Andrew Sullivan has been doing great work lately, as we often say here. He is trying to unlearn a lot of the B.S. he learned when Marty Peretz dandled him on his knee as a young editor and has vigorously questioned the Israeli story-line and the Israel lobby in the U.S. This letter that Sullivan runs without comment— objecting to his characterization of the settlements as "colonization" — shows just what pressure Sullivan is under. The writer is unidentified, but take it from me, kid, this is from a powerful friend of his, otherwise he would not have run it at such length. Also it has the pokey prickly manner of a powerful Jewish friend in the media who– while I have always admired what you’re doing Andrew, I needed to point out one flaw in your argument. And instead of taking the person on, Sullivan runs it. I bet the writer is American, too.
It’s pure hasbara. It says that the settlements are not colonization, are not the French in Algeria, because the Jews have a "home" in Palestine to which they are returning, per the "national discourse." So that national discourse includes the West Bank now.
Yet another answer to Sullivan’s correspondent was offered by Ami Ayalon at J Street, the former head of Shin Bet. I have to dig out the quote. But when asked about the colonizers of the West Bank, he said in essence, Look, we indoctrinated them with a biblical rationale for their effort to build the Jewish state, now we have to come up with a different doctrine about how they’re going to build the Jewish state by coming back into the ’48 boundaries. Even a leading Zionist figure and Israeli official was conceding that the national discourse is a construction.
Thanks to Peter Voskamp.
