Of course, I couldn’t have achieved this without a lot of help. So in many ways, this accolade isn’t just for me, it’s also for Russell, who made a quite intelligent comment in support of Walzer, which I for one (and seemingly the only one) understood. It’s also of course for John M, who managed to not only misunderstand Russell’s point, but also to use it as the basis for an attempt to smear everyone at CT (presumably including Eszter and Micah?) as anti-Semites, on the basis of our regularly posting about Israel (except that we don’t) and never censoring anti-Semitic comments (except that we do). Ragout, I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with a Best Supporting award of some kind.

Oh, I do love the internets.

I thought the formulation was that being (best) ‘friends’ with some people is inoculative?

I hope the application is clear. I was drawing attention to what seems to me Walzer’s frequent rhetorical practice of working in digs at “irresponsible” leftists and international institutions, even when they are not, in fact, “the text or the matter.” Like Kingsley, I admit that this sort of thing is not always objectionable. But it’s a little ambiguous, especially in a revered moral philosopher. I just wanted to draw attention to it.

MONUC has over 16,000 troops in addition to other observers, police, and civilian personnel. MONUC has its own “force commander” and is authorized to “to support operations to disarm foreign combatants led by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” It has killed people and will continue to do so both in self-defense, defense of others, and to disarm combatants. It engages in fire-fights. The forces are organized into national contingent, but the command is UN based and they wear UN insignia.

This is not like the initial intervention in Somalia (MNF) or operations in Afghanistan, which receive UNSC authorization, but do not report to the Secretariat’s DPKO. Similarly, France has had a separate national contingent in Côte d’Ivoire (Force Unicorn) in addition to the UNOCI.

No, it isn’t. And the fact that the non-existent ‘connection’ strikes you as so obvious and important should tell you something about your prejudices, in my opinion.

Not wrong, but suggestive, when the discussion is not on the topic of Israel or in any way connected to the topic of Israel.

May I suggest that this would be a more appropriate sentiment for your tombstone, john m? The other one doesn’t seem to suit.

“a bit whiffy when it comes to international affairs”

might do as well.

“I wonder if disparaging the UN and international law isn’t Walzer’s ultimate purpose here, since both of those are sometimes felt to be inconvenient by the government of Israel.”

But suppose someone posted, talking, say, about a conservative intellectual: “I wonder if disparaging the UN and international law isn’t X’s ultimate purpose here, since both of those are sometimes felt to be inconvenient by the government of the USA.”?

I would take that to be a fair comment about a certain kind of enthusiast for US policy regardless of whether or not X was American. So I don’t see how the same comment becomes offensive just because it is used about an American supporting Israel’s policy, unless you’re going to suggest it is wrong to point out that a non-Israeli is enthusiastic about Israel’s policies.

You’re right, I’ve argued at length in this thread that it’s not a flat-out lie, just a little “rhetorical excess.” John M, above, makes a similar argument.

But suppose it was a flat-out lie? Other flat-out lies like “Walzer wants to kill the ragheads” (a far worse slur) and “Walzer doesn’t mention Blackwaters’s massacres” generate no response. Certainly nothing as heated as a comparison to Meredith (whatever that means).

Anyway, to answer your question, I’m not surprised because it’s common for even vague and mild accusations of antisemitism to generate a heated response on CT, while outright accusations of racism and genocidal intent against Arabs rarely get criticized, especially when the topic is Israel. I don’t claim to know why that is, it’s just a pattern I’ve noticed. Perhaps you have more insight into the causes.