Soviet perspective on the events improving the nation’s position. walk in the mountains outside Ge- discussed in the book by following If there are closet Kennans and neva with his Soviet counterpart a third person, Stalin’s daughter, Nitzes hiding in the Obama ad- in 1982. He developed many suspi- Svetlana Alliluyeva, is merely a ministration, the time for them to cions about the effi cacy of President distraction. reveal themselves has come. q

52 Politics & Ideas : January 2010 Master the Rules of Competitive Behavior Explore the World of Game Theory

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Philip Roth Comes to the End

The Humbling Then one morning, Natasha dis- world has been an animating force By Philip Roth covers that Andrei no longer wants in all his books. Whether such an- Houghton Miffl in, 160 pages, $22 to talk with her and seems even tagonism is shown in the antic, to prefer that she not visit him. In kvetching contempt of his youth- Reviewed by Sam Sacks fright she summons his pious sis- ful work or the philosophical, sea- ter Mary, and when Mary arrives, soned scorn of his mature tomes, OWARD the end of expecting to fi nd a weakened, com- the ongoing story of Philip Roth’s War and Peace, in one plaisant man, she is shocked to fi nd 30 novels has been one of renuncia- of the moments of im- in his greeting “something almost tion. We have seen one after another probable stagecraft like hostility.” Andrei has realized of his fi ctional alter egos renounce that Tolstoy contrives that he is going to die, and although parents, ancestry, the traditions Tso successfully throughout the nov- he is willing to submit to the cer- and expectations of a provincial el, Andrei is reunited with Natasha, emonies that attend death, he has upbringing, wives, lovers, children, once his intended. Andrei has been surrendered himself to, as Tolstoy Judaism, and most famously, every badly wounded in the Battle of puts it, “that aloofness to all things puritanical sexual taboo ever im- Borodino, but now that he has Na- earthly that is so fearful to a living posed on the American suburbs (ex- tasha to tend to him and his love for man.” He feels only antagonism for cept, of course, homosexuality, lest her is rekindled, we sense that their anyone who would try to keep him you get any ideas about the author). past mistakes have been providen- attached to life. In The Dying Animal (2001), the tially redeemed. A preoccupation with death has aging epicure David Kepesh is re- been at the forefront of Philip Roth’s minded of a line from Joseph Con- Sam Sacks, a new contributor, is books for some time now; but in rad: “He who forms a tie is lost”; to an editor of the online journal Open truth, something of Andrei’s cold Roth, he who severs a tie is heroic. Letters Monthly. hostility toward the things of the This theme has scarcely changed

54 January 2010 from his fi rst full-length novel, tell- In its stringent, predetermined to do with the stature of the man ingly titled Letting Go (1962), to construction (the book’s last page is who wrote them. 2008’s Indignation, in which the clearly telegraphed in the fi rst), The This straining for universality only character who momentarily Humbling is a pendant to Roth’s does similar harm to the book’s di- rises out of bleak circumstances slight 2004 novel Everyman, in alogue, once Roth’s long suit. There is a mother who threatens to di- which a nameless protagonist is is no attempt to differentiate, much vorce her husband rather than care tormented by the specter of a death less evoke, the characters by their for him as he succumbs to mad- without illumination and then, in- voices. Their utterances instead ness and senility. It is the sign of a deed, dies alone and unenlight- have an awkward grandiosity that “strong woman.” The more ruthless ened. Yet what most unites these calls to mind academic translations the rupture, the braver the act. books, as well as the two interven- of Greek choruses: “I had lived for It’s natural, then, that Simon ing novels—Exit Ghost (2006) and so long in the constraints of cau- Axler, the beleaguered hero of Indignation (2008), both of which tion” or “It’s we who endow her Roth’s latest book, The Humbling, are longer but only because they’re with the power to wreck.” When Pe- should come to view suicide as an- padded by vast tracts of stem-wind- geen leaves Axler, he shouts, “You other feat of strength. Axler fi nds ing oratory—is not a passionate vi- cannot nullify everything!” This is, the impetus to perform “this most sion of mortality but the hostile to put it mildly, not the way any hu- extraordinary act” in the example of aloofness of a writer who has be- man being speaks. a housewife who has murdered her come supremely indifferent to the Roth has previously demon- abusive husband, and so become for world. Each book suffers from the strated that he knows how the him “the benchmark of courage.” In diminishing yield of a lifetime of nightmares of death and loss can The Humbling, it’s no longer the so- renunciations. be embedded in recognizable quo- cial and psychological trappings of The surest sign of this diminu- tidian realities. In his shattering life that one must unfl inchingly cast tion is a new and dismaying de- Patrimony, the 1991 memoir about away, but life itself. pendence on platitudes. These late his 86-year-old father’s doomed Axler, a renowned stage actor in books use them almost as mottoes. struggle with a brain tumor, Roth his mid-60s, discovers that he can “Just take it as it comes,” the ag- gave us the wonderful phrase “do- no longer perform. His abrupt ero- grieved main character repeated- mesticating the terror.” Just hours sion of confi dence leads to a ner- ly tells himself in Everyman. “You after learning the details of a 10- vous breakdown, and his spoiled do what you have to do” is Marcus hour surgical procedure that would wife leaves him. After a stint in an Messner’s refrain in Indignation. entail drilling through his skull institution, some hope returns to The clichés are even more prolifi c and lifting his brain, Roth’s father Axler’s life when he begins a rela- in The Humbling, which begins, picks a fi ght with his girlfriend Lil tionship with a 40-year-old wom- “He’d lost his magic. The impulse about the correct way to prepare an named Pegeen. Pegeen is a les- was spent.” Later, Axler tells him- soup. You feel in the absurdly petty bian (knowing not the pleasures self, “I’ll always be unlike anyone spat all of this man’s fear and frus- of the penis but of its “grotesque else because I am who I am.” Still tration, his debility and his stub- inversion,” as Roth puts it in a one- later, Axler remarks, “You can get born defi ance: for-old-times burst of political in- very good at getting by on what you correctness), and Axler sets about get by on when you don’t have any- After setting our three plac- molding this tomboy Galatea into thing else,” then concludes, “the es at the table, he returned to his ideal of feminine beauty. His momentum of a life is the momen- the kitchenette and stood next hopes for Pegeen become increas- tum of a life.” to [Lil] over the saucepan. She ingly irrational and culminate in Had Roth encountered tautol- kept insisting the soup wasn’t an almost hallucinatory episode in ogies such as these when he led hot yet and he kept insisting which Axler decides he wants chil- writing workshops in the 1960s, it had to be—it didn’t take all dren in spite of his age (and Pegeen’s he would have savagely proscribed day to heat up a can of vegeta- age, although that even greater ob- them, but here they’re infl ated ble soup. This exchange was re- stacle is never mentioned). At this with a sham profundity that has peated four times, until his pa- point, Pegeen decides she’s made a nothing to do with their meanings tience—if that is the word—ran mistake and leaves him. Embold- (like the current blogosphere bro- out and he pulled the pot off the ened by the avenging housewife, mide “it is what it is,” they mean burner and, leaving Lil empty- Axler kills himself. literally nothing) and everything handed at the stove, came into

