I saw Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations on MSNBC last night
talking about foreign policy with Tom Brokaw and Obama adviser Susan Rice. The Israel/Palestine issue was the subtext of much of the
conversation. Rice said that Obama would not put off action on I/P till the
second term. Haass said that the U.S. finds itself increasingly alone in the
world and the U.S.'s "Achilles heel" is its Middle East policy–an apparent reference to Israel/Palestine.
This underscores my post of the other day that Zionism is an Establishment
value. No one here can tell the American people what the rest of the world knows, that
American policy is out of step. No one can blast the settlements. Only the
designated fringes are allowed to do so (even liberal Meretz can't do so). Jimmy Carter
and Walt and Mearsheimer were banished for saying, The policy is wrong. Earlier this year when I wrote about Zbig Brzezinski for the American Conservative, he hastened to point out to me afterward that he had never endorsed Walt and Mearsheimer's book (No, just their paper). Spineless. He is afraid of being sidelined, like Rob Malley. Being defunded.
Haass
can only say it is our Achilles heel, as if to say, This is part of us–Nakedness is an essential element of the Emperor's new clothes…Obama I think will change this.
