Matthew Yglesias » Newsflashes

Jan 9th, 2009 at 3:59 pm

Newsflashes

I know you’ll find this shocking, but The Weekly Standard Michael Goldfarb is lying about J Street. And of course The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg likes to misrepresent what people write, too, though of course that’s nothing compared to his whoppers about Saddam and al-Qaeda.

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57 Responses to “Newsflashes”

Zaid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
You know, a good solution to this would be to have some more Muslim and Arab writers in our publications, and I mean generally ones that care about their people, not the hack ones that are pulled out to say, “Look, there are some that agree they should be bombed-conquered, too!”
cd Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
would it be appropriate to consider goldberg a member of the VERY SERIOUS PEOPLE club? as for douthat, i stopped checking his blog very often after he wrote that post, shortly after palin was selected, proclaiming that he was rooting harder for her than he had for any politician in his life. (i mention douthat because walt does in his post).
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Jefferey Goldberg is an embarassment to the Atlantic. I know quite a few folks who have cancelled their subscription the first few weeks he joined the magazine.

Goldberg’s “journalism” at best is a laughing stock. His review of Stephen Walt’s Israel Lobby was so idiotic that I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of educational background he might have had.

Safe to ignore him.
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Oh and one more thing. He’s the male version Carolin Glick of the Jpost.

Both odious both ulber morons.
Tiff in DC Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Linking Saddam and al-Qaeda should have given JG a hint that perhaps journalism is not for him.

I second that he’s an odious retarded fat freak.
BA Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Matthew,

Did Jeffrey Goldberg have something to do with you being fired from the Atlantic? Just asking.

BA

PS — Farid — what did Jesus say to the Palestinians before he went up to heaven?
Juan Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Goldberg seriously lack critical thinking skills to comment on anything much less Israeli/Palestinian conflict in which he is 100% dishonest.

It’s widely known among DC pudits and Goldberg is an insuffereable tool.
Juan Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Goldberg seriously lacks critical thinking skills to comment on anything much less Israeli/Palestinian conflict for which he is 100% dishonest.

It’s widely known among DC pudits that Goldberg is an insuffereable tool.
LaFollette Progressive Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Did Jeffrey Goldberg have something to do with you being fired from the Atlantic? Just asking.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard or seen anything to suggest that Matt was fired. But it’s clear they didn’t get along. They’d taken some shots at each other before Goldberg was hired, and they each had a tendency to link to everyone at the Atlantic except each other.
washerdreyer Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Matt, Walt’s response to Goldberg and Ross kind of sucks. Ross’s main point was to take issue with what light Walt’s thought experiment cast on anything, and Goldberg was just agreeing (and gratuitously insulting Walt). Walt only addresses the gratuitous insult, and treats it as if it’s meant seriously and without any hyperbole, without dealing with the substance of the criticism. Walt does have an earlier post where he addresses criticisms of his thought experiment, but only does so in a vague and not particularly satisfactory way.
parsnip Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I noticed yesterday that Breitbart had edited and snipped an AP story about anti-Israel protests in Europe to make it sound much more anti-Semitic and ominous.
pseudonymous in nc Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Goldberg’s only decent bit of journalism of late was his “look, I can take knives on planes!” piece. Of course, this is in the context of Raed Jarrar receiving $240k from JetBlue and the TSA for not being able to take himself in a t-shirt with an Arabic motto onto a plane.
omigod Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Decent and journalism cannot be used when Jeffery Goldberg is discussed.

Fool and odious are more appropriate words while addressing Goldberg’s pathological dishonesty.
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
thought experiment, but only does so in a vague and not particularly satisfactory way.

Says who you? I rather trust Stephen Walt than a person with negative credibility like you.
Israel is winning Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Yes, Israel Can Win in Gaza
Israel is significantly weakening Hamas – with Palestinian help.

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By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK

It seems that most of the West’s news reporters and pundits agree with Islamists everywhere that an Israeli victory in Gaza is impossible. They decry Israel’s defensive attack on Hamas, prophesying an inevitable strengthening of Islamism among Palestinians and a dark future for the Jewish state.

How do our commentators come to this conclusion? They point, most frequently, to Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, and echo Hezbollah’s claim that it won a great victory. Indeed, this narrative goes, in launching their rockets at Israel, Hamas leaders were imitating Hezbollah’s winning strategy.
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In fact, Hezbollah was thoroughly shocked by the Israeli bombing campaign, and its supporters, who mostly live in southern Lebanon, are not likely to tolerate another wave of destruction caused by another Hezbollah attack. Even the inconclusive Israeli ground actions in Lebanon, which never involved more than six companies (roughly 600 men), resulted in the loss of some 400 Hezbollah fighters in direct face-to-face combat while Israel suffered only 30 casualties.

