War is really the only mechanism Gaia has left for controlling the human population. Your mortality and your inability to get along with each other combine to limit the acceleration of your otherwise infinite growth.

Predators won’t do it because you exterminate them. Disease won’t do it because your medical technology is too clever. Starvation won’t do it because you engineer efficient food systems. Resource depletion may not even do it because you’re working on alternative energy sources. But one thing can always be counted on for sure – you’ll find things to fight about.

Kristol, Perle, Ledeen, Lieberman, Lantos, and quite a few other prominent lunatic Neocons are Jewish.

I’m pretty sure that Jon Stewart, Glenn Greenwald, Robert Greenwald, Barbara Boxer, Eli Pariser, George Soros, Greg Palast, and many other prominent voices of reason opposing “preemptive war” in Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere, are also Jewish.

What difference does it make?

No it doesn’t. It describes a “rally of Capitol Hill Likudniks”, without specifically mentioning anyone there apart from Bibi Netanyahu and Joe Leiberman. In the same paragraph, a proposed bill is mentioned that is being co-sponsored by Feinstein and McConnell. If that’s the best you can do…

That was your challenge, but now you’ve changed it so that it explicitly excludes Mitch McConnell?

Actually, my challenge was to find “a bunch of prominent references” to non-Jewish American “Likudniks”. There might be one or two obscure references out there, but in the vast majority of highly visible cases, an American who is identified as a “Likudnik” turns out to be someone who is completely unaffiliated with the Likud party, but who does happen to be Jewish. I’m frankly surprised that anyone’s disputing this.

Now you are just taking the piss.

I don’t expect this comment to survive deletion, but what the hell:

Dan, shut the fuck up.

You mean by, say, publishing their opinions? The Kristols have both been magazine editors, and the son was briefly an advisor to Dan Quayle, of all people. Ledeen is a journalist and academic who is said to have been an off-and-on consultant to various Republicans over the years. May and Gaffney (at last, some non-”Likudniks”!) run think-tanks that churn out reams of breathless statements. Only Kenneth Adelman, of all the people you mention, can be said to have had any significant power, beyond the writer’s power to influence people with well-reasoned, well-written arguments. That’s the same power that, say, we have as bloggers and blog commenters.

Unless, of course, you consider the insidious behind-the-scenes influence notoriously wielded by a large, sinister cabal of J-er, “Likudniks”…

Uh, right. I wasn’t alluding: let’s use Bill Kristol and his dad, Cakewalk Ken, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen and Clifford May as our sample.

Are you somehow disputing that they have a heavy influence on both policy and the ongoing debate about policy? Are you disputing that none of them has ever had his positions directly endorsed by the popular vote? Or are you trying to insinuate anti-semitism without looking like Marty Peretz?

If so, what uncle kvetch said: go the whole way and call me a Jew-hater. I don’t give a shit.

The most hawkish Republican member of Congress in the most gerrymandered red-state district has, at very least, the mandate of his or her district. It makes me nauseous to say it, but even Tom ‘Nuke Mecca’ Tancredo has more political legitimacy than Bill fucking Kristol.

Imputing an Israeli political affiliation to him is just a slimy way to cast aspersions about his national loyalties

Indeed. Ledeen’s loyalties are much more identifiable with the Italian fascists he so relishes, whether he cares to admit it or not.

Actually, this example illustrates my point beautifully. Michael Ledeen, William Kristol and Richard Perle are Americans who have ideas about Israel that are probably very similar to those of the evangelicals cited in the article. They are often labeled as “Likudniks” (despite being American non-Israelis with no Israeli political affiliation). But nobody would ever say about them that they “would make good Likudniks”—sort of the way nobody ever says of, say, Jeff Foxworthy or Larry the Cable Guy that they “would make good rednecks.”

One might, however, say just that about someone who’s in many ways extremely similar to a Likudnik or a redneck, but nevertheless isn’t one—by virtue, perhaps, of being of the wrong ethnicity…

At this rally of Capitol Hill Likudniks

Yes, this one reference mentions Mitch McConnell—in a paragraph about Joe Leiberman inviting Bibi Netanyahu to chat with McConnell and his bill’s co-sponsor, Dianne Feinstein. Notice, though, that this search result does not label Falwell a Likudnik. Like the vast majority of results under the search ‘Falwell Likudnik’, it explicitly labels other people—either unidentified people, or people of, ahem, a certain persuasion, but not Falwell—as “Likudniks”. And if you try the same exercise with searches such as ‘Cheney Likudnik’ and ‘Rumsfeld Likudnik’, you’ll see that they, too, are almost always explicitly excluded from the list of “Likudniks”.

I wonder why?

washington post, march 27 2004:

Eckstein, whose organization conducted the informal survey of evangelicals, said most people who contribute to the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews do so for religious reasons but also want to show their political solidarity with Israel. They oppose any withdrawal of Jewish settlers and “are very distrustful of Palestinians, of [Yasser] Arafat. They would make good Likudniks,” he said.

From antiwar.org:

A move is afoot in Congress to pass a bill co-authored by Senators Diane Feinstein (D-California) and Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) to deny visas to PA officials, close down the Palestinian office in Washington, and have the PLO declared a terrorist organization on the same level with Al Qaeda. At this rally of Capitol Hill Likudniks

I don’t think Mitch McConnell is Jewish, do you?

Ledeen is, as far as I know, a member of the US Republican party and an American citizen, and neither an Israeli citizen nor a member of any Israeli political party. His son is in the United States Marines, not the Israeli army. Imputing an Israeli political affiliation to him is just a slimy way to cast aspersions about his national loyalties based on his religion and ethnicity, without actually coming right out and saying, “Jewish”.

And if you want to prove me wrong, all you have to do is find a bunch of prominent references to Jerry Falwell or some other pro-Israel (heck, even pro-Likud) non-Jewish American as “Likudnik”.