Martin Peretz

<youtube size="tiny" align="right" caption="Brandeis University hails Peretz's achievements despite his controversial views">oAOFi7DynFg</youtube><youtube size="tiny" align="right" caption="Party for Marty: Harvard students protest Martin Peretz for his anti-Muslim/Arab comments">Z3hLOO3YFM8</youtube> Martin H. Peretz (born 6 December 1938) is the part-owner and editor-in-chief of The New Republic. He is known for his extreme hawkish views on Israel and his unconcealed antipathy towards Arabs and Muslims. He is a member of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Board of Advisors.

The Israel Prism

For media scholar Eric Alterman, '[i]t is really not too much to say that almost all of Peretz's political beliefs are subordinate to his commitment to Israel's best interests, and these interests as Peretz defines them almost always involve more war.' He adds:

Peretz insists that, yes, the interests of Israel and the United States are indeed identical. "Support for Israel," he claims, "is deep down, an expression of America's best view of itself." Which begs the question of just what "support" entails. For Peretz it has clearly meant support both for the Iraq war and, now, for yet another war against Iran.

Smearing George Soros

In February 2007 Peretz was criticized for distorting statements made by billionaire and progressive philanthropist, George Soros. Peretz reportedly cropped a transcript which included Soros's answers to questions about his youth during the Nazi Holocaust to smear Soros as "a young cog in the Hitlerite wheel": According to a report by Media Matters for America, "Like Horowitz and Poe, who claimed that Soros "survived [the Holocaust] by assimilating to Nazism," Peretz pointed to Soros' experience as a 14-year-old boy in Nazi-controlled Hungary to suggest that he collaborated with the Nazis." The report goes on to print the parts that Peretz cropped and reveal more information regarding Soros's true past:

...Soros' father attempted to protect his family from Nazi persecution by paying an employee of Hungary's Ministry of Agriculture named Baumbach to take in Soros, "ostensibly as his godson." Soros accompanied his "godfather" as he went to oversee the confiscation of property from Hungarian Jews. Peretz, however, cropped out a key portion from the transcript of a December 20, 1998, 60 Minutes segment in which interviewer Steve Kroft asked Soros about those activities. While Kroft noted that Soros "went out with this protector of yours," Peretz left that out of the transcript, suggesting that Soros, at the age of 14, went out on his own and, in Kroft's words, "helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews."

According to political analyst Steve Clemons, Peretz's smear attempt was one among several made by prominent neoconservatives who want to deflect attention away from their major role in pushing the US into a war with Iraq under false premises:

Martin Peretz is part of the crowd that pounded a drumbeat for the Iraq War and has been complicit with the other Chief Ideology Officers of the neocon movement -- folks such as Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Bill Kristol, and Charles Krauthammer -- in engaging in a broad denial of the idiocy of this military action and are today ignoring lessons that could be learned from our Iraq debacle as they encourage yet another disastrous clash -- this time with Iran.

In response to the fire Soros drew for comparing the US (and other countries) to Nazi Germany Clemons writes that "Soros is right" in urging for Americans to demand that American politics be free of the domination of the neoconservatives:

I have the sense of context and I think the maturity to know that Soros was not implying that America is on the same moral plain of a German state that exterminated six million Jews....There is a corruption and self-censorship that hit Washington and blinded many in responsible political positions and government roles and allowed the U.S. to launch a war that should not have been launched -- and to spend a great deal of time and resources punishing those who were speaking out against it....The administration and its fans of the "war of choice against Iraq," as Zbigniew Brzezinski stated recently, have also spent a great deal of time trying to punish and ridicule Soros -- anything to cast attention away from their own complicity in this disaster and their own mistakes. . .and their own disloyalty to the national interests of the United States of America.

US's war on Iraq

During the lead up to the Iraq war Peretz was instrumental in publishing the work of journalists who pushed disproved claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq posed a threat to the world. Writes Steve Clemons:

Peretz helped sell Chalabi -- and helped sell the Iraqi National Congress -- to official Washington. Chalabi, whose intelligence chief later defected to Iran, and Chalabi who himself allegedly passed on information he was getting from his American contacts to Iranian sources.

