Dana Milbank’s superb column on the Obama-Netanyahu meeting in the Wash. Post, which said that Obama set up a settlement on the White House lawn at the behest of the Israel lobby, has drawn a swift and tediously-long rebuke from Camera, the Israel lobby group. Camera’s angry response underlines the significance of Milbank’s betrayal. He is in the Washington mainstream, after all, and Barack Obama might actually read his piece, certainly many in the White House will. This is the Israel lobby’s greatest fear, that the insiders will start to go. And it’s happening.
Below, Camera in action. Interestingly, Camera says that Milbank quoted Ray McGovern favorably, the former CIA man who’s a scourge of the lobby. Wow, that’s a sea change:
3) Echoing the strawman/bogeyman charges of Profs. Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer against a nefarious "Israel lobby," Milbank skips from "domestic politics won’t allow" an "honest broker" to blasting Obama for "perform[ing] the Full Monty of pro-Israel pandering: ‘The bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable’," etc. The columnist asserts that "the Israel lobby," Netanyahu’s denunciations, Republican support for Israel and Democratic fear left the president "routed and humiliated by his Israeli counterpart."
Milbank’s "edgy" summation? Obama had to invite Netanyahu "for what might be called the Oil of Olay Summit: It was all about saving face." This analysis goes no deeper than CNN’s headline crawl just after the Obama-Netanyahu session: "Show of unity."
The columnist does not acknowledge that the "Israel lobby" represents tens of millions of Americans, Jews and non-Jews, who support Israel over its enemies and recognize in it the one Middle Eastern nation with freedoms like those in the United States. He mocks Obama’s statement that "our two countries are working cooperatively" without noting broad military, intelligence, scientific, medical and other U.S.-Israel interactions. He does not seem to comprehend that Turkey’s repudiation of its pro-Western orientation and the reported loss of faith in the Muslim world over Obama as a "transformational figure" have much more to do with rejection of Western secularism and mosque-state separation than with the nature of U.S.-Israel ties.
The disingenuousness of Milbank’s column is clarified by a singular choice: He quotes one "liberal activist" outside the White House who appeals, via bullhorn, to Obama "to stand up for once … and speak to Netanyahu in no uncertain terms." The "protester" is Ray McGovern, who Milbank does not otherwise identify.
