Three friends directed me to "A Heated Debate Over Israel," in the NY Times letters to the editor section, responding to the Tony Judt piece. Best letter is the second, by Howard Rubenstein, immediately after Abe Foxman, who– does the Israel lobby have a stranglehold?–gets top billing. One friend: "Notice the numerous official responses. And my sense that individual responses were likely to differ. I wonder if J Street wrote in. And did Arab-American groups and individuals write in and get excluded from the conversation? Where are their voices?"
But another friend notes the progress: You will see two of eight letters are from Americans who do not appear to be Jewish, challenging the special relationship. Charles D. Smith of San Diego, James Opie of Portland. It's great that they, who help pay the $3 billion a year, are given a platform. Especially when you consider that Judt gets to write his piece in the first place in some measure because he's Jewish. (Reportedly the Times once insisted that he put this fact into one of his pieces criticizing Israel, as
James North notes the Jonathan Reich letter, from Lakeland FL, saying that removing the settlements from the West Bank is "ethnic cleansing." North:
"This is the definition of chutzpah. First you kick people out of their homes. Then you steal their land and build on it. Then when they demand their property back, you accuse them of 'ethnic cleansing.'" North asks, Is this a new Zionist talking point? Well actually it's been around for a while now.