Views

Racism

In Peretz's own words:

I actually believe that Arabs are feigning outrage when they protest what they call American (or Israeli) "atrocities." They are not shocked at all by what in truth must seem to them not atrocious at all. It is routine in their cultures. That comparison shouldn't comfort us as Americans. We have higher standards of civilization than they do. But the mutilation of bodies and beheadings of people picked up at random in Iraq does not scandalize the people of Iraq unless victims are believers in their own sect or members of their own clan.

Peretz has been criticised for his views on Muslims, particularly Arabs. According to a former insider at The New Republic (TNR), writer Spencer Ackerman, '[Peretz] likes to flirt with descriptions of Arabs as subhuman. Everyone who works at TNR knows Marty is a racist.' Alterman has excoriated Peretz for 'his obsessive and unapologetic hatred of Arabs' which is 'visible nearly every day on Peretz's blog "The Spine."' Alterman goes on to provide a sample of Peretz's comments about Arabs.

They are "violent, fratricidal, unreliable, primitive and crazed … barbarian"; they have created a "wretched society" and are "cruel, belligerent, intolerant, fearing"; they are "murderous and grotesque" and "can't even run a post office"; their societies "have gone bonkers over jihad" and they are "feigning outrage when they protest what they call American (or Israeli) atrocities"; they "behave like lemmings," and "are not shocked at all by what in truth must seem to them not atrocious at all"; and to top it all off, their rugs are not as "subtle" and are more "glimmery" than those of the Berbers.

Liberal blogger and constitutional law attorney Glenn Greenwald has denounced Peretz's 'unbelievably overt anti-Arab/anti-Muslim bigotry' in a post citing examples of his egregious statements about Arabs. He calls Peretz's blog 'a museum for every anti-Arab/Muslim stereotype and caricature that exists.'

Islamophobia

Peretz has compared the Quran, the Muslim holy book, to Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto. He writes on his blog:

I've read for my sins the Koran myself, actually two and a half times. Of course, I also studied (and taught) the Communist Manifesto, and I suppose that some of my colleagues even saw in it a tract open to very soft interpretation. There are probably humane readings of Mein Kampf.

On another occasion, Peretz has declared that 'frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims'. He added:

I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.

This statement led to a rift within the magazine's own editorial board and a public row between Peretz and the magazine's long-serving literary editor (also chief deputy editor) Leon Wieseltier. On the other hand, Peretz was defended by former charge Andrew Sullivan and influential Israel lobby journalist Jeffrey Goldberg (all three had pushed for the Iraq war).

Islamic Center controversy

Peretz has denounced the planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero in New York as 'a sleazy venture combining religion, marriage catering, sports activity, political propaganda and what would pretend to be kultcha'. He has described the project's planner Sharif El-Gamal as a 'real estate hustler' and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as the 'theological desperado.' He has praised the right-wing campaign against centre.

In my view, the really modest struggle against the mosque is probably the closest thing we’ve had to a genuinely grass roots effort against the casual and elitist First Amendment fundamentalists.

Peretz adds: 'yes, there are different kinds of Muslims as there are different kinds of Christian Fundamentalists.' New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof cited the post as 'a glimpse of how venomous and debased the discourse about Islam has become.' Pointedly, he asked: 'Is it possible to imagine the same kind of casual slur tossed off about blacks or Jews?' Peretz's statement also prompted students at his alma mater Brandeis University to issue a call for a public apology. They called his statement 'appalling...unacceptable, irresponsible, and wrong'. For the signatories, Peretz's statement violated Brandeis's commitment to fighting 'discrimination, bigotry, and fear of minorities.'

A Kind of Culpa

Following widespread condemnation, and especially stung by Kristof's column, Peretz posted what he said was 'An Apology'. Therein he apologized for demanding that Muslims be deprived of first amendment rights. However, he emphatically reiterated the stereotype based on which he had made his demand. He writes:

The other sentence is: "Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, especially for Muslims." This is a statement of fact, not value.

Affiliations

• Coalition for a Democratic Majority
• The New Republic
• Washington Institute for Near East Policy
• Euston Manifesto United States
• Ground Zero Mosque