MJ Rosenberg has a typically smart piece on TPM arguing that Obama is actually going to bring Netanyahu to his knees, that the lobby doesn't have the ability to buck a popular American president.
As for the lobby, it will not go head-to-head against this president. It won't because it doesn't like losing any more than it likes losing access to the halls of power. As for the Democratic majority in Congress, with the exception of a few House members who are to the right of Likud, they will stick with the president who gave their party its first electoral landslide since 1964.
In short, Barack Obama is uniquely positioned to achieve two states for two peoples. It's now or never. And if it's never, we will see the "one state solution" instead. That one state won't be called Israel.
One thing I like about Rosenberg's piece is that he is not all that sentimental about the Zionist dream of Israel. A man who has thrown himself into support for a better Israel since his college days in the late 60s, Rosenberg refers at one point to the possible end of the "Zionist enterprise," due to the ballot box, and doesn't go crazy against the idea--though he obviously wants to preserve the Jewish state.
Jeff Blankfort passed along the Rosenberg piece, and, surprisingly, Blankfort, who has chronicled the lobby's power for years, agrees that the lobby has lost influence due to Israel's pariah status.
When AIPAC barely lost the AWACs battle with Reagan in 1981, in which Reagan was forced to expend virtually all his political capital, it enhanced AIPAC's reputation in Congress, and Reagan did not choose to pick another fight with it while he remained in office. With the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, supposedly with a green or at least orange light from SecofState Al Haig, the media images of Israel's bombing of civilian targets and press reports were so negative that all sections of the organized Jewish community were mobilized to perform "damage control." CAMERA came into being and more emphasis was focused on building grass roots networks that could put pressure on local media and politicians to toe the pro-Israel line.
Re Obama and the settlements, I think it has become quite clear in Washington, apart from Congress, that Israel is veering dangerously out of control and could bring disaster to US interests in the region and around the world. It cannot be argued in any rational manner that support for Israel serves US strategic interests but it wan't necessary that people believed it was as long as it was not a direct threat to those interests which, I am convinced, the wiser heads in the White House, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies now conceive it to be. I don't think Emanuel,while a Zionist, is either a fool or a zealot, and perhaps, ironically, he will give Obama the cover to resist Netanyahu and the lobby. I say, perhaps, which is the optimistic view, and then again, I wonder exactly what kind of Palestinian state Obama has in mind.
As always, we can wonder what kind of Palestinian state that MJ Rosenberg has in mind. One in complete control of pre-1967 East Jerusalem, with all the jewish settlers removed? MJ likes his jewish colonialism too.
RE: "…and then again, I wonder exactly what kind of Palestinian state Obama has in mind." SEE: "Israel has secret plan to thwart division of Jerusalem", By Akiva Eldar, "Haaretz", 05/10/09 The government and settler organizations are working to surround the Old City of Jerusalem with nine national parks, pathways and sites, drastically altering the status quo in the city. The secret plan was assigned to the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA). In a report presented to former prime minister Ehud Olmert on September 11 last year, the JDA described the purpose of the project as "to create a sequence of parks surrounding the Old City," all in the aspiration "to strengthen Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel." The program, sponsored by the Prime Minister's Office and the mayor of Jerusalem, is secret and did not engage in any form of public discussion… ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1084402.html
Rosenberg gets it really wrong on GHW Bush and the Lobby. Rosenberg incorrectly characterizes it as a win Permalink Permalink
MJ tends to have a Panglossian view of I-P conflict. I hope he is right on this, but his historical comparison is flawed on one important point. Today, Israel is much more rightwing than 20 years back and the Westbank settlers are more integrated into Israeli society. Maybe only 10% of Jews live in the Westbank but practically every Israeli has family and friends living there. They wil resist Ameircan pressure. The big unknown is their willingness to rupture their ties to America and equally important is Obama willing to threaten those ties to achieve a Palestinian state? No one really knows.
Not to worry, bankrupt US taxpayers will continue to borrow money at interest from China to furnish dual citizens Israeli Jewish settlements with the perks of a comfy living on stolen land.
Boy that's cynical (and probably right).
M.J. is a good writer, but his political positions are thoroughly conformist, in left liberal terms.
I agree with Obamaland. The Jewish "left" can talk about Palestinian rights all they want, but I think that most are too sentimental about Jewishness and Israel to do too much to push the issue. They were mostly happy with the status quo before 911, and I don't think they will care about a Palestinian state as long as there isn't a major conflict going on, and if Israel were threatened by conflict, my guess is that support for Palestinians is off. It's dishonest game for these people, and I don't see Obama standing up to them. AIPAC isn't the problem. Jewish power is the problem.
Check out the Anglo-Saxon Real Estate agent's sale of property in suburban Jerus alem. Phil's wife might be amused by the usurpation of WASP cachet directed towards the usual prosperous jews. Hitler must be laughing.