Of course, none of this prevented the Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah from claiming that he had won a great victory for God. Had his victorious claims actually been true, Israel should have been deterred from attacking Hamas. And by his logic, Israel would have cowered in fear of thousands of more rockets from Hamas, and the even more powerful rockets that Hezbollah would launch in tandem. Nasrallah certainly encouraged Hamas to attack Israel in language that implied he would intervene if a war ensued — a credible promise had he really won a victory in 2006.

But as soon as the fighting started in Gaza, Nasrallah reversed the terms of his declarations — threatening Israel if it attacked Lebanon (which of course nobody in Israel would want to do). When three rockets were fired from inside Lebanon on Thursday, Hezbollah wasted no time assuring the Israelis that it had nothing to do with it, and that it did not even have that type of rocket in their inventory. This is a familiar trope of the Palestinian experience. There is always some extremist leader ready to instigate the Palestinians to fight, implicitly promising his valiant participation — until the fighting begins and the promises are forgotten in fear of Israeli retaliation.

Another familiar Palestinian experience is that the extremists can always prevail politically over the moderates, but in so doing they split Palestinian society. A key metric of this disunity is, in fact, the success of Israel’s current war against Hamas.

Consider: According to Gaza sources, until the ground fighting started some 25% of the 500 dead were innocent civilians. The Israelis claimed that 20% of the casualties from the aerial attack were civilians. Either way, this was an extremely accurate bombing campaign. (Even in the 1991 and 2003 U.S. air campaigns against Iraq, when most of the bombs were already precision-guided, gross targeting errors killed many civilians.)

A targeting accuracy of 75% — by the lowest estimate — cannot have been merely obtained by overhead photography from satellites or reconnaissance aircraft, because few Hamas objectives were classic “high-contrast” targets such as bunkers or headquarters. Most targets were small groups of people in nondescript civilian vehicles that blend in with traffic, or inside unremarkable buildings. Nor could telephone intercepts have yielded much intelligence, because all Palestinians know that the Israelis have long combined voice recognition with cellular-grid location in order to aim missiles very accurately at single vehicles in traffic, or even at individuals standing about with their cellphones switched off.

So how did Israel do it? The only possible explanation is that people in Gaza have been informing the Israelis exactly where Hamas fighters and leaders are hiding, and where weapons are stored. No doubt some informers are merely corrupt, paid agents earning a living. But others must choose to provide intelligence because they oppose Hamas, whose extremism inflicts poverty, suffering and now death on the civilian population for the sake of launching mostly ineffectual rockets into Israel. Hamas completely disregards the day-to-day welfare of all Gazans in order to pursue its millenarian vision of an Islamic Palestine.

Some in Gaza must also resent Iran’s role in instigating the barrage of rockets fired on Israel. And all must know that the longer-range rockets are supplied by Iran along with money for Hamas leaders, while ordinary Palestinians languish in poverty. Senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayan, killed on Jan. 1, was a poorly paid academic, yet he died with his four wives and 10 of his children in spacious quarters. He obviously had enough money to heed the Quranic injunction against marrying more wives than one can afford. That too must arouse bitter opposition among poor Palestinian civilians, inducing some to help Israel target Hamas. Perhaps these informers include Fatah members, further antagonized by persecution. Last week alone, some 50 were reportedly tortured by Hamas.

Hamas won the 2006 election because it was the only available alternative when a majority of voters were disgusted by Fatah’s blatant corruption. Since then, many nonfundamentalist Palestinians have been oppressed by the puritanical prohibitions imposed by Hamas, while all Gazans have been greatly impoverished.
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There is no evidence that support for Fatah has therefore increased, or that its surviving leaders could still rally their followers. This reality sets an upper limit on what Israel can achieve by ground combat — it cannot change the regime.

What Israel can do is weaken Hamas further in its current ground operations by raiding targets that cannot be attacked from the air — typically because they are in the basements of crowded apartment buildings — and by engaging Hamas gunmen in direct combat. Simply reducing the combat strength of Hamas is crucial, as it was in 2006 against Hezbollah, because while many like to parade dressed in the robes of martyrs, when there is actual fighting enthusiasm rapidly wanes.

With few exceptions, Israeli ground forces are not advancing frontally but are instead mounting a multiplicity of raids. If their target intelligence remains as good as it was during the air attack, they will run out of targets in a matter of days. That is when a cease-fire with credible monitoring would be possible and desirable for both sides as the only alternative to renewed occupation.

