What follows is another guest column from Tom Mitchell. As he notes in the first line, those who advocate a single, “secular” binational state in what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories often cite Northern Ireland and South Africa as examples of countries that resolved deep-seated ethnic conflicts and forged one, common nation. He […]
Palestinians
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 […]
Ameinu forces us to confront the realities of occupation
Ameinu is showing clips from a video documentary that got a lot of attention in Israel in 2005 and deserves to get even more attention now. For two years, Haim Yavin, the venerable Israeli anchor for the government-run Channel 1 TV, roamed the territories with a simple video camera, talked to Jewish settlers, soldiers, Palestinians, […]
Newsflash: AIPAC (probably) isn’t pushing for an attack on Iran
I have read even more drivel than usual about AIPAC in the blogosphere these days, and thought I would explain a few things to those who have never attended an AIPAC Policy Conference. First of all, AIPAC does not appear to be trying to prod the U.S. to bomb Iran. If it is, I have […]
Obama, AIPAC and why we need a Middle East peace lobby
Barack Obama had 7,000+ American Jews and non-Jewish friends of Israel eating out of his hand at the AIPAC Policy Conference yesterday morning. There was no political reason for him to disappoint Palestinians, the Arab world and the pro-Israel left by stating his commitment to an “undivided” Jerusalem. I have the highest hopes for this […]
Will the next generation figure out how to deal with the “Right of Return?”
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; […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Aaron David Miller: The pro-Israel community has won, so stop “geshraying” already
Aaron David Miller has a stirring piece in the LA Times that deserves to be quoted in full. A note on my headline:”geshray” is Yiddish for “wail.” Other than that, believe it or not (is everyone sitting down? Get ready…), I have nothing to add! Nothing more needs to be said, as far as I’m […]