America's Last President: Monika Wiesak's excellent new book

[James DiEugenio]

Its is so much more gratifying to be able to write about a good book.  And this one is really a good book.

I have  thought of late that the cover up about who Kennedy was, was more systematic and rigorous than the one around the circumstances of his death.  I have become certain of this in the last 6-7 years.  Once you understand just what he was doing, you then understand why he was--had to be --killed.  Especially in that ultra dramatic way--no more of these types and its non-negotiable.

Wiesak's new book is more proof that such was the case.  (JFK was writing about Palestine in 1939!)  What a pleasure to read, and learn, from a really carefully composed book.  This is one you can buy for the holidays and give to family members on the fence about the case.  Its the best book in this category, that is about Kennedy's policies and why he was killed, since the Douglass book.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/last-president

 

[Roger DeLaria]

Thanks Jim, I plan to check it out.

[Michael Griffith]

I read the first two chapters (because they're available free of charge as a sample of the Kindle version). I would give the chapters a B-.

I'm concerned about the apparent anti-Israeli bias and one-sidedness in Wiesak's comments about the Israeli-Palestinian issue. She chose not to mention the fact that the Jews accepted the 1947 UN partition plan for Palestine but that the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors rejected it and instead tried to annihilate the Jews. The partition plan gave the Palestinians a homeland, gave them the West Bank, gave them a large chunk of northern Palestine, gave them the Gaza Strip, and gave them the majority of the most fertile areas. The partition plan also made Jerusalem an international city controlled by neither the Jews nor the Palestinians. But Palestinian leaders were so certain that their Arab brethren could easily "wipe the Jews into the sea" that they rejected the partition plan and invited five Arab armies to attack the newly formed Jewish state. Naturally, when the Jews miraculously won the war, they were in no mood to be generous to the people who had just tried to facilitate their destruction. The Palestinians were lucky the Jews didn't drive every one of them out of the country after their treacherous conduct.

Until relatively recently, virtually all liberals were staunchly pro-Israeli. But, in recent years, as the Left has become increasingly radicalized, a growing minority of liberals have turned against Israel. Wiesak seems to be in that camp. If I am misreading her views on this issue, I will be happy to admit my error. 

I'm also concerned that Wiesak quotes Fletcher Prouty. Seriously? In 2022? After all we now know about Prouty, his nutty claims, his disastrous and revealing ARRB interview, his fringe/extremist associations? Every journalist and scholar who reads her book is going to see her use of Prouty as a red flag and is going to question her credibility and scholarship because of it. Oliver Stone's heavy reliance on Prouty's crazy claims in his 1991 movie JFK was the main problem that scholars had with the movie. 

If Wiesak had not quoted Prouty and had been more even-handed on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, I would give the two chapters an A. I try not to throw out babies with the bath water, but in 2022 there is just no excuse for any conspiracy theorist to be quoting Fletcher Prouty, and one would think that any person claiming to be "liberal" would be very sympathetic to the state of Israel. 

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by Michael Griffith

[Guest]

7 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I have  thought of late that the cover up about who Kennedy was, was more systematic and rigorous than the one around the circumstances of his death.  I have become certain of this in the last 6-7 years.  Once you understand just what he was doing, you then understand why he was--had to be --killed.  Especially in that ultra dramatic way--no more of these types and its non-negotiable.

100% 

I am afraid this is the cold harsh reality that few, even here understand. They could have spiked his meds from Dr Max Jacobson or had his plane go down. There was no need for a public execution. It acts as a deterrent for any other would be presidential candidates and idealists who think they might have a shot at changing the status quo. The threat letters that Teddy received for years on end really illustrate this. They are on a level of malevolent that few would ever come across. Everything was being done to erase the memory of JFK, and undo the strong public support that he had. People who desire a true equality, peace, harmony, and a better world are bad for business. The business of the top 1% or even the 0.01%. 
 

I am adamant that the reason the 25th amendment was put in place in 1964/65 was because the ruling class wanted an easier way to remove a president. They could have made a case to remove JFK on health grounds. They can remove any leader now by fabricating a case for their poor mental healthy or judgment, based on health grounds. You just need a few allied Dr’s. 
 

[James DiEugenio]

Nice one Chris.  I agree.

Mike, one cannot judge a book by reading two chapters.  But let me comment on what you said.