Hamas will claim a win no matter what happens, but then so did Hezbollah in 2006. And yet, for the most part, Hezbollah remains immobile and the Israeli northern border with Lebanon remains quiet. If Israel can achieve the same with Hamas in Gaza, it would be a significant victory.

Mr. Luttwak, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of “Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace” (Belknap, 2002).
BA Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Farid — why are your Palestinian brothers selling you out?

Will anyone on this comment board who criticizes Goldberg show the slightest bit of evidence. He’s written some great pieces.

he actually, you know, reports — instead of staying in his pajamas like MY and talking about things he doesn’t understand.
El Cid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Hey, is it time for “Al” to come back on this topic to lie again about Yglesias’ comments on Goldfarb?
tg Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Having been unfortunate enough to come across some of JG’s writing it’s quite apparent it’s impossible for him to even attempt to be objective.

Probably more than half his posts are nothing but calling people out as anti-semites.
El Cid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
No, “Al”, I mean the conventional definition of “lie”, which for some bizarre reason you thought you had written your way out of earlier. I mean, the one in which you criticized Matt for not having taken into account words that weren’t in the Goldfarb comment at all, namely the phone-call theory of Rayan’s responsibility for his family’s death.
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
he actually, you know, reports — instead of staying in his pajamas like MY and talking about things he doesn’t understand.

Like talking about Homus and his successful attemp at fooling TSA folks.

Why do you have such a low standard in journalism?
MAX HATS Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
As long as we’re hating on people, Ross Douthat deserves an honorable mention for penning the ridiculous essay “Is Pornography Adultery” in The Altantic. I can’t believe something like that was written in this century. I read the whole thing waiting for the big reveal, the turnaround, the punchline, but no.
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
What we’re experiencing is the last throes of reportage based on reflexive support for Israel.

Goldfarbs and Goldbergs will be seeking new line of work in a very near future.
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Ross Douthat and Goldberg are some of the reason while Atlantic will announce bankrupcy in 09.

Anyone wanna bet?
BA Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Farid —

I’ll take your bet any day.

btw — moron, it’s bankruptcy, not bankrupcy.

seriously, don’t they teach you English in Tehran?
ba Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Farid,

Seriously, are you a member of Hamas?

I’m serious. Let me get this straight — your buddies shoot 7000 missles into the sovereign territory of a country established by the UN, you say nothing, and when that country — established by the UN — fights back — under self-defense allowed any country on earth — you call for a boycott.

Only a member of Hamas would do so.

can you tell me the secret password?

BA
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
BA

AIPAC doesn’t pay for repeat posts. They’ve got people who monitor mercenaries like you. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.

how much have you made so far? AIPAC has calculator online.
BA Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Farid,

Au contraire! AIPAC does pay for repeat posts. They pay me $100 a post (after all, Jews are rich (though not as rich as the greedy Arab Sheiks)).

How many times can I point out your grammatical mistakes Farid. It’s “AIPAC has a calculator online.”

Where are you from? Just curious? You can’t be American. Americans like Israel and not Arab terrorist lovers.

Are you a Pakistani in England?

Probably. What did you think of Mumbai? job well done, Farid?

BA
Trevor Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Neocon Jews are wicked and odious liars. Stop the presses.
El Cid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Al, I admire the extent to which you play standard trollery to do the whole “gosh you love Hamas and want to have babies with Mr. Hamas la la la la la.”

But more importantly, the way to quickly recall you were lying about this is to remember that if Goldfarb had actually been talking about the phone-call theory* then it would have directly and immediately contradicted the rest of his comments.

I.e., Goldfarb would not have been speculating on how effective a bombing raid that kills a man’s entire extended family would be at changing the minds of other Hamas leaders if the volition in the story were that of the Hamas militant himself.

So, again, you lied, you accused MattY of lying, and all to support a version of Goldfarb’s comments that would have been self-contradictory had your version been the case.

Also, if you disagree with me, it means you love Hitler and want to kiss him and you dream of ice skating on a frozen lake of the blood of innocents.

*The phone-call theory might very well be true, I’m willing to grant that Rayan may have been such a person, I’m just not going to dignify it b/c wartime propaganda claims it.
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
BA

Your stupidity astounds me. Jews are wonderful people who have contributed greatly to human civilization. Zionists however are murderous lying scumbags such as yourself regardless of their religion, ethnicity, etc.
Tiff in DC Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Farid

Why are you shocked at the statements made by pro Israeli thugs? the only thing they’re after is complete annihilation of Gaza and West bank.

The time to take care of these filthy animals aka the Zionists will come too.
Zaid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
”
Probably. What did you think of Mumbai? job well done, Farid?”

