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; […]
Author: Dan Fleshler
Guest review of Aaron David Miller’s book
First, another apology for not posting more than once a week. It’s likely that this will be the pattern until I finish my book about the Israel lobby. It is not adaptable to other media, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping Angelina Jolie will play my wife Lisa in the movie. Anthony Hopkins would […]
Carter was, and is, “Good for the Jews”
Before his controversial book used the “A-word” (apartheid), I never understood the reflexive, visceral hostility harbored for Jimmy Carter in the mainstream American Jewish community. He made a good many political mistakes early in his admnistration, using code words like “Palestinian homeland” and almost casually intimating that the U.S. and Israel should deal with the […]
Don’t just sit there and complain about American policy. Help J Street
At 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 […]
Lessons for Israel from antebellum America: Guest column #3
What follows is the third in a series comparing Israel past and present with other nations that had internal conflicts. It is by Realistic Dove Resident Scholar Tom Mitchell (I don’t actually know where he lives and we’ve never met in person, but I am sure he will be honored by the designation). For those […]
Free Marwan Barghouti?
What 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 […]
What lessons can be learned from Northern Ireland?
Below is the second column by Tom Mitchell. I have always told myself that the main “lesson” that can be learned from Northern Ireland is that violent, longstanding and seemingly intractable ethnic or religious conflicts eventually can be solved. It has been a source of hope. I am not sure if Tom agrees with that […]
Is Israel a settler colony like South Africa?: A guest column
This blog is fortunate to get regular contributions from Tom Mitchell, a scholar who has carefully analyzed the similarities and differences between Israel, South Africa and Northern Ireland. He sent me a summary of a longer article. I thought I would publish it, as people on the far left often claim that there is little […]
Why most checkpoints are unnecessary: a primer
When my previous post about the checkpoint at Sheikh Sa’eb was published in July, in slightly different form, I received an angry email from a friend of a friend. An excerpt: “If the IDF says we need all of them [the checkpoints], who are you to say they’re wrong? Where do you get off giving […]
Revisiting a checkpoint, and an unexpected message
The Jerusalem Post notes that Ala Abu Dhaim, the gunman who shot up the Merkaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem: …did not meet the typical profile of Palestinian attackers, police said. “He is not known to the security forces,” Jerusalem Police Chief Cmdr. Aharon Franco told Channel 2. “He was a normal man … who was […]