Middle East peace process
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Will the next generation figure out how to deal with the “Right of Return?”
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
Last Monday evening, I decided not to give up hope for peace in the Middle East. Every honest person involved in this issue needs to consciously make that decision from time to time, even when there is almost no rational basis for hope. The Italian communist, Antonio Gramsci, famously wrote of “pessimism of the spirit; […]
Don’t just sit there and complain about American policy. Help J Street
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008At long last, the urgently-needed “J Street” project has been officially launched. It has generated a great deal of media attention, much of it positive, but the most important story by far was in yesterday’s Washington Post:
Some of the country’s most prominent Jewish liberals are forming a political action committee and lobbying group aimed at […]
Free Marwan Barghouti?
Thursday, April 10th, 2008What are the mainstream American Jewish organizations going to say if Israel releases a convicted murderer who is one of the Palestinians’ most powerful advocates of peace and a two-state solution?
o–Haaretz reports that:
“Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer on Saturday said that if Israel were interested in achieving peace, it had no choice but to […]
Will Obama, Clinton or McCain make Israel-Palestine a priority on Day 1?
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008To gauge what the presidential candidates might do about the ongoing Arab-Israeli nightmare, one has to make inferences based on inflections, hints, nuances and tea leaves. What they or their campaign staffers say now is at least as important as the identity of 4 or 5 of the many “foreign policy advisors” who have […]
Where are all of Clinton’s “dovish” Jewish supporters?
Thursday, February 28th, 2008Newsweek now tells us that it is not only right wing, so-called “pro-Israel” agitators and Republicans who are hopping on the “Obama- is-bad-for-the Jews” bandwagon, it is also Swiftboaters in the Clinton campaign:
“Clinton campaign operatives have sent around negative material about Obama’s relations with Israel, according to e-mails obtained by NEWSWEEK. In addition to Brzezinski, […]
The smears against Rob Malley continue, but former U.S. officials rise to his defense
Thursday, February 14th, 2008James Besser has a balanced and informative piece on the ongoing Rob Malley fracas in New York Jewish Week. Among other things, we learn that the offensive smear campaign against Malley and, by extension, Obama has not abated: “In the days leading up to this week’s Democratic primary in Maryland, Jewish voters in Baltimore […]
Correction on Malley’s role, and a cyber-dilemma
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008I was so mortified by the bile that prompted the previous post that I somehow missed a clarification in Politico. This is why they invented newpaper editors and why the blogosphere is out of control:
An Obama spokesman, Tommy Vietor, says, “Rob Malley has no day-to-day advisory role in the Obama campaign. He is among many […]
Rob Malley: the Willy Horton of right wing Jewish nut jobs
Friday, February 1st, 2008Unable 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 […]
AB Yehoshua wants U.S. pressure and denounces the Israel lobby: Anything new here?
Monday, January 21st, 2008Richard Silverstein’s Tikun Olam notes that Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua called for removing the U.S. ambassador to Israel and attacked America’s Israel lobby. But he missed a few nuances. I might be the only one in the universe who cares about these nuances, as they touch upon some of the work I’ve tried to […]
On Howard Dean and the third rail of American politics
Thursday, January 10th, 2008Justin Elliot, in Mother Jones, searched the transcripts of the past 11 presidential debates to see how often the situation in Gaza or the larger issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict came up. (Hat tip to Phil Weiss for noticing this one). The skinny:
In nine of the 11 debates, the terms Israel, Palestinians, […]