More Jewish Crypsis: “National Conservatism” and the Edmund Burke Foundation

A NEW pro-Israel group that is pretending to be a standard bearer for conservative opinion in the United States was founded in January, a fortuitous bit of timing as it will not have to reveal its sources of income until next year. The Edmund Burke Foundation describes itself as “a new public affairs institute” having “the aim of strengthening the principles of national conservatism in Western and other democratic countries. The Foundation will pursue research, educational and publishing ventures directed toward this end.”

The Foundation’s launch will be at an open-to-the-public conference that will be held at Washington’s Ritz-Carlton hotel on July 14-16, 2019. So as not to confuse the possible audience unduly over who Edmund Burke was or what he stood for, the conference is being advertised somewhat lamely as “National Conservatism: A Conference in Washington D.C.” on its Web site nationalconservatism.org. Note that neither the name of the foundation nor the promotion of its stellar cast of speakers includes the word “Israel,” but the Jewish state is really what it is all about.

The conference’s Web site explains that

Politics in America, Britain, and other Western nations have taken a sharp turn toward nationalism—a commitment to a world of independent nations. This has been disorienting to many, not least the American conservative movement, which has, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, grown increasingly attached to a vision of a global ‘rules-based liberal order’ that would bring peace and prosperity to the entire world while attenuating the independence of nations.

The return of nationalism has created a much-discussed ‘crisis of conservatism’ that may be unprecedented…The conference on ‘National Conservatism’ will bring together public figures, journalists, scholars, and students who understand that the past and future of conservatism are inextricably tied to the idea of the nation, to the principle of national independence, and to the revival of the unique national traditions that alone have the power to bind a people together and bring about their flourishing.

It is obvious to most actual conservatives that nationalism has never really gone away, but what the conference organizers are really getting at is using nationalism as an excuse for giving Israel and the United States carte blanche to attack, invade, dominate, control, and invade other countries with impunity. The argument that America and Israel have a special entitlement to justify their actions is frequently made, most notably by other Israel-firster groups like the “Foundation for Defense of Democracies” (FDD). FDD argues that “democracy promotion” by force is a legitimate foreign policy of powerful countries (read: the United States), while “threatened democracies” (read: Israel, especially Israel, always Israel — did I mention Israel?) must be protected.

Why do I say that the Edmund Burke Foundation is just another pro-Israel puppet? Look at the people running it. Its President is David Brog, who is also the executive director of the Maccabee Task Force, “an effort launched in 2015 to combat the anti-Israel BDS movement. He also sits on the Board of Directors of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), were he served as executive director for its first ten years. Before CUFI, Brog worked in the United States Senate for seven years, rising to be chief of staff to Senator Arlen Specter and staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has also worked as an executive at America Online and practiced corporate law in Tel Aviv, Israel and Philadelphia, Pa. Brog is the author of Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State (2006) and In Defense of Faith: the Judeo-Christian Idea and the Struggle for Humanity (2010). In 2007, the Forward newspaper listed Brog in its ‘Forward 50’ most influential Jews in America.”

The Edmund Burke Foundation’s Chairman is an Israeli, Yoram Hazony, who describes himself as a “Jewish philosopher.” He resides in the Jewish state and is a well-known Israeli nationalist, having written that nationalism empowers “the collective right of a free people to rule themselves.” (White people excepted, of course.) He declares that “We should not let a hairbreadth of our freedom be given over to foreign bodies under any name whatsoever, or to foreign systems of law that are not determined by our own nations.” He adds “My first concern is for Israel.”

In other words, for Hazony all external criticism of what Israel is and does is illegitimate while Brog is what might be described as someone who has made a career out of being Jewish, along the way advancing what he perceives as Israeli interests. So why are they heading an ostensibly American foundation?

Indeed, it doesn’t require a Trumpean level of genius to see what this is all about and where it is going. If there is an unfortunate development arising from the “National Conservative” conference it is the inclusion as speakers of some genuine people among the crowd of usual Zionist hacks, with National Security Bloviator John Bolton leading the dark side of the list. The non-Zionist non-fanatics, who are invited solely to give the event credibility, should know better and ought to avoid the Edmund Burke Foundation like a cup full of active HIV. I will not call them out by name here and now but they can be identified from the speakers’ list. One has to wonder if they are being paid for their services.

In fact, new organizations dedicated to defending and promoting Israel are not exactly unusual. They tend to pop up in the United States and Western Europe like wild mushrooms in the springtime. By one estimate, there are 600 such organizations in the U.S. alone, running the gamut from the “liberal left” to the “conservative right.” They exist because there is a certain paranoia on the part of prominent Jews and leading Jewish organizations due to fear that the American people are finally waking up to the fact that they have been getting used and abused by a vast Zionist conspiracy for the past 70-plus years.

Why do some American Jews betray the interests of their host country to support another nation that is manifestly a pariah due to its own behavior? It might just be because to do so is painless and can also lead to personal career advancement. Brog’s career demonstrates how it works, particularly if one can latch on to a Jewish Zionist Senator like Arlen Specter along the way. And the benefits for Israel are enormous, amounting to hundreds of billions of U.S. Treasury dollars as well as a de facto commitment for American soldiers to fight and die for Israel even if Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu starts a war for no reason whatsoever.

Taken together, all of the pro-Israel groups constitute a veritable political juggernaut that seeks to advantage Israel and benefit it directly without regard for the damage done to Americans themselves and to actual U.S. interests.

Disguised advocacy for the Jewish state, such as that soon to be emanating from this new “Edmund Burke Foundation,” has led the United States into a bottomless Middle Eastern quagmire of impoverishment, dispossession, and death. They are unspeakably filthy liars and exploiters of the innocent.

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Source: based on an article at The Council for the National Interest and National Vanguard correspondents