Bluff in the Buff: The Unspeakable Nudity of Jeffrey Goldberg

A few weeks back, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a column, via “Bloomberg View,” that, after a certain amount of adroit throat-clearing, advanced the following thesis:

I’m talking about the belief, advanced to me by a former senior Israeli military official, and echoed by other non-insane people, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is bluffing: He has never had any intention of launching air and missile strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, and is working behind the scenes with Obama to stop Iran through sanctions.

In this interpretation, what Netanyahu has been doing –for the past 15 years, in and out of office – is creating conditions in which U.S., Western and Arab leaders believe that they must deny Iran its dream of nuclear weapons or else suffer the chaotic fallout of a precipitous, paranoia-driven Israeli attack.

Jeff isn’t saying that this “belief” is true, mind you. In fact, he thinks, it probably isn’t true. But then he remarks in his blog in the Atlantic, commenting on his column (well, someone has to do it)

For many reasons, I tend to doubt that Netanyahu is bluffing. For one, he’d have to be the best bluffer in the world (a bluffer of this magnitude would have made Sheldon Adelson a poor man a long time ago) to maintain this level of urgency on Iran over such a long period of time. I also think he’s probably not bluffing because he is evidently quite sincere in speaking about the world-historical consequences of an Iranian bomb to the future of Israel and the Jewish people. But put it this way: If he has been bluffing the whole time (even in concert with good-cop Obama), it’s been a bluff that has so far worked magnificently well.

Throughout all this charade, Jeff fails to note that a couple of years ago, the Atlantic ran a cover story by him, “Point of No Return,” claiming that Israel was totally not bluffing, complete with a florid illustration of presumably Israeli jets streaking across the sky, presumably heading to bomb the shit out of Iran. Now, Andrew Sullivan, one-time Jeffrey Goldberg buddy (now not so much) and a few other people are wondering if Jeff is in effect saying “Yeah, that story I wrote, it might have been a total crock, but it got people thinking what I wanted them to think, so, hey, all’s well that ends well, right? No harm, no foul.”

Well, I pointed out at the time that Jeff was, um, lying his ass off, that his “absolutely serious, exquisitely sourced report was a greasy crock of propaganda.”* And some of us might think that the whole notion that Iran has to be prevented from obtaining a nuclear weapon, along with the notion that the U.S. must subject Iran to endless and brutal harassment, said endless and brutal harassment guaranteeing never-ending turmoil in the Middle East, is yet another greasy crock, or perhaps several.

Afterwords
If you’re interested, Andy presents his side of the story, at length, here, all mixed out with current outrage over the temerity of Peter Beinart for calling for a boycott of Israel’s West Bank Settlements. Beinart says a boycott would work. I’m dubious in my ignorance, but the U.S. should definitely stop subsidizing them, which we do in countless ways. If we did stop subsidizing them, it would be a sea change in U.S. policy, so I doubt if it will be happening soon.

* “greasy crock of propaganda,” huh? Sometimes I don’t write so good.