Commentary 55 the dining room and poured was not soft porn,” we are use- And so the poignant frequency the soup into the bowls and fully informed), he makes himself with which Roth invokes immor- onto the place mats and over irrelevant to Pegeen, and therefore tal writers, especially Shakespeare. the table. disposable. Here at least, in the When George Bernard Shaw was realpolitik of screwing, there are 93, he wrote a cheeky little pup- There is nothing remotely com- vestiges of narrative complexity, pet play called Shakes Versus Shav, parable to the power of this scene never mind that the stimulus for it and the same earnest association in The Humbling, because Simon seems to have been purely prurient. is intended in the gravedigger Axler’s trials are expressed only in Yet on the whole, The Hum- scene of Everyman, the title of Exit generalities; the actor who can no bling, like the three books before Ghost, and the many haphazard al- longer act exists principally as a it, is so thin and tendentious that lusions to Lear and Prospero in The metaphor. When Roth is obliged it seems a wonder Roth bothered Humbling. to account for the actual world, as to write it. There could have been The comparison is legitimate here when Pegeen prepares dinner, precious little discovery in the la- in one sense, because Shakespeare he can’t rouse himself to do more bor. But of course there is one more had a late style, too. We see it most than list ingredients: thing that Roth has never repudiat- clearly in plays such as Cymbeline ed, and that is the work of writing. and The Winter’s Tale, in which the There was a chunk of Parmesan Here is the paradox of these late plot arcs seem artifi cially rigged cheese in the refrigerator, there works. So long as his faculties allow and the characters one-dimension- were eggs, there was some ba- him to perform, Roth must write; al. John Updike, no stranger to late con, there was a half a contain- but having detached himself from style, wrote that a “silvery chill er of cream, and with that and a everything that might constrict blows through these romances”; pound of pasta she made them his freedom to work, he has almost and surely their designation as spaghetti carbonara. nothing left to write about. “tragicomedies” is more a tell- He is, like the allegorical fi g- tale of Shakespeare’s ambivalence It’s only in his trademarked sex ures of these last books, a man than a meaningful category. Ex- scenes that Roth emerges from alone with himself and his mortal- cept in the poetry, which remained such listlessness, and there’s a cer- ity. When Andrei forsakes Natasha exquisite to the end, these are al- tain embarrassing transparency in in War and Peace, he is guid- most thoughtlessly conventional the hearty energy the book sud- ed by the belief that “death is an dramas. denly acquires when Pegeen hauls awakening”—a belief Roth does The same drifting and fl atten- out her bag of sex toys (although not entertain, of course. For Jews, ing is evident in the late works of the insidious reliance on clichés alternately, the consolation of im- Philip Roth. The nimbly engrossing is still apparent, as we learn that mortality is found in family, in per- fugues of satire, tragedy, autobiog- Pegeen “carried things to the lim- petuation, but this, too, Roth has raphy, and fantasy in The Counter- it”). A green rubber phallus is de- forsworn (Simon Axler’s manic de- life (1986) and Operation Shylock scribed with more zeal and em- sire to propagate is for Roth a sign (1993) are scaled back to a few bellishment than are any of the of his frailty and desperation). The simple, generically orotund notes, people. Sex is what Roth’s charac- sole remaining means of outma- and there are certainly no more of ters have never renounced; their neuvering death, then, is through the virtuoso leaps of imagination terror is that it will renounce them, the magic of prophecy—through found in his most widely loved nov- at which point they can take ref- canonization. And in these formu- el, 1997’s American Pastoral. The uge in the imagination (much of laic winter tales, we can sense a only real presence in these grim, Exit Ghost is an impotent Nathan writer with an anxious eye on his portentous books is Roth himself, Zuckerman’s fantasized fl irtation own legacy. old and ceaselessly self-regarding— with a young woman) or, like the Hence his animus for critics and an important writer attempting to nameless protagonist of Every- literary biographers (the villain of cap his career by the harsh and con- man, quietly die. The libido is life’s Exit Ghost is one such biographer, fi ning terms he has set throughout fuel gauge. In The Humbling, more- and it’s Roth’s preemptive strike his life. The intellectual interest in over, sex is the subtle battleground on the ambitious tyros who will no a book like The Humbling comes where Axler hopes to assert control doubt begin grubbing through his from observing Roth’s attempts to over Pegeen. When he invites an- letters and journals in search of this end. And the pathos springs other woman to join them (“This juicy scandal the second he dies). from the feebleness of his effort. q

