On Thursday at the University of Chicago, Norman Finkelstein, John Mearsheimer, and Ali Abunimah will talk about Gaza. What is remarkable about this is only that a realist, a Chomskyan and an Arab binational-state guy will be offering a range of (yes, highly-critical-of-Israel) views to a group gathered by the Muslim Students Association and Amnesty International. Aaron David Miller writes that Hamas is empowered by "the U.S. bias toward Israel." Steve Walt kicks off his Foreign Policy blog today with a challenge to Americans to imagine the Jews of Palestine as a hunted, stateless people. Conservative Andrew Sullivan is finding the Gaza slaughter unjust from a Catholic perspective at his blog (also at the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg condemns J Street for "blowing it" but though quoting Eric Yoffie seems very nervous about jumping on J Street himself). Juan Cole runs Lawrence Davidson's attack on the neocons as a "parochial" cabal, antiwar.com runs Michael Scheuer's attack on Israel-firsters, and at Huffpo, here's Max Blumenthal unloading on Israel's use of white phosphorus and its insanity in destroying the graduating class of the police academy and of "liquidate"-ing (Max's word, god bless him) Palestinian families–Israel "at its best."
Blumenthal says that the Israeli p.r. machine isn't working that well. Thing's are changing. There's an actual debate happening, in the margins mostly, and in the Democratic grassroots, but crowding in. Debate, debate at last! Blumenthal's analysis:
Members of the Democratic base thus stood in sharp contrast to most of their elected representatives (freshman Rep. Donna Edwards
is a notable exception), who backed the latest Israeli assault in
lockstep, and seem to support Israel no matter what it does. The rift
between the progressive base and the party played out on Barack Obama's
Change.gov site, which was deluged in recent days with demands for a statement condemning Israel's assault on Gaza.
So what accounts for the surprising trend in American opinion on
Gaza? The proliferation of progressive online media and social
networking sites could be a factor, but I have another theory: The same
pundits who are cheerleading Israel's assault on Gaza once sold the
occupation of Iraq to America, and with a nearly identical set of
arguments.
