Norman Podhoretz

Overview:

Norman Podhoretz is a Jewish American neoconservative thinker and editor. He is currently a writer for the Commentary magazine which was established by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. Like other Zionist neoconservatives in the US, Podhoretz unconditionally supports Israel, peddling misinformation and supporting policies that advance Israeli interests.

In short, Podhoretz belongs to a past generation of once influential neoconservatives which successfully pushed Washington to intervene in long Middle East wars that were thought to greatly benefit Israel.

It is worth noting that Podhoretz’s wife, Midge Decter, was a pro-Israel journalist. Podhoretz’s stepdaughter, Rachelm, married another infamous neoconservative, Eliot Abrams.¹

Cheering for War in the Middle East

Podhoretz has worked for neoconservative think tanks such as the Hudson Institute and was awarded by former US President George W. Bush for his “services”² justifying the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq (a regional menace to Israel at the time). Podhoretz worked for another neocon think tank called the Project for the New American Century. He also advocated for war against Iraq in 1998 during Clinton’s presidency. In 1997, he signed the Statement of Principles in which he, alongside other warlike neocons such as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Elliot Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, etc, advocated for an increase in the US defense budget and intervention in the affairs of other countries, specifically in the Middle East.³ In 2002, he claimed that Iraq is a direct threat to the US and that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein must be forcefully overthrown.

Podhoretz has also been a fervent proponent of the US invasion of Iran.⁴ He believes that any diplomatic dialogue with Iran is similar to the Western appeasement of Adolf Hitler before WWII. He also believes that if the US does not attack Iran, Israel should do so otherwise. He believes the US should threaten Iran with nuclear weapons in order to contain a possibly nuclear-armed Iran.

Exaggerating the “Threat of Islam”

Podhoretz has written a book titled “World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism” in which he promotes the idea that political Islam is a “fascist” ideology threatening US national security and its interests. Such instances demonstrate where exaggeration of the “threat of Islam” against the US and the West works in Israel’s favor.

A “Guardian of Zion”

In 2007, Podhoretz received the Guardian of Zion Award from the Israeli Bar-Ilan University due to his services to Israel.

Racist Hypocrite

While zealously supporting the exclusively Jewish basis for Zion and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Podhoretz has called for the formation of a “color-blind” society in the US. In a controversial essay published in the Commentary magazine, he called for what he described – in his words- as “the wholesale merging” of white and “negro” races.⁵