56 Culture & Civilization : January 2010 ous historical excursions that place Monk’s life in the larger context of Was Thelonious American history in general and black history in particular, most of which could have been shortened Monk’s Music Crazy? to useful effect. But when he ad- dresses the problem of Monk’s san- ity, he does so in a way that sheds Tough-minded, be one of the greatest artists in the light on whether one of the most diffi cult, unpopu- music’s history, and his best-known important jazz musicians of the tunes, most notably “’Round Mid- 20th century suffered from a major lar, yes; the work night” and “Straight, No Chaser,” mental illness. of a madman, no are played the world over.* On the other hand, Monk’s de- ORN in North Carolina in By Terry Teachout liberately awkward-sounding pia- 1917, Monk moved with his nism has never been as popular as B family fi ve years later to New N 1964 a pianist with the un- his compositions, and in the 40s York City. He studied piano briefl y usual name of Thelonious and 50s, it was actively controver- as a boy, then spent two years play- Monk appeared on the cover sial, not merely among jazz afi cio- ing gospel piano for an itinerant of Time. He was only the nados but also among his fellow evangelist, after which he returned fourth jazz musician to be so pianists. Oscar Peterson, for one, to New York and set up shop as a Ifeatured, and unlike his predeces- dismissed him as “limited techni- jazz musician. By 1941 he was work- sors, Louis Armstrong, Dave Bru- cally.” Moreover, his bizarre behav- ing at Minton’s Playhouse, a Har- beck, and Duke Ellington, he was ior, fascinating though it was to lem club where a group of younger unknown to the public at large. Time’s editors, surely had much to players were experimenting with Why, then, was he put on the cover do with the reluctance of some lis- a new style of jazz that came to be of a newsmagazine written for a teners to take his music seriously. known as bebop. He made his fi rst mass audience of middlebrows? Was Thelonious Monk mentally recordings as a leader in 1947, and Because he was an eccentric whose ill—and if he was, is that fact rel- between then and 1954 he recorded peculiarities made for good copy— evant to our understanding of his most of the compositions for which a “mad genius,” in Time’s words, music? A primary-source biogra- he is known today. who suffered from “periods of phy that seeks to answer the fi rst of Despite their common prov- acute disconnection in which he these questions has now been pub- enance, these pieces had little in falls totally mute.” lished. Robin D.G. Kelley’s Theloni- common with the bebop of the That Monk deserved attention ous Monk: The Life and Times of an 40s. Unlike the simple riff-based for other, better reasons is now be- American Original † is one of the “tunes” of the swing era or the vir- yond question. The sharp-edged, longest biographies of a jazz musi- tuoso obstacle courses of such be- excitingly astringent wit of his hard- cian ever to see print. Scrupulously boppers as Gillespie and Charlie swinging compositions, which bore sourced (the endnotes run to 99 Parker, Monk’s compositions are la- such gnomic titles as “I Mean You,” pages of agate-sized type) and writ- conic, painstakingly wrought min- “Off Minor,” and “Well, You Needn’t,” ten with the cooperation of Monk’s iatures whose splintery dissonanc- had already won him the acclaim of family, it is the fi rst factually ac- es and oddly tilted rhythms are musicians and critics, who rightly curate account of the pianist’s life, often strongly reminiscent of 20th- regarded him as a key fi gure in the one for which scholars will long be century classical music (though he development of modern jazz. To- grateful. does not appear to have been infl u- day he is universally considered to Alas, like most very long biog- enced by, or even closely aware of, raphies, Thelonious Monk is en- Terry Teachout, Commen- crusted with unselective detail that * Monk’s key recordings are included tary’s in Monk’s Moods (Proper, four CDs), an chief culture critic and contributes little to the reader’s un- imported box set available from Amazon the drama critic of the Wall Street derstanding of its subject. Not only that contains his fi rst recorded perfor- Journal, is the author of Pops: A Life does Kelley have next to nothing of mances of all of the compositions men- tioned in this essay. of Louis Armstrong. He blogs about interest to say about Monk’s music, the arts at www.terryteachout.com. but his book also contains numer- † Free Press, 588 pages, $30

