Yesterday Scott McConnell wrote a smart squib on Steven Simon’s piece for the Council on Foreign Relations about the horrifying extent to which the U.S. must placate Israel to keep it from attacking Iran. Well here is smart Simon again, at Foreign Policy, in a sensitive piece on the disaffection of American Muslims from our foreign policy and the importance of making Muslims feel at home here. But the most glaring thing about this piece is a giant discrepancy. Simon begins by saying that Muslims are disaffected because of our unbending support for Israel– but in the laundry list of suggestions he makes for solving Muslim disaffection, he says zip about amending our policy in Israel/Palestine. Where does it hurt? It’s my hand. OK, let’s bandage your foot!
And yes, I detect uninterrogated Zionism/hasbara. Not all that different from David Makovsky of WINEP repeatedly speaking for Arab interests in the Middle East. Guess what, you can’t buy American Muslims out on this position. Just like you couldn’t have bought American Jews out 110 years ago about pogroms in Russia.
P.S. McConnell tells me that he learned about Simon’s piece from Spencer Ackerman’s blog. Credit where credit is due.
I’m glad you said that as the piece had a slight whiff of propaganda presented as analysis. It did not for example sketch out an Israeli ‘problem’ and advise on extricating the US from that, killing Iranians is less radical to the establishment. Pragmatism treads a fine line with simply conservative enabling. The entitlement and privilege of US imperialist assumptions too (not least by Ackerman sometimes) is breathtaking. Would the ‘left’ in Iran sit around calmly discussing bombing Washington?