This past Thursday, I was on the Riz Kahn show on Al Jazeera English. along with Mitchell Barak, CEO of Keevoon, a polling firm. The more I do these media gigs, the more I understand the impossibility of commenting on the Middle East, American foreign policy and American Jews without offending someone. In this case, […]
American Jews
Poll: Many Israelis want American Jews to be “critical friends”
Do Israelis think American Jews should support Israel by sticking to the Israeli government’s positions? The answer is “a decisive `No,”’ writes pollster Dahlia Scheindlin in the Jerusalem Report (June 8, 2009), describing a May 12th survey. This question is still a controversial one within (parts of) the American Jewish community, which has not yet […]
Which Israelis should we believe on the Iranian bomb?
There are probably 25 people in the world who have enough information and experience to gauge the likelihood that Iran will develop a nuclear bomb, and –if it is intent on nuclear weapons– when the warheads will be ready. I’m certainly not one of them. Neither are the leaders of all the American Jewish groups […]
Dan Fleshler, without his glasses, on Press TV…
Before the Iranian elections, I was interviewed for a show called “The Autograph” on Press TV, the Iranian English language network. It focused on me and is about 20 minutes long. You can find the link to the network archive here. Then click on “Autograph” and you’ll find the interview with Dan Fleshler. It was […]
What else Netanyahu needs to know about Obama
The following op-ed just went on-line and will be in Friday’s Haaretz. I’ve been waiting about 25 years to be able write something like this and actually believe it. Something else Netanyahu should know By Dan Flesher Even before President Barack Obama’s Cairo speech last week, there were reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and […]
Jeffrey Goldberg breaks major taboo: says interests of U.S. and Israel might diverge
There is a ridiculous canard that American Jews who speak out against Israel are “courageous.” These days, it requires no bravery to say almost anything you want to say about Israel in a public forum (unless, of course, you are a politician, or an official in a mainstream Jewish organization). But what Jeffrey Goldberg just […]
New, shameless self-promotion: review of my book in “Zeek”
Zeek, the magazine for literate, cultured, youngish, freethinking Jews just published a glowing review of Transforming America’s Israel Lobby. The reviewer is “Moshe Yaroni,” the pseudonym for someone who is clearly very astute. Some excerpts: This is a book that should have been written many years ago. It is full of insight into the major […]
“Tough love†for Israel will be tough on the pro-Israel peace camp
A new Zogby International poll shows that 71 percent of Obama backers think the United States should “get tough with Israel” in order to stop settlement expansion, while 26 percent of McCain supporters feel that way. 80 percent of likely Obama voters also agreed with the statement, “It’s time for the United States to get […]
Helping “our fellow Jews and our fellow humans, the Palestinians”
The daughter of some friends wrote the following on her Bat Mitzvah program. It has the ring of something a very smart, self-aware 13-year-old would write, rather than a presentation that has been sanitized and edited by grown-ups. That is why I find it moving: I am going to donate 10% of the money I […]
The best post by MJ Rosenberg…ever
The latest “IPFriday” from MJ Rosenberg was obviously written in a kind of white heat. It is engagingly furious about the “Status Quo Lobby.” Nobody does fury better than MJ. Here he is on Eric Cantor’s speech at the AIPAC Policy Conference: The crowd adored Cantor who managed to invoke the Holocaust, gas chambers, and […]