That is an embellishment. They were trying to argue for a policy change on the part of the US government, and used partisan invective and generalization to make the argument.

They adopted an intentionally and opportunistically contreversial title that fostered a culture of malevolent stereotypes among the majority of commentators that never read a word of it.

What do you read Phil?

Have you read any Israeli/Palestinian histories that you found particularly informative and insightful?

One VALID criticism of Walt/Mearsheimer is that their knowledge of history, even recent, of the region was negligent.

Maybe that is relevant to the very limited scope of relationship between the US and Israel that they were commenting on, but it does NOT add up to a principled complete basis of analysis.

The relationship between the US and Israel is more comprehensive than security, or geo-political strategy.

What specific changes in Israeli policy and practise, do you think would result in a qualitative change for the better?

What conditions would be necessary for those changes to be feasible?

To make those changes, do you think they will occur primarily from Israeli/Jewish initiated study and reflection, or by things like boycott?

Get the hell out of the occupied territories.

"What conditions would be necessary for those changes to be feasible?"

Israel already has them; nukes and the lone superpower support, both economically and by arming.

Chicken and egg? Israel is the interloper in the region, not the natives. What did the native Indian have to do with the Puritan reason for coming to America? The least they can do is start out honest now–

Could you imagine that both W/M's book and paper was triggered by a concern? A concern that the same forces who already had pushed the US into the war against Iraq, were beating the war drums again [e.g. Mr. Faster Please,Ledeen]for the next war against he the next "shitty little country"? [Syria, Iran ...]

Do you think the US should fight many wars against many ME countries to defend its interests there?

And last but not least: What are your favorite authors on the ME conflict?

I also like the thesis of Benny Morris' Righteous Victims.

I think boycott and other externally forced "solutions" will do the OPPOSSITE of reconciliation. They will inflame, as boycotts are a form of collective punishment.

They are not gentle and also do not force a distinction between those that are unconditionally opposed to Jewish self-governance in Israel/Palestine, and those that are conditionally motivated.

The concept of interloper is an odd one to me. In a democracy, immigrants are accepted. They are known to immigrate for good reasons, even if they are not the "original" population.

While it is reasonable to say that the Palestinian people were there first, they experienced a great deal of migration in same century that Zionism emerged, and independantly from Zionism.

Big changes were happening in the world from the early 20th century to the present.

1. Ottoman Turkey imposed a land titling requirement on all land, that theoretically displace ALL fellahin.

2. WW1 and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire

3. Sykes-Picot and the European post-war imperialism

4. Appearance of the global marketplace, creating an international market for Palestinian agricultural products in particular, that changed land use for larger commercial farms, and changed the agricultural economy of the region.

5. Large global scale population increases, including in Palestine, resulting in forced relocations of MANY, including Jews.

It is quaint to say "what did the Palestinians do to deserve what occurred?"

They didn't.

But, its cruelly unrealistic to blame ANY other people for the social change of the 20th century, including those forced to migrate. Anyone that migrates must migrate somewhere. And there is always an indigenous (or those that claim to be).

In yesterday's International Herald Tribune (also in the NYT) there was an op-ed column by Roger Cohen critizising the attacks on Obama:

'He is not pro-Israel enough. He is a covert Islamist: his middle name is "Hussein". He attended a Muslim school in Indonesia. He has former Jimmy Carter adviser Brzezinski (who is cool on Israel) on his foreign policy team etc.'- All this emerging from the 'concerned' Jewish American-Israeli lobby.

The column's last sentence was:"Backing Israel is not enough if the backing gives carte blanche for the subjugation of another people."
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On Roger Cohen's blog link to iht.com
there was a comment by a guy named Richard Weissfeld from Encino,Cal who said to Roger:

"First of all, keep out of this goyum, this is among us Jews."

To which someone by the name of Cynthia responded:

"With respect to the gentleman who wants the “goyum” to stay out of it: as long as this is seen as a U.S. foreign policy issue and taxpayers´ money is being spent on this issue, then it is indeed an issue for us goyim. You live in the U.S. sir, and not in Isreal."

He believes that Jews have the right to plunder and kill non-Jews with impunity.

We should really be talking about what the Israel Lobby really is and how much harm it is doing to the USA.

For this reason I wrote "The Israel Lobby and American Society" ( link to members.aol.com
) and ignored the question of Palestine except for the initial introduction.

It was never about migration.

Witty is just trying to baffle us with bullshit.

Arab nationalists met with Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders shortly after Hitler took power and were completely baffled that he was unwilling to trade the goal of making Palestine a Jewish state for open immigration of Jews throughout the Arab world (destinations proposed were Egypt, Syria and Iraq).

Shakib Arslan believed that Ben-Gurion was insane. He never conceived that Ben-Gurion saw the persecution of Jews by German Nazis as something that would so increase sympathy for Jews that no one would challenge a theft of Palestine from the native population.

That's the only place were I can find anything about blessed Zimmerling.

Zero: link to google.de

But since I just finished all of Avi Shlaim, I could lay my hands on, I may as well read Morris.

But what do you think: Should Iran be nuked? So they have no chance to even threaten to nuke anybody ever?

I am gone for a week.

In Witty's logic and moral universe we should all have a 'right of return' to Tansania/South East Africa – that's where we all come from; black, white, Jews, Kurds or Swedes.
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But wait, Jewish logic and ethics cannot be universalized – trying to do so is like trying to square a circle. Phil Weiss tries once in a while to universalize Judaism. But it's a Sisyphus work: the stone you are rolling uphill always rolls down again.