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So just who are Obama’s Middle East advisors? Finally, some clarifications…

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

Clarifications –i.e., light, as opposed to heat– about Obama’s Middle East advisors are provided by Jack Levin, an Obama friend and campaign insider quoted in Gidon Remba’s Tough Dove Israel. Almost the exact same language can be found on a blog called The Sunny Side, which quotes Eric Lynn, who is on Obama’s staff.
Here […]

Sorry to disappoint you, conspiracy theorists: few Jewish voters are obsessed with Israel

Saturday, February 9th, 2008

A commentator with a brilliant nickname, “Agog,” was disturbed by the previous thread’s discussion of candidates’ positions on Israel. Agog asked: “Is that how you judge the merits of the respective candidates: who is best for Israel? Shouldn’t the criterion be who is best for the US? The two countries’ interests are not […]

Rob Malley: the Willy Horton of right wing Jewish nut jobs

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Unable to find anything in his past to prove that Barack Obama will sell Israel down the river, right wing bloggers in my community are now focusing on one of his Middle East advisors, Robert Malley. Malley served various roles in the Clinton Administration and was President Clinton’s special assistant during the Camp David […]

Read it and weep: The Peel Commission Report

Thursday, January 17th, 2008

Bitter Lemons offers the original summary of the Peel Commission Report from 1937, along with commentary from two Israelis and two Palestinians.
Everything that needs to be said about this conflict has already been said many times, during the last 100 years (including the preceding sentence, of course). Note the authors’ struggle to balance […]

For Zionists, the obsession with Jerusalem is a recent phenomenon

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations recently “reaffirmed its longstanding position that a united Jerusalem should remain the sovereign and eternal capital of Israel,” according to a JTA story. Some left-of-center groups were against it but they could not stem the tide. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in […]

Suddenly, the two-state chorus grows louder, more diverse

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

Something seems to be brewing out there, something new. I’ve been doing Middle East peace work, on and off, since the mid-1980s. I have never heard so many people from so many different corners of America defying right-wingers (and ultra-left-wingers) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and saying the same things at the same time.
What do a […]

Heartwarming holiday surprise: Philip Weiss praises liberal Zionists and Israel Policy Forum

Saturday, December 8th, 2007

In a post that recounts an Israel Policy Forum dinner that I also attended (hat tip to Richard Witty), Philip Weiss describes his joy at discovering what has been available for years, waiting for him to encounter it: a community of American Jews who care about Israel, who consider themselves part of the Israel […]

A diplomatic tool: the “freyer” factor

Monday, December 3rd, 2007

So just how much pressure can and should the U.S. apply to both Israelis and Palestinians after the Annapolis conference? The “P word” -pressure– still sends chills down the spines of too many mainstream American Jewish leaders, including those who know full well that, at times, Israeli Prime Ministers have desparately needed American pressure […]

An approach to the different “narratives”: Don’t let them prevent Arab-Jewish coalition-building

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

There is a remarkable essay by Hussein Ibish, a Palestinian American who is a Senior Fellow with the American Task Force On Palestine, on the ATFP’s web site.
Called “Sense, Nonsense and Strategy in the New Palestinian Political Landscape,” it allows us to eavesdrop on the internal Palestinian American conversation about what is to be done. […]

Rally for peace in Annapolis on Nov. 27th…

Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

A number of Jewiish peace groups are trying to cobble together a rally in Annapolis next week (11/27). As of now, they include Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, Meretz USA, Union of Progressive Zionists, Kesher ARZA, Habonim Dror and Hashomer Hatzair. One of the problems that haunts peace-seeking people is that, […]

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