This is really disturbing character assassination and straw man-ing.
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Zaid

Don’t worry about these “tough” guys. I’ve seen ‘em all. When confronted they whimper like a pussy.

They are keyboard warriors. Do you think these people have balls to show up at any anti Israel rally?
washerdreyer Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Says who you? I rather trust Stephen Walt than a person with negative credibility like you.

Farid, as far as I know I’ve never before taken part in a conversation which you were a part of. Are you deciding my credibility is negative entirely because I didn’t like two of Walt’s posts? I found the one I mentioned “vague and unsatisfactory” because it didn’t deal with any of the specific criticisms of his thought experiment and rather just said that he wasn’t persuaded by any of the criticisms.
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
This is a comment section dude. You wanna do 1 on 1 with someone you need to do IM.
El Cid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Al, then I honestly have no idea what point Goldfarb was addressing in questioning the rationality of Hamas leaders, which at minimum involves some conception of cause & effect thinking, if he was also supposedly considering the unspoken theory that Rayan in effect purposefully martyred his own family.

Because then Goldfarb would just as much be asking whether or not Islamic radicals (like Rayan the Hamas leader) could be rational, like us, and observe the successful results of Rayan having intentionally martyred his own family via an Israeli bomb.

If you include the intentional martyrdom as an unmentioned speculation in Goldfarb’s comment, then his questions on the rationality of Islamic radicals either becomes completely meaningless (literally) or Goldfarb has taken up wondering whether or not Islamic radicals can rationally deduce whether or not Rayan’s family martyrdom could be successfully duplicated.

I really, really, really don’t get why you’re doing this.

At its most charitable interpretation, Goldfarb was wondering if Islamic radicals were rational in thinking that the extended family of an Islamic radical being killed by an Israeli bomb outside the immediate and momentary control of the Islamic radical in question was a bad thing and would make them want to make decisions that ‘we’, the readers of his blog, would find “rational”.

At its least charitable interpretation, Goldfarb would hope that such family-bombings would suffice to change the minds of the Islamic radicals in a direction Goldfarb would prefer.

And not, as your scenario would suggest, in the direction of more family martyrdoms.
washerdreyer Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Me: as far as I know I’ve never before taken part in a conversation which you were a part of.

You: This is a comment section dude.

Right, that’s why I phrased my comment the way I did, including the “as far as I know.” In other words, I’ve never noticed you commenting before in a comment thread I was in, so I was wondering what you were judging my credibility based upon before you decided to insult me. Maybe you have read something I said before in a comment thread and decided I wasn’t credible, I don’t know. So I asked. And I’m still asking.
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Dude,

Your credibility is shit compared to Walt. I’ve read his book and read his blogs. What’s it that you have to show except saying you don’t find his arguments valid.

Your view on Walt means shit.
filthy animal Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
A Zionist believes that Israel has as much right to exist as lots of other countries. Not all Zionists are rude loudmouths, although it might be hard to tell that from comment sections.

then again, there really aren’t many comment sections where progressive Jews (or whatever other things you want to call me — I am an animal, after all, and at the moment my hair is dirty) can read w/o being told we deserve to die, “be taken care of”, what have you. I guess that’s one thing all Jews have in common with Arabs (of all faiths).

I wonder why it’s easier to have a reasonable discussion of differences (and hopes for a stable peace) with my Shi’ite Muslim neighbor than it is here.
cd Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
ou wanna do 1 on 1 with someone you need to do IM.

props on the mano-a-mano IM challenge. I like your style. although a commentingheads vid would be more legit. i’d almost spend 30 seconds of my life watching that…

also, ba, who gives a what about grammatical errors in a comments section? thats so weak my man.
cd Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
you’re not really “my man”. your always wrong. for the record.
Farid Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
I wonder why it’s easier to have a reasonable discussion of differences (and hopes for a stable peace) with my Shi’ite Muslim neighbor than it is here.

Because paid AIPAC douchebags stifle the conversations just like their beloved genocidal rogue regime of Israeli that doesn’t let journalists report from Gaza.

Same mentality really.
antiwar Says:
January 10th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
BA and Al are clearly hasbra operatives:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/09/israel-foreign-ministry-media
BA Says:
January 10th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Farid is obviously an Iranian stooge. That particularly makes his “genocide” comment funny, if it weren’t so serious.

does your friend Ahmedinejad jack off while he thinks of killng jews?

I’m sure you do.
Farid Says:
January 10th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
BA

What kind of a childhood did you have? are you a product of an inbred marriage? just wondering.
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Newsflashes

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