ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with statements by J. S. Mill and George Orwell about the role of intellectuals and their ideas in politics. Intellectuals in many countries have adopted the motto, "the other country, right or wrong", and worked mightily to undermine national confidence in their country's heritage, founding principles, raison d'etre. Israeli intellectuals who were willing to express, especially in dramatic hyperbole, criticism of their own country's alleged racism, imperialism, and religious fanaticism quickly became celebrities in the American press. Anecdotal evidence of the increasingly shrill anti-Israelism (or worse) of Israeli intellectuals is only too easy to amass. Among the American liberal supporters of Israel's intellectual elite, only the New Republic appeared somewhat chastened by the election result. The Jewish State is a broadside aimed at the Israelis who, in what its author calls "a carnival of self-loathing", are busily eating away at the Jewish foundations of that state.
