Sunday Reads: How Iran uses the Holocaust, Is Trump more Hawkish than Hillary?, Spielberg at Harvard
US
Zack Beauchamp explains why Trump is actually a bigger hawk than Hillary:
But the problem is that the way “we understand” Trump's national security position is bollocks. Trump isn't a leftist, nor is he a pacifist. In fact, Trump is an ardent militarist, who has been proposing actual colonial wars of conquest for years. It's a kind of nationalist hawkishness that we haven't seen much of in the United States since the Cold War — but has supported some of the most aggressive uses of force in American history.
As surprising as it may seem, Clinton is actually the dove in this race.
Kevin Sullivan talks to Julian Pecquet about other Middle East Lobbies in Congress (acting besides Israel):
Pro-Israel lobbying in Washington stands out because it’s rooted in popular support for Israel… Other countries don’t have U.S. voters in their arsenal. Instead, they’re forced to rely on armies of former officials and assorted influence-peddlers and image-makers to get their way. Often times in the Middle East, those goals include preserving the status quo or trying to put some controversy or other to bed rather than seeking any positive development.
Israel
Former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin is troubled by the replacement of Yaalon:
When we send our children to the army to fight wars, we want them to be in expert, level-headed, ideological and experienced hands. These are definitely not Lieberman's hands. These are Ya'alon's hands, and certainly the hands of Chief of Staff Eisenkot and his deputy, Yair Golan, whom I know very well.
Giving the Ministry of Defense to Lieberman will turn Eisenkot into the most significant figure in the defense decision-making system. He will be the only one with the power to make sure that the responsible minister, as well as the prime minister, does not drag us into impossible situations
Bernard Avishai writes about the Lieberman appointment and its possible adverse effects on Netanyahu:
So Netanyahu may keep power for a while, but in losing the Army he has lost a major source of his legitimacy. Ya’alon himself has called for the formation of a new center-right movement to challenge Netanyahu. Livni told Channel Two last Friday night that her chief goal is to unite all democratic parties in a single opposition bloc. Moshe Kahlon, the finance minister and the leader of the centrist party Kulanu, remains the linchpin of Netanyahu’s majority; his views, and those of his voters, are certainly closer to Ya’alon’s than to Bennett’s or Lieberman’s.
Middle East
Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh discuss how Iran uses antisemitism and Holocaust denial as a strategic asset:
Among Iran’s ruling elite, Holocaust denial and the accompanying conspiracies about Jewish power are omnipresent and diverse, but they all have strategic intent. Anti-Semitism is not only central to the regime’s identity; it’s also inextricably tied to its soft-power propaganda aimed at the larger Muslim world, especially Arabs.
Walter Russell Mead writes about how hardliners still have the upper hand in Iran:
What’s really going on in Iran has almost nothing to do with the happy clappy Beltway talk about peaceable mullahs and the kinder, gentler theocracy they aspire to create. Unfortunately, hardline values are hard wired into the Iranian regime and Iranian foreign policy, and no White House spinmeister can make that grim reality go away.
Jewish World
Steven Spielberg talks antisemitism at his Harvard commencement speech:
“As a kid, I was bullied — for being Jewish,” Spielberg recalled in his speech. “This was upsetting, but compared to what my parents and grandparents had faced, it felt tame. Because we truly believed that anti-Semitism was fading. And we were wrong. Over the last two years, nearly 20,000 Jews have left Europe to find higher ground. And earlier this year, I was at the Israeli embassy when President Obama stated the sad truth. He said: ‘We must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it.’”
Sophie Unterman writes about the Kitsch Jewish memorabilia she found on a trip to Poland with her grandmother:
Upon entering the restaurant that the charming concierge at the Hotel Grand Lodz had recommended, we froze. Not that I had imagined a deli or South Williamsburg hole-in-the-wall I always wonder if I have the right to wander into, but I was thoroughly unprepared for what awaited us. Outside, the font on the sign over the door was Hebraic; the “w” in Anatewka looked like the Hebrew letter shin . The windows were decorated with Jewish memorabilia — innocuous enough. But then we opened the door: in the entryway, a life-size wax figure of an Orthodox rabbi, with a sickly purple pallor and cartoonishly large nose, hunched over an ancient cash register that overflowed with coins.
