The neocons’ post-9/11 Jewish journey (and mine)

The tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has come and gone. But in the commemoration of those attacks, under the radar of the inevitable jingoism and cynical emotional appeals, a more disturbing phenomenon lurks still: the neoconservatives, new to public attention, if not to power, in the wake of the attacks, have used the anniversary to push anew their most cherished and pernicious myths about the last decade they did so much to define.

This is not a matter of mere historical import, for the mythmaking is largely focused on current events, namely, the so-called “Arab Spring”. Thus Joshua Muravchik, author of one of the most scurrilous attacks on what he called the “myth” of neoconservatism in 2003, takes on the matter of “Neoconservatives and the Arab Spring” in the special 10th anniversary issue of Commentary. Muravchik asserts that “the split between Israeli analysts and neoconservatives on democratization in the Middle East was ignored by the new wave of conspiracy-minded hate-mongers,” as he evidently views all critics of neoconservatism, yet many bloggers at the time of the Egyptian uprising took note of the divide and sought to earnestly account for it, not least this author. At the time, I saw the confusion among the neocons as representing “The Neocon Hitler-Stalin Pact Moment”, and this is borne out by the tone and substance of Muravchik’s reflections six months later: Egypt and other countries are likely to fall into the hands of “Islamists”, but there is cause for hope – in other words, everything would have been alright if we were in charge.