Tom Friedman’s Sunday column despairing about Israel’s future and condemning the “powerful Israel lobby” for holding Obama “hostage” to Israel’s rightwing government continues to resonate.
One friend says it is the Walter Cronkite moment of the American presence in this conflict: In February 1968 Cronkite, having reported on the Tet offensive in Vietnam, declared that we were “mired in stalemate,” signalling a huge shift in public opinion. A month later President Lyndon Johnson, elected by landslide four years before, declined to run for reelection. (h/t Ilene and Gerry)
Just look at the readers’ comments on Friedman’s column. Tom in Chicago looks to have the greatest approval, 789 people recommending a comment that could have appeared on our website:
Israel is no friend to the United States. It is our unqualified support of them that has garnered nothing but justifiable hatred and disgust from a very large chunk of the world’s population. It exposes our double-standards toward freedom and justice and makes hypocrites of us all. I’m sick of having my hard-earned tax dollars be sent to Israel so they can slaughter children and steal land that everyone, including the US government, agrees isn’t theirs.
Steve Walt feels vindicated, and he should.
I said when he and Mearsheimer published their paper in ’06 that it was “high noon” for the lobby. I was just off by 5 years. Netanyahu’s 29 standing ovations in Congress have sickened even Israel’s supporters.
What has changed in the past few years is that the lobby’s operations and its harmful influence are now out in the open for all to see, which makes it almost impossible to make the old arguments that Israel is a “vital strategic asset” or a country that “shares our values” with a straight face, or to convince anyone who’s not already in agreement. Not after more than forty years of occupation, not after 9/11, not after the 2006 Lebanon War, not after Operation Cast Lead, not after the killings on the Mavi Marmara, and not after PM Netanyahu’s repeated acts of contempt toward the U.S. president.
….The elephant has been in the room for a long time, but now it has the spotlights on it and it’s wearing a pink bikini too. It’s hard to miss, in short, which is surely why Tom Friedman wrote what he did.
A few more readers comments from the Times.
Jon Jost, Seoul:
Israel is the off-spring of Europe (and America’s) historical anti-Semitism, which culminated in Germany’s “final solution” to which many Europeans happily assisted. Following WW2 by imperial mandate a chunk of “the Holy Land” was expropriated to provide a homeland– for Europe’s guilt conscience. It has been festering ever since, and until the world faces up to this truth, there won’t be a solution. More likely it will provide the trigger for a nuclear Armageddon –
Kurt Lambert, Sao Paolo:
As Bismarck used to say: May god protect me from my friends – I am perfectly capable of dealing with my enemies all by myself
Ken from Long Island:
Glad to see that at least someone is standing up for the truth. This week Ed Koch, our sainted mayor, who turned his back while every department under his administration robbed the city blind, strut like a peacock when he crossed party lines to back the Republican who “supports Israel.”
