Our current president implied a fundamental shift in US policy in accepting the settlement blocs as functionally annexed by Israel, and accepted.

Further, when asked to put the weight of US involvement into the negotiations, particularly over bi-lateral hurdles that required accountability to a third party to navigate, Bush's response was "just call me if you ever need me, we'll talk over lunch".

While in most cases, I would describe that as a catastrophe, in Bush's case I don't. He is so inept that if he were involved, he would entirely screw it up. Better that he stay out of it, and wait until a more skilled politician can assist.

The dilemma though, is that Israel/Palestine is such an external issue to president's, not a primary domestic or directly related US interest issue, that it usually gets deferred.

So, the Palestinians would likely then have to wait further, until their concerns reach the next presidents desk.

That's a big number considering the near total black out of any unfavorable coverage of the Jewish Lobby and groups and Israel's actions in the US media.
And says something too about the power of the net which is the only place Americans can follow jewish political actions and attitudes on Israel.

I have to say that over the past few years I have come to see Jews as a group more loyal to Israel than this country and think it is a problem for America.

However, I don't see this in the Jews that I personally know. That may be because the Jewish families in my community have been here a long time, pre WWI citizens at least and they are not surrounded by a large population of other Jews to influence their thinking on Jewishness and Israel. They didn't have a large group of other jews to tribalize with, so jewishness for them is solely a matter of religion, not Israel, politics or much of anything else.

Nevertheless, something has to be done about the right wing jewish neo cult in our government and foreign policy. It boggles my mind that that the rabid Israel activist don't get that everything they are doing and claiming they have a "right to do" in America becuase of their loyaly to Israel, is reinforcing all the old carnards about Jews being incapable of loyalty to the countries they live in and ect. All the reasons and excuses they offer as to why it is O.K. for them to do this are so delusional that the logic of why it is wrong doesn't pentrate their wall of self deception.

I was sent your entry by an alert reader of mine. I am an Israeli, so I can't really comment on your claims that the American "public square" refuses to speak of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Certainly the Israeli public square has dealt with it obsessively for almost two decades.

I'm writing only to correct your misreading. You must pay closer attention in the future.

You write that I explain Madison by saying "that lots of interests should contend in a democracy and there is nothing wrong with Jews bringing their interest to bear."

No. I quote Madison saying that nations which define a "general will" end up persecuting in its name – as Madison warned in Federalist 51, and as happened in the French Revolution. Madison's "multiplicity of interests" was to prevent the very existence of a majority will. It was the French Revolution – which killed in the name of "volonte generale" – that I was warning against.

"And the last time Jews were accused of such disloyalty, it ended badly. A blackmail, that: a reference to the Holocaust."

I didn't mention or allude to the Holocaust. I specifically noted the "other revolution" which I said was "simultaneous" to the American one. It's hard to miss the reference.

Madison, not I, gave the warning against the possibility that talk of "American interests" would stifle liberty even more than this alleged Jewish control of the media. As Madison warned, it is America – more than the minorities – that would suffer from demanding that minorities obey the "common interest."

Oh, contraire, Mr Rettig. A million Arabs and thousand of American and Brit service men dead is because a minority interest upsurped the Common good. American interests was upsurped by a minorities interests (or at least, the way they saw them) and as evidence "Defence of The Realm" (Whose realm, Mr Reetig? It was not ours). In 1998 PNAC designed the wars against Iraq, Iran and Syria. They got Iraq and that's where the common good is, entrenched in a bloody war that never was in the cause of the common good of my country nor it's people save One single minority. AIPAC should be registered as a foriegn interest lobby, PNAC, JINSA et al should be relocated to the country they serve, Israel.

Congress is for sale to the higest bidder, aided by The Fourth Estate when it comes to our Israeli policy. Current campaign finance laws don't work. Half of all funding of electoral campaigns on local, state, and federal level comes from a tiny fraction of the population. We need to arrange a system that sets up a blind trust so that all are free to financially support whom they wish to support but the recipient does not know who to thank with sly quid pro quo.

Meanwhile, back in the secular realm, let's take a closer look at this awesome piece of sophistry from the estimable Mr. Rettig:

"For over two hundred years, Jews have fared dramatically better under republics than autocracies, so it is no wonder they generally tend to support the growth of free societies … Second, they are, well, Jews. In defending Israel's right to exist, American Jews say they are pursuing the Jewish interest of providing safe haven to fellow Jews."

If Jews fare so well under republics such as the U.S., why then do they simultaneously need to provide a 'safe haven' to fellow Jews — in particular, to fellow American Jews who constitute some of the more hardcore, bellicose settlers?

Oy, the goyim would have to be ox-stupid to swallow this self-contradictory line of nonsense. By the way, has the J. Post endorsed a presidential candidate yet? I always like to take my cues from presumptuous foreigners!

BTW, the "safe haven" argument loses cogency when two-thirds of the world's Jews refuse to live there. And the share in Israel is declining. Demographically as well as morally, Zionism is a failure.

The only question is how much more suffering will be inflicted on the world before it ends.

Throughout the conversation, this man seemed to show absolutely no cognizance of the ludicrousness of the US, this bankrupt, quasi "third world country", giving vast sums of money each year to a country, that by his own account, has a superior health care system and a superior infrastructure. In fact, whenever he could, this man kept reminding me about how Israel was surrounded by hostile implacable enemies, how he had been a pilot during the 1973 war and had bombed Syria (according to him, his days as a pilot were the happiest days of his life), how Osama bin Laden wanted to take back Spain and Southern Italy, how the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was infinitely complex. Throughout this, I patiently listened, but because I gave no indication that I agreed with any of his propaganda, I guess he finally decided to shut up. My only comment was to joke about how, perhaps Israel should be giving aid to the poorer parts of this country. Needless to say, he didn't find that very funny.

A side note: One thing I found noteworthy is that he seemed to be very critical of how the US had let in so many immigrants recently– his main concern about Dallas, for example, was that in contrast to the last time he had been there, which was 20 years earlier, Dallas had become an "immigrant city" (by which I took him to mean a Latino immigrant city). This was of interest to me, given how Phil and others on this blog have drawn attention to the Lobby's early support for the 1965 immigration act, which opened the doors to Latin American. Interesting that the Israeli view of recent immigration to the US may be very different from the American Jewish perspective on immigration.