Imagine the consternation among the career staffers at Israel’s foreign ministry after their new boss, Avigdor Lieberman, said that Israel was not bound by prior agreements and explicitly mentioned Annapolis. It was hard enough for them to adjust a few years ago, when Tzipe Livni started to sound more like a Peace Now activist, ca […]
Israel
Why not call Netanyahu’s bluff on “economic peace?”
Prime Minister Netanyahu still hasn’t given up on the idea of forging an “economic peace” with the Palestinians, Bloomberg reports. Last week, at a meeting in Washington, I heard Yossi Beilin tell some left-learning, pro-Israel American Jews that they –and the Israeli left– should take Netanyahu at his word. “If he wants economic peace, let’s […]
J Street poll: for some American Jews, “evenhandedness” doesn’t go far enough
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 […]
Jeffrey Goldberg laments the Jewish “Cossacks”
Jeffrey Goldberg appears to be the new punching bag of left-leaning bloggers and Walt/Mearsheimer realists who focus on Israel and the American Jewish community. After Goldberg opposed the Chas. Freeman nomination, my dear friend and fellow-traveller MJ Rosenberg (who wrote the Foreward to my breathlessly anticipated, long-awaited book) lumped Goldberg into the same category as […]
Americans for Peace Now breaks ranks again, thoughtfully
Americans for Peace Now has not gotten much attention for its recent, carefully reasoned call for a smarter U.S. policy towards Hamas. While condemning Hamas for “heinous attacks on civilians” and for denying Israel’s right to exist, it states a fact that is willfully denied by those who want to keep punishing and pummelling the […]
The inconvenient truth of two narratives
On Huffington Post, David Young offers a dialogue between an Israeli and a Palestinian, both of them composites (hat tip to Tom Mitchell). It’s a very useful summary of the current state of the two narratives. An excerpt: Avi:…We hated uprooting Gaza’s 8000 Jewish settlers; they spit on our own soldiers and called them Nazis. […]
Two myths about Charles Freeman and the Israel lobby
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 […]
Jewish-Muslim engagement on domestic issues isn’t enough
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs has adapted a resolution that, at first glance, warms the heart, according to the Forward. It proclaims: “Jewish and Muslim Americans…should work in coalition to advance our common commitment to civil liberties, the struggle against all forms of terrorism, racism, anti-Semitism (and) anti-Muslim prejudice,” the resolution declared. It also […]
Israeli experts to U.S.: Come up with a regional plan, ASAP
It’s conventional wisdom that due to the divided Palestinian polity and the lack of bold Israeli leadership and political will, not much can be done to advance a two-state solution, at least not in the foreseeable future. A panel of Israelis organized by Israel Policy Forum begs to differ. In a new policy paper, they […]
What I learned at the Museum of Tolerance
Yesterday, I visited the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles for the first time, accompanied by my uncle. Both of us were struck by what was conspicuously absent from the interactive exhibits that are meant to fight racism, hate speech, human rights violations and genocide. There was virtually nothing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict […]