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Poll: Growing majority of Americans oppose new Israeli settlement construction

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

Just in time for this weekend’s AIPAC conference and the Netanyahu-Obama meeting on May 18th, a new poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org indicates that three-quarters of Americans think that Israel should not build settlements in the Palestinian territories. This is up 23 points from when this question was last asked in 2002. One third of Americans show [...]

The Egos at AIPAC

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

In the official indictment of ex-AIPACers Steven Rosen and Keith Weisman and their Pentagon contact Larry Franklin, there is a tidbit that hints at the role of egos and self-aggrandizement in the lobby’s day-to-day activities. This topic is related to something I discuss in my book, which conveys how AIPAC and the conventional Israel lobby [...]

J Street poll: for some American Jews, “evenhandedness” doesn’t go far enough

Friday, March 27th, 2009

There has been much ado about the latest J Street poll of American Jews. The most important finding, as noted in the survey analysis, is that “Jews want America to be much more aggressive in its Middle East peace efforts than it is today.” 87% of respondents said they supported the United States playing an [...]

Two myths about Charles Freeman and the Israel lobby

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

I’ve patiently tried to dissect who was responsible for the Charles Freeman fiasco and to discern what it portends for the Obama administration. Some commentary on the commentary: Myth #1: The “Israel lobby” and AIPAC per se were not behind the opposition to Freeman; it was just a bunch of loud neocons. AIPAC has publicly [...]

Time for shameless self-promotion: advance blurbs on my book

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

Here are some advance reviews. Pretty cool, huh? “This is a brilliant study of two intriguing contradictions pertaining to the story of America’s Israel lobby. One is the contradiction between the reality and limits of Jewish power, on the one hand, and the popular perception of that power, on the other. Another has to do [...]

Glimmers of hope for a sane American Middle East policy

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

After the carnage of the last few weeks, there are many compelling reasons to give up hope for an enduring peace settlement between Palestinians and Israelis. But there are shards of hope to be found in the Obama administration. Assuming, as I do, that a fair, evenhanded American approach to both conflict management and more [...]

“Emergency! Emergency! U.S. caves in at the U.N.”!

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

MJ Rosenberg writes, somewhat gleefully, that “AIPAC is furious with George Bush for not vetoing Security Council Resolution 1860 which calls for an immediate ceasefire. After almost eight years, the Bush administration has decided not to stand with Israel against an otherwise unanimous resolution.” The AIPAC statement notes: AIPAC…expresses its disappointment with the U.S. administration [...]

Philip Weiss attacks J Street. Why he’s wrong.

Friday, July 25th, 2008

Philip Weiss and I have been communicating after he attacked J Street on MondoWeiss. A good many issues were broached, but one of his arguments is that J Street ought to be appealing to a much broader constituency than American Jews who feel some attachment to Israel. Some of his acolytes, true to form, said [...]

Ackerman, Pence Deny Calling for Iran Blockade

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

The plot thickens. Politico’s John Bresnahan reports that: Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.) have issued a letter today stating that a non-binding resolution they offered on Iran does not call for a military action against that country… …While the resolution (I repeat, non-binding) also includes a specific denial that it authorizes use [...]

Parsi: Israel would benefit from U.S. accommodation with Iran

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

Here is a bit of sanity and reason from Trita Parsi. It has been excerpted here and there, but the only way to do it justice is to cut and paste the entire piece from Foreign Policy. As I’ve noted before, there are perhaps 50 people in the world who have a sufficiently detailed understanding [...]

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