Earlier today we mentioned another landmark piece, this time at Daily Beast, Thaddeus Russell’s assertion that it isn’t Arab anti-semitism, it’s Israel’s status as a "perpetual wartime state" that is creating problems in the Middle East. Russell even mentioned the killing of Bobby Kennedy as one effect of American support for Israel, an assertion I have made myself. This piece has been the most popular on the Beast website today; and it is a landmark because the gates are falling and we are finally seeing renegade journalists in an outspoken American tradition crash a party where only the pious have been allowed to foxtrot. Russell is author of A Renegade History of the United States. We asked him how the response has been to his piece. He writes:
After reading scores of hostile reader comments and blog posts, receiving dozens of emails accusing me of anti-semitism (which my Jewish mother and son find amusing), ignorance, and cowardice, and debating with the head of The Israel Project, I still have not seen or heard any piece of information that challenges my basic thesis: that the very existence of Israel in the Middle East, not just its policies, endangers Jews and those who support it.
However, I have been pleasantly surprised to see that a solid majority of the responses to the piece — which would never have seen the light of day just a few years ago — have been positive. As you say, we do indeed seem to be on the verge of a major shift in thinking on the Zionist project.
