Daniel Luban reviews three new books on neoconservatism. A fascinating nugget about divisions among the neocon founding fathers:
By 1988, when Commentary convened a symposium to address the problem of “the upsurge of Jewish criticism of Israel,” the divisions among The Public Interest writers were evident. Kristol, for his part, went along with the Likudism that had by then become Commentary‘s animating impulse, expressing his contempt for Jewish elites “who feel compelled to temper their natural pro-Israel sympathies with a more ‘sophisticated’ critical stance.” But Glazer, by contrast, warned that “Israel is far gone along the road of helotizing [its] conquered Arab population,” while Bell irritably complained of a “hidden agenda” behind the Commentary symposium and asked: “what is wrong with criticizing Israeli policies and doing so in public? I always assumed that such an attitude was a healthy one.”
The great tragedy of the movement was that Bell's and Glazer's open minds and reformist instincts lost out to the extremism and fanaticism of Podhoretz and Kristol. And Israel – yet again – was a core reason.
The Dish 