Commentary 57 exclusive opportunity for any modern classical composers). periods, Monk is so exhausted Just as distinctive was Monk’s that he is likely to sleep straight readers to acquire approach to the piano. He played through three days. #2 with stiff, fl attened-out fi ngers, hammering the keyboard as if it From then on, most of the stories the art of were a set of tuned drums and only published about Monk made men- rarely employing the sustaining tion of his strange behavior. Monk pedal. Not only is this style aggres- himself insisted that his personal sively percussive, but Monk’s un- eccentricities were as purposeful orthodox fi ngering made it diffi cult as his playing. “Sometimes it’s to for him to execute scale-based solo your advantage for people to think passages with the smooth dexter- you’re crazy,” he told an interview. ity of a swing-era jazz pianist like But after his death in 1982, those Art Tatum or Teddy Wilson. This who knew him best described his seeming clumsiness was, however, conduct in terms indicating that it a conscious choice on his part, for amounted to more than mere ec- live recordings made at Minton’s in centricity. Thelonious Monk Jr., his 1941 prove that he had once played son, spoke of the pianist’s cycles of in a conventionally fl uent manner. “depression and euphoria,” recall- His mature style, as rehearsal tapes ing times when “you look your fa- reveal, was carefully worked out, ther in the eye and you know that he just as his compositions were no doesn’t exactly know who you are.” less carefully notated. In Thelonious Monk, Kelley dis- All this points to why it took so closes that from 1957 on, Monk long for Monk to win wider accep- underwent numerous periods of tance as an artist. Unlike Dizzy Gil- incarceration in psychiatric hos- lespie, a natural-born entertainer pitals. Psychiatry was a decidedly who went out of his way to make inexact science in the 50s and 60s, his musical innovations palatable and it was not uncommon for black Moses Receiving the Law to a popular audience, Monk was a men who, like Monk, had experi- Lithograph, edition of 300, mid-century modernist par excel- enced hostile encounters with the numbered and signed by hand 26” x 18” $850 lence, unafraid to be diffi cult and police to be institutionalized. But certain that the world would some- mental illness ran in Monk’s fam- day catch up with him. “My time for ily—his father spent the last part of The entire selection fame will come,” he told an inter- his life in an asylum—and while the of lithographs viewer in 1948. And so it did—but stresses of his personal and profes- not in the way that he expected. sional life must have contributed to and posters is available his idiosyncrasies, it also appears for viewing at S EARLY as 1948, a re- that he may have suffered from www.commentarymagazine.com/ porter for PM, working an organic mental disorder whose shalomsafed A from a press release writ- symptoms were exacerbated by his ten by the wife of Monk’s record abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs. #2 producer, called him “erratic” and In 1959, Monk began to see a To order, please call “uncommunicative,” suggesting he quack psychiatrist who put him was already experiencing the mood on Thorazine, a powerful tranquil- (212)891-6734 swings from which he suffered for izer used in the treatment of psy- the rest of his life: chosis, accompanied by “vitamin Mastercard, American Express, shots” that also contained amphet- and Visa are welcome. Monk seldom sleeps more amines. The combination was a #2 than fi ve hours a day and has dangerous one, and thereafter his occasionally gone as long as behavior grew increasingly and at Please note that all works are sold three days without any sleep at times alarmingly erratic. In 1973 he unframed. Orders are sent via Fedex 2-day service. A charge of $24.95 will be all. . . . At the end of one of these lapsed into a protracted depression added for shipping and handling to addresses in the Continental United States. For58 delivery elsewhere, please inquire. Culture & Civilization : January 2010 and sharply curtailed his public ap- music, a utilitarian, song-based idi- pearances, playing his last concert Monk’s om to which ordinary people could in 1976, fi ve years before his death. ¶ dance if they felt like it. But by the image was 60s, it had evolved into a challeng- O DOES Monk’s mental insta- as off-putting ing concert music whose complexi- bility somehow “explain” his to the average ties repelled many of the same S music? Not for the most part. youngsters who were now listening It is true that he composed far less layman as his to rock, and Monk was one of the after 1957 and that his playing ulti- musicians chiefl y responsible for mately grew repetitive to the point music. Like that change. of tiresomeness, in part because of Robert Lowell It is here, I suspect, that Theloni- his deteriorating mental condition ous Monk’s long-lasting reputation but also because he chose to play and Jackson as a “mad genius” is most relevant his best-known tunes over and over Pollock, his today. His public image, like that of again instead of expanding his rep- such other prominent beboppers ertoire. By that time, though, his self-destructive as Charlie Parker and Bud Powell— major phase as an artist was long both of whom, like Monk, also spent over, and his reputation would now behaviors were time in mental institutions—was as be essentially no different had he bound up with off-putting to the average layman died years earlier. as his music. In this respect, he was That reputation, while solidly the general no less a high modernist than Rob- based, is also easy to misconstrue. perception of ert Lowell, Jackson Pollock, or any In 2006, for instance, Monk was of the other artists whose self-de- awarded a special Pulitzer Prize modern art. structive behavior and widely pub- for having produced “a body of dis- licized struggles with mental illness tinguished and innovative musical songs he played rather than on were to become intimately bound composition that has had a signifi - their underlying chord progres- up with the general perception of cant and enduring impact on the sions. “Play the melody!” he told modern art. evolution of jazz.” This citation ig- one of his musicians in 1960. “Pat For my part, I treasure Monk’s nores the fact that his main body of your foot and sing the melody in tough-minded, unabashedly un- written work consists of around two your head, or play off the rhythm popular artistry, both as a composer dozen melodies composed between of the melody, never mind the so- and as a pianist, in much the same 1941 and 1957, scarcely more than called chord changes.” way that I respond to Pollock’s ab- half of which have ever been played Yet Monk’s old-fashioned at- stract-expressionist paintings. But with any regularity by other musi- titude toward melody (which is I also know that something im- cians. Compared with Duke Elling- especially evident in such unsen- portant and irreplaceable was lost ton, who produced some 1,500-odd timental yet poignant ballads as when the serious yet accessible pieces ranging in scope from popu- “Ask Me Now” and “Monk’s Mood”) music of Armstrong and his fellow lar songs to large-scale multi-move- did not make his music any more musician-entertainers was trans- ment instrumental works, Monk accessible to lay listeners. Once the planted from the dance fl oor to can scarcely be considered a “com- réclame arising from his appear- the concert hall, there to become poser” at all. ance in Time wore off, he became a species of high art. And while I Like most jazz musicians who once again what he had always think it unlikely that Monk’s men- write their own material, Monk is been, an unabashedly diffi cult tal problems did anything to shape better understood as an improvis- modernist. He shared that attitude the music that he wrote in his peak ing musician than as a composer— with many other members of his years, I have no doubt that they but one whose best performances generation of jazz musicians, who made it harder for him to bridge the have a structural unity that is com- saw themselves as artists rather gap between artist and audience—a positional in its total effect. The than entertainers, and whose at- gap that had already been widened reason for this unity is that Monk, titude would come to be generally by the coming of modernism, and harking back to such older jazzmen embraced by succeeding genera- whose continuing existence is argu- as Louis Armstrong, preferred to tions of jazzmen. Well into the 50s, ably the greatest problem facing the improvise on the melodies of the jazz had been a genuinely popular jazz musicians of today. q

