M. J. Rosenberg accuses Jonathan Chait, and by extension everyone opposed to the appointment of Chas Freeman, of failing to “get beyond the ethnic pull” of Israel. Rosenberg goes on to say that “in Obama’s America, it is harder and harder to take seriously those who approach issues ethnically.” I’m stunned by how presumptuous this is. Is it possible those opposed to Freeman’s appointment simply prefer Israeli democracy to Saudi authoritarianism, and are thus troubled by an appointment of someone who seems to hold precisely the opposite view? That’s my problem with the appointment. Chait articulated his own objections, which centered on Freeman’s support for the massacre at Tienanmen Square. But Rosenberg doesn’t believe him, saying that “None of the bloggers in question had any interest in Freeman’s views on China until Steve Rosen (and some of his colleagues) decided to stir up the opposition to Freeman because of his alleged lack of fidelity to the [Israeli] occupation.” Is this now a legitimate form of argument — to dismiss everything a person has written and insist that they have some ulterior, hidden motive for their positions? And yet while Rosenberg accuses Chait — and everyone else who has written on this subject — of lying about their motives, he lies himself, flagrantly:
In fact, I hear that the offending China quotes were only discovered in the context of a Google Nexis/Lexis search to find incriminating material to block Freeman’s appointment because of his Middle East views. China was not even an afterthought. That should be obvious unless one believes that Rosen, Goldfarb, Goldberg, Peretz, Goldberg again and Scheonfeld suddenly developed a deep and simultaneous concern about human rights in China.
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