Q & A

Naomi Levin interviews David Goldman, the channeler of the 'Spengler' columns in the Asia times

Tell us a bit about your background. I understand you have two doctorates?

I had the odd sort of career that only could have begun in the 1960s. In fact, I oscillated between two careers, but never quite managed to complete a doctorate in either of them.

I grew up in the 1960s, started out on the "fruity Left", but by the grace of God worked my way up to the Reagan side.

As an economist I tried to understand what made markets succeed or fail, and eventually began looking at markets from inside as a Wall Street strategist and hedge- fund manager. But I constantly was drawn to classical music; I published on and taught classical music theory at the Mannes College of Music in New York and at the City University of New York. But financeand music both became less important than a subject in which I have no formal qualifica- tions at all, the Jewish religion and the well- being of the Jewish people.

How did you get into writing? What was your 'big break'?

My vocation as a writer was a complete surprise to me. I'm a latecomer to religious Judaism. I was raised in a secular home and became bar mitzvah in a Reconstructionist congregation that prayed more or less "to whom it may concern". I belonged to Hashomer Hatzair as a teenager but couldn't make sense of Zionist socialism- what did the one have to do with the other? Not until my 30s did I begin making teshuvah [repentance].

Part of this was coming to terms with gclassic Jewish sources and more recent Jewish theology. As I studied the sources it dawned on me that the Jewish idea, in vari- ous ways, had a decisive role in the contem- porary world. By "the Jewish idea", I mean that the Creator, God of the universe, loves his chosen people so much that he grants them eternal life. The modern world's inabil- ity to confront mortality, I thought, was the great theme of present day politics. Just to get the thoughts off my chest I began writing essays on the topic under the comically- inspired pseudonym "Spengler" at Asia Times Online.

Reading through some of your pieces, you are quite ctitical of Barack Obama. Do you think he has made any serious foreign policy mistakes in his term so far? If yes, what are they?

You're quite right that I am critical of Barack Obama. There's one country in which mainstream opinion has come to share my trepidations about Obama, and that's Israel. As the Washington Post said last Wednesday (05/08), Israel is the only coun- try in the world whose relations with the US have worsened under Obama.

I don't always agree with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but he's magnificentlyright to resist Obama's demands to prevent construction of Jewish housing in Jerusalem. Obama really is the first American presi- dent who views America as something less than a force for good. That, I believe, accounts for the propitiatory tone he has taken towards Muslim states, for example. But I do not want to reject everything Obama has done in foreign policy. Sometimes appeasement is the right thing to do. America has no vital strategic interest in the expansion of NATO to include Ukraine, for example, and to insist on the point annoys Russia unnecessarily. By the same token, America has no quarrel with China, provided, of course, that China does not invade Australia. 

One of your criticisms was that Obama perceives the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as religious in origin. What is the danger of this?

To be precise, many observers point out that Obama implied the Holocaust is responsible for the creation of the State of Israel, which is just what [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad says: Europe dumped its problems onto the Palestinians.

That hardly explains why the majority of Israelis are descended from Jews expelled by Muslim countries after World War II.There has been a continuous Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael since Abraham. Jerusalem has been a majority Jewish city since the 1840s. There is no way to remove the biblical dimension from the foundation of the State of Israel.

In your writings on Israel you have questioned whether Israel is a Jewish state or a state inhabited by Jews. Which do you think it is at the moment?

It is up to the Israelis to say who they are, and the trouble is that they haven't. Israel is one of a very few states in the world today without a written constitution.

In my view, the State of Israel has a religious purpose, even if its political life is best served through the instruments of modem liberal democracy. To my way of thinking, the term "secular Jew" is an oxymoron, given that the Jews serve at God's pleasure; our improbable longevity in the face of persecution is proof that something more than our own stubbornness kept us going. Given that secular Jews worldwide are slowly disappearing, along with most other secular peoples, and religious Jews love hav- ing children, the question will sort itself out before long. 

In your writings on Israel you have questioned whether Israel is a Jewish state or a state inhabited by Jews. Which do you think it is at the moment?

It is up to the Israelis to say who they are, and the trouble is that they haven't. Israel is one of a very few states in the world today without a written constitution.

In my view, the State of Israel has a religious purpose, even if its political life is best served through the instruments of modern liberal democracy. To my way of thinking, the term "secular Jew" is an oxymoron, given that the Jews serve at God's pleasure; our improbable longevity in the face of per- secution is proof that something more than our own stubbornness kept us going.

Given that secular Jews worldwide are slowly disappearing, along with most other secular peoples, and religious Jews love having children, the question will sort itself out before long.

How do you perceive the current trend to criticise Israel, both from within the country and from outside, for wanting to remain a Jewish state?

Many writers have drawn attention to the double standard applied to Israel. No-one seems to mind the Sri Lanka Government killing tens of thousands of civilians in order to suppress the Tamil insurgency, but a few dozen civilian deaths in Gaza prompt demands for a war crimes investigation. We have become so used to hypocrisy in such matters that we hardly bother to protest any more. There are many reasons for this, I believe. One is that the conscience of the Europeans is mollified by the specious thought that the Jews can be as beastly as they were during World War II.

There is something even more profound, though. The Muslim world is in a state of breakdown, demographically, socially and, except for a few states with high oil revenues, economically. The secular social engineers of the European capitals and now Washington have made fixing the Muslim problem the definitive item on their agenda for the 21st century. It can't be fixed, in my view, because Islam is not compatible with modernity. In their obsessive fixation on finding a solution to the Muslim problem, the secularists will tend to blame Israel. If only Israel weren't there, they believe, surely we would be able to fix everything. If it weren't for the factthat most Americans are Christians who are favourably disposed to Israel, Israel's position would be far more dangerous.