Commentary 59 ness’s fi rst public-relations maestro, inventing gimmick after gimmick When a Producer to keep his Follies and stars in the headlines. As part of his plan to turn Held, a French singer with an Was a Star hourglass fi gure and dainty feet, into a Broadway star, he put out the word that she bathed every Zieg feld: The Man Who ing a bet, and seducing a starlet— morning in 40 gallons of milk. It Invented Show Business usually at the same time—you’re wasn’t true; the idea was lifted By Ethan Mordden thinking of him. Ziegfeld worked, from The Decline and Fall of the St. Martin’s Press, 352 pages, $32.95 in fact, three phones (gold-plated), Roman Empire by a hack Broad- sent telegrams to assistants sitting way writer (with a decent library) Reviewed by Michael Riedel in the next room, puffed Havanas, who freelanced for Ziegfeld. But and lost several fortunes in Monte the newspapers ran the story for a HE names that fi rst lit Carlo. As for the starlets, his wom- week. And when it was revealed to up Broadway—Klaw, anizing wrecked his fi rst marriage, be a hoax, the papers ran the story Erlanger, Frohman, Be- to the singer Anna Held, and put of the hoax for another week. But lasco—have dimmed. tremendous strain on his second, Ziegfeld’s legacy isn’t only glamour, They belonged to pow- to Billie Burke (whose claim to gimmicks, and girls. Near the end Terful men who, in the early 20th fame would come after her hus- of his life, in 1927, he produced century, produced all the shows and band’s death, as Glinda the Good Show Boat, perhaps the fi rst great owned all the theaters in New York Witch in The Wizard of Oz). Broadway musical and one of the and across the country. They’re re- Along the way, Ziegfeld also fi rst to touch on serious themes. membered today mainly by showbiz became, as Ethan Mordden argues buffs with large collections of Play- in his lively new biography, “the HIS aggressive and inven- bills and original cast recordings. man who invented show business.” tive showman was born The Shuberts do live on, though not Ziegfeld’s famous “Follies” refi ned, T in 1867 in Chicago. Unlike as the brothers Sam, Lee, and J.J. and in some cases introduced, most of the men who dominated who built the theatrical empire. what would become staples of Broadway, he was not Jewish. He “The Shuberts” today is shorthand popular entertainment. The an- was baptized a Catholic, although for the Shubert Organization, an en- tic, topical quality of a Saturday he must have been lapsed from the tity with 20 theaters under its con- Night Live sketch has its roots in cradle. His father, a German immi- trol that functions primarily as countless “Follies” bits featuring grant and classical musician, was Broadway’s largest landlord. It is the supremely antic Eddie Cantor. the president of the Chicago Musi- powerful but colorless. Paris Hilton, pretty but with no cal College. Ziegfeld learned to play There is one name from Broad- discernible talent other than keep- the piano, but Bach, Beethoven, way’s early days, however, that still ing herself in the spotlight, could, and Brahms weren’t for him. His has currency, and that is Ziegfeld. with a few more curves, have been a hero was Buffalo Bill, whose “Wild “Ziegfeld” conjures up entertainment Ziegfeld girl. Jon Stewart riffi ng on West Show” came through Chicago on a lavish scale—spectacular sets, today’s headlines is nothing more several times during the 1880s. The hundreds of costumes, a 100-piece or- than an heir to Ziegfeld’s greatest story goes that young Ziegfeld ran chestra, and row after row of chorus fi nd, Will Rogers. off with the show and became a girls, scantily but tastefully clad. As Mordden writes: “In speed of sharpshooter. Mordden, a diligent Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. was the most delivery, democratic ethnic diver- researcher, fi nds no evidence for famous producer of his era, and sity, unrivaled array of star talent, that. But it is certainly true that the if the word producer makes you and its strange combination of the showbiz bug bit Ziegfeld while he think of a dapper man in a sharp oldest show-biz tropes with the was in thrall to Annie Oakley and suit working the phones, fi ring off latest gizmos and shtick, the ‘Fol- Sitting Bull. telegrams, chomping a cigar, plac- lies’ inspired so much imitation The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 through our entertainment that it gave him his fi rst shot at producing. Michael Riedel is the theater never really closed.” His father ran a cabaret near the fair columnist for the New York Post. Ziegfeld was also show busi- that offered light classical music. It

60 Culture & Civilization : January 2010 was failing, and Ziegfeld thought above all else. “Let the acts and the JULY/AUGUST 20092009 the place needed a fl amboyant at- stunts and the features follow one traction. So he went to New York another as swiftly as the cars of a DAVID BILLET and found Eugen Sandow, a strong- train,” he once said. man working in vaudeville. Ziegfeld The Follies made Ziegfeld im- THE took him to Chicago, and when Mrs. mensely rich, but he gambled much WAR ON PHILANTHROPY

