A small point, but an important one.
Aaron David Miller mounts the usual strenuous defense of Rob Malley, who either is or is not an adviser to Obama (sorry can’t keep this straight):
Perhaps most offensive, several publications have run personal attacks on Malley because his father, in the 1960s, founded and edited a left-wing magazine called Afrique-Asie, which was friendly toward the Palestine Liberation Organization and other Third World movements.
But so what? These charges are ridiculous. There’s no question that Malley has been critical of certain Israeli actions and behavior (as have I)….[But] he is well-respected by Arabs and Israelis alike, and he believes deeply in the idea and the reality of Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign and secure Jewish state. He would never do anything to jeopardize that…
As for the mean-spirited guilt-by-association charges having to do with his family, Malley told the Forward, a Jewish newspaper, that while he loved and respected his father — who died in 2006 — he did not agree with him on everything.
Simon Malley wasn’t some crazy. He was a legend on the left. As Idrees Ahmad has pointed out to me, what does it say that a man who has intellectual ambition, Rob Malley, is forced to renounce the views of his father? George W. Bush doesn’t go around denouncing his father. Susan Sontag got stuff wrong, but do you hear David Rieff denouncing her? On this issue, there must be complete orthodoxy. Honor thy lobby.
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Having read Malley's analysis of the peace talks. His detractors show clearly their agendas. His was truth. Their's, propaganda. It's that simple. Go back and look.
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