Jonathan Chait writes in the New Republic:
Israel's supporters do have a distressing tendency to define their
position in maximalist terms. Witness the absurd controversy that
surrounded Barack Obama's banal observation last year that "nobody has
suffered more than the Palestinians."
My question is, Where was Chait or the New Republic when this absurd controversy was unfolding? On the wrong side, that's where. Which is to say: this was not an absurd controversy. It was a deadly serious controversy over Obama's position on the Middle East that everyone in my community watched with horror. Obama made the comment to a movement person, Sue Dravis of Iowa, and was then forced to swallow his words. Obama would not have been forced to swallow his words if more liberal Jews had behaved like M.J. Rosenberg, Michael Ratner, David Bromwich, and Dan Fleshler, men who have repeatedly injected notes of pro-Palestinian conscience into the Democratic community. But no, most liberal Jews are upset by this sort of statement, and lo, Obama's people quickly issued a retraction of what Chait calls a banal observation.
Such was the deadly serious business of constituency politics as Obama competed with Clinton for the Democratic base.
Chait is right to criticize the Israel lobby for its "maximalist" position. But who's he talking about? His own shop. If the New Republic had said one word to give Obama cover on this position, it would have been huge. They didn't. The fact that Chait is now poohpoohing the controversy as absurd and Obama's statement as ho-hum is a reflection of 1, how much the discourse has changed (hosanna) so that Palestinian suffering can at last be somewhat addressed in our politics, even for the readers of the New Republic; 2, the fact that in the wake of Gaza, Chait has no idea where to stand personally here, so he's covering all the angles. The political word for that behavior is weaseling.
(N.B. I haven't read all of Chait's ouevre. Who has time. If I've missed something, any crumbs thrown in the Palestinians' direction before Gaza dropped the scales from Americans' eyes, please inform. I doubt it; but I will happily amend. –Phil Weiss)