The remarkable aspect of Kennedy's policy in the Middle East was that he stood by the Johnson Plan, UN Resolution 194, during his entire presidency.  Even after Joseph Johnson had decided to throw in the towel.  And, in fact,  even I thought that Kennedy had given up on it.  According to Monika, he did not.

For those who do not know, the Johnson Plan was a way of settling the refugees from the Nakba. Does wanting to settle hundred of thousands of homeless people mean you are anti-Israel? No it does not.  But that is how far American policy in the area has gone from what Kennedy was trying to do.  The other things that Kennedy was trying to do there were to set up a relationship with Nasser, and stop  nuclear proliferation, which he suspected Israel was lying to him about concerning Dimona.  Which they were.  So is being anti proliferation, is that also being anti Israel?

Concerning Nasser, this is so visionary of JFK,  I give him all the credit I can for it.  It was as smart as getting out of Vietnam.   Why?  Because Nasser was probably the last great hope for a Pan Arab movement that was not Moslem fundamentalist. Nasser was both a secularist and a socialist.  As writer Robert Dreyfuss said in his book Devil's Game--a valuable book--Nasser was the last opportunity America had of  developing a relationship that would grow and prosper that would look to the future and not the past in that area--and the past is what Saudi Arabia represented.  That Kennedy perceived this, and rejected Foster Dulles' approach to Saudi Arabia to obstruct Nasser, is really an incisive judgment on his part.  In fact, Nasser went to war with the Moslem Brotherhood, spear carriers for Saudi Arabia. And Saudi Arabia hated Nasser for that reason.

I think we all know what happened in the Middle East in 1979.  And today its the extremes that rule there--Likud and the Saudis.  And there is no one looking out for the Palestinians.  One last point, Nasser would have never signed off on the Camp David Accords, for that precise reason.  He was looking out for the Palestinians.

Edited October 26, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Nothing brings home how important Nasser was than this excerpt from a speech he made. I wanted to include this in the film. Please note in the cutaways to the audience, how the people are dressed.

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

As per Mike's comments about Prouty, I cannot believe he uses the ARRB ambush.  Apparently he does not keep up with the discoveries of Malcolm Blunt.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/fletcher-prouty-vs-the-arrb

Wow Mike, I don't know how you missed that one.  

 

BTW in her chapter on Laos and Vietnam, there is not one footnote from Prouty.  Talk about a drive by. Many of her footnotes are to the JFK Library and as I noted in my review, Jackie Kennedy's posthumous book, which I kind of dismissed but I guess I should not have.

Mike, the whole idea of criticism is you judge the entire work on what the author was trying to do.  Not two chapters on what you wanted the writer to do.

Her book takes almost every major aspect of JFK's presidency and evaluates it on what its goals  were and what was achieved.  And its not just foreign policy.  Her chapters on Kennedy's economic program are some of the best I have seen outside of Gibson.  She even brings in areas I had not known about like Kennedy and the environment and Kennedy and consumer rights.

I stand by what I said, its the best book in this category since Douglass.  We should all be glad of that in light of the likes of Dallek and Logevall. 

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Paul Brancato]

6 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Nothing brings home how important Nasser was than this excerpt from a speech he made. I wanted to include this in the film. Please not in the cutaways to the audience, how the people are dressed.

 

Incredible. 

[Paul Brancato]

I’ve downloaded the book. Has she written other books before? 

[James DiEugenio]

I agree its incredible.  I love the line about talking to the chief of the Brotherhood and saying, You cannot even get your daughter to wear the hajib and you want me to demand 11 million people do it?

Please note what is happening in  Iran over this right now.  That is how forward thinking Nasser was.

 

I don't think she has actually.  But I can tell you, she did a nice job if its the first time out.

[James DiEugenio]

Watch this video, and remember this is Hanoi, in the north.  Look at all the shops on this square and it was closed off so entertainment acts took take place. God, those brutal commies.

 

[James DiEugenio]

So I think the time has come to ask Mike--since he supported Nixon's bombs away police in Indochina, and he is clearly a staunch supporter of Israel--and especially after his attack on Joe M, are you a neocon?  Because that is not what JFK was.

 

Here is another one : remember Hanoi, not Saigon.

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Pete Mellor]

23 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

I'm concerned about the apparent anti-Israeli bias and one-sidedness in Wiesak's comments about the Israeli-Palestinian issue. She chose not to mention the fact that the Jews accepted the 1947 UN partition plan for Palestine but that the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors rejected it and instead tried to annihilate the Jews.

Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and activist.  He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the university's European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies.  Pappé was born in Haifa, Israel. Prior to coming to the UK, he was a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa (1984–2007) and chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies in Haifa (2000–2008).  Some years back I read his 2006 publication 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'.

 Pappé is one of Israel's 'New Historians' who, since the release of pertinent British and Israeli government documents in the early 1980s, have offered an unconventional view of Israel's creation in 1948, and the corresponding expulsion or flight of 700,000 Palestinians in the same year. He has written that the expulsions were not decided on an ad hoc basis, as other historians have argued, but constituted the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in accordance with Plan Dalet, drawn up in 1947 by Israel's future leaders. His book chronicles the destruction of Palestinian villages and farms beginning in 1947 by Ben Gurion's terrorist group and the murders of thousands of Palestinian unarmed and innocent males.  He blames the creation of Israel for the lack of peace in the Middle East, arguing that Zionism is more dangerous than Islamic militancy.  He has also called for a boycott of Israeli academics, for which he received death threats.

[Guest]

17 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Nothing brings home how important Nasser was than this excerpt from a speech he made. I wanted to include this in the film. Please note in the cutaways to the audience, how the people are dressed.

 

Charismatic. 

[Michael Griffith]

22 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Mike, one cannot judge a book by reading two chapters.  But let me comment on what you said.

The remarkable aspect of Kennedy's policy in the Middle East was that he stood by the Johnson Plan, UN Resolution 194, during his entire presidency.  Even after Joseph Johnson had decided to throw in the towel.  And, in fact,  even I thought that Kennedy had given up on it.  According to Monika, he did not.

For those who do not know, the Johnson Plan was a way of settling the refugees from the Nakba. Does wanting to settle hundred of thousands of homeless people mean you are anti-Israel? No it does not.  But that is how far American policy in the area has gone from what Kennedy was trying to do.  The other things that Kennedy was trying to do there were to set up a relationship with Nasser, and stop  nuclear proliferation, which he suspected Israel was lying to him about concerning Dimona.  Which they were.  So is being anti proliferation, is that also being anti Israel?

Concerning Nasser, this is so visionary of JFK,  I give him all the credit I can for it.  It was as smart as getting out of Vietnam.   Why?  Because Nasser was probably the last great hope for a Pan Arab movement that was not Moslem fundamentalist. Nasser was both a secularist and a socialist.  As writer Robert Dreyfuss said in his book Devil's Game--a valuable book--Nasser was the last opportunity America had of  developing a relationship that would grow and prosper that would look to the future and not the past in that area--and the past is what Saudi Arabia represented.  That Kennedy perceived this, and rejected Foster Dulles' approach to Saudi Arabia to obstruct Nasser, is really an incisive judgment on his part.  In fact, Nasser went to war with the Moslem Brotherhood, spear carriers for Saudi Arabia. And Saudi Arabia hated Nasser for that reason.

I think we all know what happened in the Middle East in 1979.  And today its the extremes that rule there--Likud and the Saudis.  And there is no one looking out for the Palestinians.  One last point, Nasser would have never signed off on the Camp David Accords, for that precise reason.  He was looking out for the Palestinians.

Many people will, unfortunately, judge a book by reading a single chapter, much less two chapters, if that chapter cites and quotes a fringe, discredited fraud who has made crazy claims. 

You appear to have misread my comments about Wiesak's statements on the Arab-Israeli conflict as saying that JFK was anti-Israeli. No, I do not believe that JFK was anti-Israeli. But, Wiesak seems to harbor an anti-Israeli bias. Since she is an ultra-liberal, this is not shocking, since an increasing number of radical liberals are turning against Israel and, incredibly and shamefully, are painting Israeli Jews as the aggressors and the Palestinians as the victims. 

I was an Arabic and Hebrew linguist in the military; I have lived in Israel; and I have been researching the Arab-Israeli conflict for nearly 40 years. 

As you have done in your research on the Vietnam War, you appear to have gotten most of your information on the Arab-Israeli issue from extremist, unreliable sources.

The only way anyone can paint Israel as the aggressor and the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors as the victims is to ignore a massive body of facts. Nearly all liberal Democrats used to strongly support Israel because Israel bent over backward to try to live peacefully with her hostile Arab neighbors. Most Democrats still do support Israel, because Israel has never stopped making every reasonable effort to achieve peace with her neighbors, but as the liberal wing of the Democratic Party has become increasingly nutty and rabid, a growing minority of liberals have become anti-Israeli. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Michael Griffith