I took a break from my day job to do a quick scan of the reactions to Obama’s speech in Cairo. The most instructive one thus far comes from Daniel Gordis of the Shalem Center, whose post can be found on the NY Times blog. There has been much talk of late about Obama’ desire […]
Israel
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 […]
Help wanted: Jr. editor, 3+ years pub. experience, track record of utterly mad conspiracy theories req.
Received the following email this evening from the gentleman who runs Ziopedia. I stumble upon gems from the coherent, seemingly lucid paranoid fringe all the time and don’t do much with them. But I have never seen a coherent, seemingly lucid, paranoid want ad before. There are many out-of-work editors and reporters out there. Perhaps […]
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 […]
A ray of hope: maybe Bibi has no principles
Under normal circumstances, we want the world’s leaders to have moral and ideological consistency and to know who they are. Perhaps, under current circumstances, it is better for Israel to be led by a man who doesn’t have the faintest idea of who he is and relies on others to define him. “Nothing has changed […]
Why neoconservatism is [almost] dead — Notes on the J Post review of my book
Initially, I was delighted to read Jonathan Schanzer’s vicious attack on my book in the Jerusalem Post. Until then, the few reviews out there had been been quite positive (See essays by Jerome Chanes, the History News Network’s Murray Polner, and Thomas Mitchell), and I was hoping and praying for controversy of some kind, as […]
Poll: many Israelis no longer accept a key part of the Zionist narrative
A surprising poll shows that many Israelis no longer agree with the most simplistic versions of the Zionist narrative. If the past is predictive, it will take about 5 years before it becomes respectable to air any of these opinions in much of the organized American Jewish community. But perhaps the “Diaspora lag” might not […]