No doubt Ethan Bronner will be attacked by both the Israel-can-do-no-right crowd and their ideological adversaries for his wonderful piece in today’s NY Times, which conveys the impossibility of covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without offending someone. No doubt the attacks on him will prove his point: Trying to tell the story so that both sides […]
J Street
Glimmers of hope for a sane American Middle East policy
After the carnage of the last few weeks, there are many compelling reasons to give up hope for an enduring peace settlement between Palestinians and Israelis. But there are shards of hope to be found in the Obama administration. Assuming, as I do, that a fair, evenhanded American approach to both conflict management and more […]
Philip Weiss picks the wrong enemies
In a recent post, Philip Weiss denounces Americans for Peace Now and J Street for “equivocating” about the assault on Gaza. He believes they have not been emphatic enough in their opposition to Israel’s behavior because they have not come down hard enough against Palestinian civilian casualties. His conclusion: “It is very difficult, nigh impossible, […]
The Israeli spin machine is sputtering
The carnage in the Gaza Strip has shaken me out of my blogger’s hibernation. The best response, thus far, comes from Gideon Levy in Haaretz: Once again, Israel’s violent responses…exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom…Israel did not exhaust the diplomatic processes before embarking yesterday on another […]
Peace Now: While Hebron was heating up, settlers created new facts in Jerusalem
The best, most original summary of important developments in Israel, the territories and the rest of the region is the “Middle East Peace Report,” which is created every few weeks by Noam Shalef of Americans for Peace Now. The latest issue isn’t posted on the APN website yet but you should be able to find […]
Philip Weiss attacks J Street. Why he’s wrong.
Philip Weiss and I have been communicating after he attacked J Street on MondoWeiss. A good many issues were broached, but one of his arguments is that J Street ought to be appealing to a much broader constituency than American Jews who feel some attachment to Israel. Some of his acolytes, true to form, said […]
From Rabbi Don Quixote: Why the new Middle East peace lobby has a chance
The scoffers are coming out of the woodwork. After all the hoopla over the new J Street project, in separate conversations, two friends have expressed skepticism about the Jewish peace camp’s ability to offer more than token resistance to AIPAC’s lobbying juggernaut. AIPAC has 100,000 members and its operating budget is somewhere between $40-50 million. […]