I missed the debate at NYU last night over a Resolution to end the special relationship with Israel. Rashid Khalidi and Roger Cohen for, Stu Eizenstat and Israeli Itamar Rabinovich agin. Praise the lord, Tablet was there, and has a typically Israel-lobbyish report, which includes a great anecdote in which Cohen said that a Florida congressman was holding out his vote on health care till Obama took his foot off the gas on Israel/Palestine. I figured. And the piece buries the lead:
In the final vote, the yeas had it: 49% for, 47% against, 4% undecided (before the debate, it was 33% for, 42% against).
The link to tablet magazine appears correct but I get an empty page if I click it.
Anyway I searched the site for evidence of linkage between healthcare and I/P and found only an article about Lieberman. Did I miss something?
JTA has a rather bland piece covering this
link to blogs.jta.org
Interesting to see the 33% in favor change to 49% afterward.
Here’s thetranscript.
I think Bloomberg shows the video a week or two after the event date.
“Cohen said that a Florida congressman was holding out his vote on health care till Obama took his foot off the gas on Israel/Palestine. I figured. ”
Phil, was it you that mentioned seeing Israeli lobbyists at the Tea Circus over the summer?
Slowereastside, thanks for the transcript url. Was worth reading.
RE: “…a Florida congressman was holding out his vote on health care till Obama took his foot off the gas on Israel/Palestine.”
ME: Wexler?
I read through the transcript. If the debate had been longer, and the ‘for’ debaters (Khalidi and Cohen) more aggressive (but respectful), I think things would be more interesting.
The ‘against’ side was just reiterating the standard Israeli lines. At one point Khalidi did challenge the historical revisionism but it was in a passive-aggressive manner, toward the end of the debate.
It’s like in these sort of mainstream debates, whoever is speaking against the hard-core Zionist view sacrifices reality to pander to the audience.
With all the information out there, I thought this debate would be an opportunity to challenge Israel’s history, past and present.
It felt like a tactical wedging instead though. I guess that’s how it works.
I agree with your assessment. Lots of boilerplate hasbara was pretty much allowed to stand although at times Cohen especially did more than merely deflect it. One especially weak argument was the “against” theory that to step back from the special relationship would make all our allies think they’d be next on the US chopping block.
Another thing, the “for” crew didn’t do much to question why it might be that polls
consistently show Americans favor Israel.