Potter Palmer and Mrs. George Pull- of the money away, and when μ A MARKET FAILURE? JOHN H. MAKIN THE man, the Queen Bees of the Windy the stock market crashed, he was DEMOCRACYDEM OCRACY ABABANDONEDA DECEMBER 2009 JOSHUA MURAVCHIK HIPSTER A CRITIC TAKETAKESS A BOW CURSE City, came up on stage to squeeze his wiped out. He died in 1932, at age TERRY TEACHOUT

$5.95 US : $7.00 CANADA JOSEPH EPSTEIN : MIDGE DECTER FREDERIC RAPHAEL : STEPHEN HUNTER muscles, Sandow the Sex Symbol 65, and the era of the star produc- STEVEN GOLDMAN ELLIOT JAGER : CHRISTINE JAMIE M. FLY : DAVID P. GOLDMAN ROSEN JOSIAH BUNTING III : HANNAH THE BROWN THE and Ziegfeld the Impresario were er was over. Ziegfeld engineered THE TURN AGAINST ISRAEL ILLEGAL THED.G. MYERS MISSILE JOHN PODHORETZ SETTLEMENTS DEFENSE MYTH BETRAYAL born. that, too. He created so many star DAVID M. PHILLIPS qKEJDA GJERMANI HIGHER 35 ‘DICTATORSHIPS Ziegfeld brought Sandow back to performers—Cantor, Rogers, Fan- IMMIGRATION, AND DOUBLE LOWER CRIME YEAR STANDARDS’ REDUX DANIEL GRISWOLD ILAN WURMAN New York and quickly established ny Brice, and dozens more—that, in WE’RE WAR THROUGH NUMBER ON THE A DANCE, TWO? DARKLY himself as an up-and-coming man- the end, they eclipsed him. At the THOMAS W. MARK HAZLETT CARTHURI HERMANA STEYN ager. At the time, Broadway was same time, the Broadway theater MAY 2009 OUR READERS RESPOND TO controlled by the Syndicate, a group was changing, with spectacle los- ‘WHY ARE JEWS LIBERALS?’ $5.95 US : $7.00 CANADA of producers led by Abe Erlanger. ing ground to more serious work. A Story by Karl Taro Greenfeld : Christine Rosen on Desecrating Jane Austen David Wolpe on Hasidic Girls : Peter Lopatin on Sin : Terry Teachout on Preston Sturges : Ruth Wisse on ‘A Serious Man’ : Peter Savodnik on Trotsky Performers or managers who defi ed When Eugene O’Neill wrote a new Algis Valiunas on Peter Matthiessen : John Podhoretz on False Certainty ISRAELJOHN R.

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC the Syndicate couldn’t get a theater play, nobody paid much attention A Commentary Bolton Special Report MICHAEL B. in New York or anywhere else (Sar- to the name of his producer. Zieg- CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC Oren AT NORMAN Podhoretz ah Bernhardt, deemed the greatest feld may have produced Show Boat, MARK Steyn actress of the age, ran afoul of the but when the score is that good, RISK JONATHAN S. CCCCCCCCCCCCC Tobin

Syndicate and wound up playing the name of its composer, Jerome I.F. Stone, Soviet Agent—Case Closed J OHN EARL HAYNES, HARVEY KLEHR, ALEXANDER VASSILIEV The Infl ation Temptation Liberal Hawks, RIP circus tents across the country). Kern, came to mean more than the JOHN STEELE GORDON A BE GREENWALD New York on the Precipice Golnick’s Fortune F RED SIEGEL A STORY BY ADAM LANGER When war broke out between name of the man above the title. Elliott Abrams on Iran : Christopher Caldwell on Jonathan Littell : David Frum on the iPod Terry Teachout on Alec Guinness : Algis Valiunas on ‘Edgar Sawtelle’ JAMES KIRCHICK : JEFF JACOBY : D.G. MYERS : GEORGE B. GOODMAN : JOHN PODHORETZ the Syndicate and the Shuberts Today, producers are not famous —a delicious battle that captivated at all, just a bunch of rich people the gossip columnists and is viv- whose names come in a clump idly recounted by Mordden—Zieg- above the title, sometimes as many Do you love feld was forced to choose sides. He as 30 per show. The movie stu- picked the Syndicate, earning the dios Disney and DreamWorks are ? wrath of the Shuberts for the rest brands that specialize in putting of his life. Erlanger then asked him animated movies on stage, seldom Become an online to come up with a little show to fi ll with the fl air Ziegfeld brought to the roof garden of one of the Syndi- his Follies. The last producer whose subscriber for cate theaters during the summer. name meant anything to the public as little as $19.95 The show, a smart revue featuring was David Merrick, whose string of sketches, songs, comics, and girls, hits included Hello, Dolly!, Prom- a year. was called The Follies of 1907. ises, Promises, and 42nd Street. He commmentarymagaazine.ccom/ The franchise was born, and died in 2000 and is rarely spoken subscribemaap.cfm each new edition became more of today. and more popular and extravagant. Still, one has the sense that Zieg- As an online subscriber, Mordden, who has written several feld’s name will endure. “The man you will receive books on the history of Broadway, got so big in a big culture that he 24 FREE articles from does an excellent job of conveying was able to tell Americans what COMMENTARY’s digital what it must have been like to ex- was entertaining and they agreed,” archive dating back perience a Follies. It was eye-pop- Mordden writes. “He democratized to 1945 — that’s six ping, of course—in one edition, the the musical, the theater, Ameri- decades of great writing entire U.S. Navy was portrayed by can life, and we enjoy that action from great thinkers. chorus girls with battle ships on today.” Mordden exaggerates—but their heads—and it moved at light- when dealing with Ziegfeld, how ning pace. Ziegfeld valued speed could he not? q

