Saturday, August 07, 2010

Half agreeing with Jeffrey Goldberg?

Is it possible I'm even half agreeing with the Forward's generally risible twit called Jeffrey Goldberg? Here are some snippets from a piece on the Oliver Stone flapette:

Stone said a whole lot more that you could call stupid, sloppy and even anti-American, but that has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Feel free to agree or disagree, but don’t toss around the term “anti-Semitic” unless the person actually hates Jews, otherwise the term loses its credibility and a very important taboo collapses.

'Anti-American' (usually reserved for foreigners), 'un-American' (mostly for real John Wayne's), 'self-hating Jew', it's all in the same bag if you ask me, yet Jeff manages not to condemn Stone as a 'self-loathing half-Jew' (for this Jeff'll pay a price in certain quarters, no doubt...)

After the first apology failed to placate his critics, Stone tried again to make himself heard, in a July 28 open letter to the ADL’s national director, Abraham Foxman. “I am half-Jewish and therefore personally repelled by anti-Semitism,” he wrote, “but moreover, I consider it an important part of my life’s work to call attention to the atrocities caused by racist and fascist regimes and policies.” He added that it was “wrong of me to say that Israel or the pro-Israel lobby is to blame for America’s flawed foreign policy. Of course that’s not true and I apologize that my inappropriately glib remark has played into that negative stereotype.” He said that if he criticized American or Israeli policy in the future, he would “be more careful and precise with my words.”

Foxman promptly declared that Stone “now understands the issues and where he was wrong, and this puts an end to the matter” (which in turn prompted some online commenters to call Foxman Stone’s “toadie” and “hired hack”).

Hmm... shouldn't be hard to find some real pillar biting Zio bloggers that will now call Jeff... a "toadie" and "hired hack"...

Yet by the time Stone sent his second apology, billionaire producer Haim Saban and super-agent Ari Emanuel had already both called on Leslie Moonves, president of CBS, which owns Showtime, to cancel “Secret History.”

Few seemed to notice the irony: Two of the most powerful men in Hollywood, both Jewish, urging a third power player, also Jewish, to punish Stone for suggesting that Jews dominate the media. The bottom line: Stone’s comment that Jewish influence in the media stifles open discussion brought the media crashing down on his head.

But then, we are a wounded people.

But Jeff did spot the irony and for that I salute him.

A wounded people? A people with a contemporary mythology based on real but past wounds, but no more...

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