[Peace-discuss] Who is Michael Oren?

[David Green]

The question is appropriately asked by Bob Naiman on his Just Foreign Policy news. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/24/eveningnews/main4206201.shtmlis 
  Oren is a CBS news consultant now. He is sponsored by the Shalem Center, (ultimate right-wing nut case) Benyamin Netanyahu's think tank in Jerusalem. Early last year Oren wrote this article in The New Republic with the recent "journalist in residence" for the Program for Jewish Culture and Society (Fall 2005), Yossi Klein Halevi:
   
  http://www.michaeloren.com/article.php?id=2
   
  These are dangerous dudes, but they've been presented in our academmic community as respectable. Halevi got his start as a terrorist for the Jewish Defense League. Norman Finkelstein's description of the IDF's Oren: "It's a weirdness of American academic life that gross hacks like Michael Oren are acclaimed as scholarly authorities: he's like Bernard Lewis without a high school diploma."
   
  Oren's recent book narrates the history of Christian Zionism in this country (which preceeded Jewish Zionism). On the basis of his interview on WILL Focus 580, he doesn't seem to address the possibility that Zionism as it has been politically realized is no more legitimized by the Christian missionary spirit than by the history of Jewish persecution.
   
  http://www.will.uiuc.edu/am/focus/archives/07/070205.htm
   
  Interestingly, this interview was concurrent with the TNR article, but of course he's presented in apolitical scholarly terms.
   
  Moreover, two think tankers from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC04.php?CID=292 provoked this blog from Philip Weiss:
   
      "Iraq was a preemptive war. But that language has been discredited, so the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a station of the Israel lobby, has put out a paper all-but-calling for military strikes against Iran, which it describes as "Preventive Military Action." Sounds a lot better. 
   
  Here's what I (Weiss) gleaned from a rapid preemptive reading. Military action is really the only real answer WINEP contemplates, after the diplomatic ratcheting-up fails to bite. The realists' answer--deterrence--isn't given any space here. Nor is the progressive answer: making Israel give up its nukes. 
   

    In fact, the authors don't want Israel to do the strike against Iran because they fear it would convert a global conversation on a nuclear Iran into a "bilateral Israel-Iran issue on which many around the world would side against Israel. The situation could undercut efforts to pressure Iran not to rebuild its nuclear program." I.e., Other countries would say, What about Israel's nukes? But WINEP is determined to preserve Israel's hegemony in the region. I'm having dual-loyalty twinges. 
   
  One action the authors seem to favor is hitting "vulnerable" oil facilities. Don't worry: Oil prices won't necessarily "soar." No, we only have to get world reserves in order before we strike. Yeah, right. 
   
  The authors also feel that a limited strike against Iran's nuclear facilities could lead to "revolution" in Iran, or war, but could also be "deemed a success and convince them not to go on" with building nukes. Doesn't seem likely to me. A lot of national pride is now at stake. 
   
  Then there's this gem. The U.S. could invade, but probably doesn't have the stomach to in the wake of Iraq, "especially given the likelihood that a small but significant minority would be quite prepared to resist a U.S. occupation." Got that? Only a minority would resist U.S. occupation. The rest would welcome us with flowers.
   
  And as for international opinion, the report says the French are behind the effort to denuclear-ize Iran. WINEP spoke too soon here. Sarkozy has now been to Israel, and said, Yes he's behind the anti-Iran initiative but he wants action from Israel re the Palestinians. "There cannot be peace without an immediate and complete halt to settlement," he said. Not a word about moving on the Palestinian occupation and oppression here. WINEP seems to believe the road to Jerusalem lies through Tehran. Haven't we heard this sort or rap before?"
   
  ________________________
   
  Last April 1st, as many may recall in terms of my participation in the evening session, David Makovsky of WINEP spoke to an invitation-only lunch gathering at Hillel at which he addressed the prospects for war with Iran. I think we can surmise approximately what was said, and it's interesting that such discourse takes place behind closed doors on a college campus. If there was an alert and aggressive peace movement on this campus, that wouldn't happen without broader participation.
   
  DG
   
   
   
   



       
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