Commentary CONTENTIONS. Shaken Seltzer

IT’S COMMENTARY. 36 Arguments for the evitability, and its ethical necessity. DAILY. HOURLY. Existence of God Not to be outdone, however, By Rebecca Newberger come the New Atheists, fi erce con- MINUTE BY MINUTE. Goldstein scientious objectors to what they Pantheon Books, 416 pages, $27.95 regard as the hollow temptations of religion. These acolytes of pure Reviewed by Peter Lopatin reason assert, as against their re- ligious counterparts (and with no BELIEVER: “How is it possible less self-assurance), the manifest to live coherently, leading lives irrationality of religious faith, its that are worthy of us, without logical incoherence, and its ethi- faith in a transcendent purpose cal superfl uousness. and meaning and dignity?” This is all a terribly dishearten- ing spectacle for the beleaguered ATHEIST: “If we already know agnostic, moved as he is by the that we’re worthy of having a felt need for the transcendent yet transcendent purpose coming unable to yield fully to the allure JoinJoin to us . . . the transcendent of faith or to any of the particular purpose would be redundant. creeds of the conventionally reli- half a million And if we don’t know that we’re gious, aware as he is of the power readers all over worthy unless we acquire that of science to explain the hitherto transcendent purpose, then mysterious, and struck as he is by the world every who says we have a transcen- the discordant irony in the fact month who are dent purpose coming to us in that the atheists share with their the fi rst place?” theist adversaries what is, to the in the know. agnostic, a strangely apodictic ND SO IT GOES. certainty concerning that matter Jennifer Rubin Arguments on the about which certainty is surely not Peter Wehner subject of religious possible. faith come various- Rebecca Newberger Goldstein Abe Greenwald ly and abundantly enters this fray armed with a so- Max Boot theseA days, from theist and atheist phisticated grasp of philosophy John Podhoretz alike. From the former, they range (Ph.D., Princeton, 1977) and reli- from the oracular hectoring of gion (raised in an Orthodox fam- Jonathan S. Tobin slick televangelists concerning the ily, she is the author of a short John Steele Gordon rewards that await the believer— biography of Spinoza). In previous Francis Cianfrocca both in this life and the next—to works of fi ction, (The Mind-Body the carefully wrought arguments Problem, Mazel, Properties of Light, David Hazony of the more intellectually rigorous among others) she has examined Rick Richman Christian and Jewish clergy as they the rich territory that lies at the Michael J. Totten confi dently and earnestly assert the intersection of fact and intimation, rationality of faith, its cognitive in- thought and passion. In her latest, Linda Chavez 36 Arguments for the Existence Noah Pollak Peter Lopatin teaches at the of God, she explores the confl ict James Kirchick University of Connecticut at Stam- between faith and reason, and ford. His story “Nathan at the the result of that engagement is a Speed of Light” appeared in our captivating, original, and at times October 2009 issue. riotously funny novel. www.commentarymagazine.com Culture & Civilization : January 2010 S THE novel begins, we the circumstances of his own life fi nd Cass Seltzer, a psy- Seltzer’s may be, there is more to the ex- A chologist of religion and ¶ pansiveness that he feels than a one of the brightest stars in the atheism mere wish to say “thank you” to atheist fi rmament, standing on is haunted the heavens. The content of that Weeks Bridge in Cambridge, Mas- further something is what Gold- sachusetts, at 4 a.m., looking into by specters— stein exquisitely adumbrates in the the frozen Charles River, saying novel. The 36 arguments Seltzer be- aloud “Here I am” as he marvels at intellectual, lieves he has refuted so decisively the strangeness that is the very fact romantic, and include the traditional ones pro- of his own personal individuation. posed and debated by philosophers (Though the parallel is not noted metaphysical— for centuries, as well as more con- in the book, Goldstein knows full as he attempts temporary arguments such as the well that “Here I am” [hineni] is the Argument from the Hard Problem same phrase spoken by Abraham to to tamp down of Consciousness, the Argument God when called to the sacrifi ce of the insistent from Mathematical Reality, and the Isaac.) Goldstein, as narrator, then Argument from Pragmatism. Yet asks the question at the heart of upwellings even here he is being theologically this mystery: “How can it be that, within him of teased, in this case by his author. of all things, one is this thing, so Goldstein’s choice of the number that one can say, astonishingly—in what can only be 36 is pregnant with meaning, since the right frame of mind, it is aston- called “spirit.” Jewish mystic tradition has it that ishing, with the metaphysical chill at any given time, the world is blowing in from afar—‘here I am’?” home to 36 holy men who are hid- How can it be that the author dess of Game Theory and creator den from view. of a surprise bestseller called The of the Mandelbaum Equilibrium. Throughout the book, Seltzer’s Varieties of Religious Illusion, in And in light of his bountiful good atheism is haunted by specters— which Seltzer has masterfully de- fortune, he cannot help but feel per- intellectual, romantic, and meta- bunked all the standard proofs of sonally grateful to the universe, to physical—and his efforts to tamp the existence of God—36 of them, such an extent that he fi nds it hard down the insistent upwellings which Goldstein reproduces as an to resist “the shameful narcissistic within him of what can only be appendix—fi nds himself still in appeal” of a few of the 36 arguments characterized as “spirit” take place thrall to such metaphysical ho- for the existence of God he describes against the background of a per- kum? How to explain the persistent and then refutes in his bestseller: sonal and intellectual life and his- tropism that inclines Seltzer to tory that seem almost to have been bend in the direction of the tran- At moments like this, could fashioned for the very purpose of scendent, placing him uncomfort- Cass altogether withstand the thwarting those efforts. The novel’s ably at odds with his newfound sta- sense that—hard to put it into plotline traverses Seltzer’s journey tus as “America’s favorite atheist”? words—the sense that the uni- as he wrestles with his multifarious The answer, in part—but only in verse is personal, that . . . the yearnings over a 20-year period. part—to this question is that Seltzer personal universe has been per- Looming over Seltzer—fi rst as has been blessed (though blessed is sonally kind to him, gracious an overwhelming intellectual pres- not a word he would be caught us- and forgiving, to Cass Selt- ence, then as a haunting memory— ing) with professional success and zer, gratuitously, exorbitantly, is the personage of Jonas Elijah distinction (Harvard is luring him divinely kind, and this despite Klapper, an English professor un- away from the lesser Frankfurter Cass’s having, with callowness der whose sway Seltzer had fallen University), public acclaim, and the and shallowness aforethought, while an undergrad at Colum- promise—if not ultimately the actu- thrown spitballs at the whole bia, after enrolling in Klapper’s ality—of secure romantic bliss with idea of cosmic intentionality? course “The Manic, The Mantic, the beautiful and brilliant Lucinda The Mimetic.” (Goldstein’s ear for Mandelbaum. She is a fellow psy- Yet Seltzer’s gratitude to the uni- academic fustian is unerring and chologist of a more scientifi c bent verse is tempered by his knowledge unsparing.) Abandoning his goal of than Seltzer, renowned as the God- that however salutary and benign attending medical school, Seltzer

