Paul Krugman on Truthout: A Willful Ignorance

[Joyce in the mts.]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/102903J.shtml

[Marg of Arabia]

Thanks for the link! I especially love this paragraph:

Why is aiding a brutal dictator O.K., while trying to understand why others don't trust us — and doing something to create that trust — isn't? Why won't the administration mollify Muslims by firing Lt. Gen. William Boykin, whose anti-Islamic remarks have created vast ill will, from his counterterrorism position? Why won't it give moderate Muslims a better argument against the radicals by opposing Ariel Sharon's settlement policy, when a majority of Israelis think that some settlements should be abandoned, and even Israeli military officers have become bitterly critical of Mr. Sharon?

[merpk]

Thanks for the link. I especially love the line where he points out that he's Jewish, as if that gives him immunity from the charge of giving aid and comfort to bigots.

Another perspective.

[Joyce in the mts.]

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n16/butl02_.html

[captain optimism]

Krugman got in a lot of trouble with a lot of people for writing what he wrote in the original article.

Here's what I thought: I didn't realize that Mahathir Mohammed was presiding over a state in which an ethnic Chinese minority played a disproportionate role in business. Krugman was the only person writing on the subject of this anti-Semitic diatribe to point out that 1) it's so NOT the first time for Mahathir to do this and 2) the reason he does this is to kind of displace the racism onto another, not local, minority. I remember when Malaysia banned Schindler's List --I was like, "what gives, Malaysia? from whence cometh this bizarre anti-Semitism?" Now I get the picture.

I agree that Krugman shouldn't be saying that US policy, or Israel's policy, or whatever, justifies anti-Semitism. Certainly, once you know that saying anti-Semitic things in public is a recurrent strategy of the Malaysian president, it doesn't make sense to say that he does this because of current US foreign policy. No. So Krugman's second essay (cited in OP) is essentially wrong.

But the reason that Krugman said "I'm Jewish" is that at least one of the people who attacked him (verbally) for his column on Mahathir kept calling him "Paul Von Krugman." (I found the essay if you want to read that sort of thing.) Can't hardly blame him for saying "Hey, I'm Jewish." Even parenthetically.

[merpk]

JintheM, is the point of this thread a discussion of anti-Semitism? Why is Lawrence Summers denunciation of specific tactics at Harvard of any relevance to Paul Krugman's article, or the topic at hand?

(Notwithstanding the fact that Summers was very hesitant and not even close making the sweeping condemnation of any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, beyond not even close, such as Butler portrays in her article.)

But is that the point of this thread? It didn't seem to be. It seemed to be specifically about Paul Krugman's views about the response to his column. But since this seemingly tangential link was posted ...


I must know before responding.

Thank you.

[merpk]

Well, Joyce never responded, the thread disappeared.

Then I found this book review, and it is very informative for those who truly don't understand the nuances ... even those nuances that aren't very nuanced.

At the Tikkun website. A tad lengthy, but very clear and extremely edifying.