Commentary 63 chose instead to follow Klapper to frozen Charles River in the book’s Frankfurter University, where the Azarya’s fi rst chapter: preposterously grandiloquent don ¶ constituted the entire Department genius and Here it is, then: the sense that of Faith, Literature, and Values, the path his life existence is just such a tremen- fashioned by the university solely dous thing, one comes into it, to lure him away from Columbia. will ultimately astonishingly, here one is . . . one Having failed to do anything to doesn’t know how, one doesn’t acquire “a unique and inviolable take serve to know why . . . and all that one being” as an undergraduate, Seltzer bring a kind of knows is that one is a part of was perfectly suited for the role it, a considered and conscious of awestruck grad student and resolution to the part of it, generated and sus- faithful acolyte, swept into orbit central mystery tained in existence in ways one around the black hole of Klapper’s can hardly comprehend . . . and gargantuan ego. Utterly in thrall to of human one wants to live in a way that his newfound sage, Seltzer found existence Seltzer at least begins to do justice to himself “wandering breathless in it . . . and . . . to live one’s life in the rarefi ed landscape that opened grapples with a way commensurate with the up within the sculpted syllables” of while gazing privilege of being a part of and Klapper’s lectures, “rendered in the conscious of the whole reeling very voice of Western civilization, into the frozen glorious infi nite sweep. sweeping in a matter of mere sen- Charles River. tences from keening declamations That resolution comes to him to stentorious exhortations to whis- in the book’s fi nal chapter, when pering tremolos, a voice that aston- to such an understanding will come the star atheist realizes that “to be ished even itself with its impartings, after his eagerly awaited and—by human is to inhabit our contradic- moving the speaker to tears that atheist standards—successful de- tions . . . to be unable to fi nd a way traced their tortuous way down the bate at Harvard with Felix Fidley, a of reconciling the necessary and pleated jowls of ageless genius.” Nobel Prize–winning believer, over the impossible.” In the face of that Then there is his old girlfriend, the proposition “God exists,” spon- primal inability, and of the “bru- Roz Margolis, now an anthropolo- sored—fi ttingly—by the university’s tality of incomprehensibility that gist who wants to recruit Seltzer “Agnostic Chaplaincy.” assaults us from all sides . . . we to support her new venture, the Completing the constellation of try, as best as we can, to do justice Immortality Foundation, which has souls whose lives most deeply touch to the tremendousness of our set about to abolish aging. A spir- Seltzer’s is Azarya, a 6-year-old Ha- improbable existence.” Like the ited, smart, affectionate atheist fel- sidic mathematical prodigy of tran- asymptotic relation in which a low traveler, Roz will reappear in scendent genius who is intended to straight line approaches a curve Seltzer’s life between stints spent succeed his father, the rebbe of the to which it will be tangent only at in the Amazon, where she studies Valdener Hasidim. Insulated from infi nity, “we live, as best we can, a tragically vanishing tribe that has the outside world and without ben- for ourselves, or who will live for named her Suwäayaiwä—which, efi t of any secular education, Azarya us? And we live, as best we can, for she informs him, roughly translates has independently discovered the others, otherwise what are we?” as “a whole lot of woman,” as indeed concept of prime numbers—which In 36 Arguments for the Existence she is. As lover, critic, intellectual he calls maloychim (angels)—and of God, Goldstein has fashioned a interlocutor, and above all, friend has arrived at the proof (among oth- tale that does justice to the depth and companion, she will—without ers) that there is no largest prime. of the problem of reconciling a sci- knowing or intending to do so— The otherworldliness of Azarya’s entifi c worldview with the insistent lead Seltzer inward to and outward genius and the path that his life will yearning for transcendence, and has from himself as he approaches ultimately take serve to bring a kind done so in a way that is philosophi- an understanding of the “strange of resolution (not to be confused cally sophisticated without being thisness of his life . . . the reaching with a solution) to the central mys- pedantic, and deeply moving with- expanse and pulsing intricacy” of tery of human existence that Seltzer out being weighed down by the bur- existence. Seltzer’s closest approach grapples with while gazing into the densome dross of sentimentality. q

64 Culture & Civilization : January 2010

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