I gather this Eric Alterman piece on J Street ran in the International Herald Tribune. Why not the New York Times op-ed page, or the Washington Post? When will the orthodox challenge the orthodoxy?
Commentary’s Noah Pollak called J Street contemptible, dishonest and anti-Israel; James Kirchick of The New Republic called it the Surrender Lobby; Michael Goldfarb of The Weekly Standard said it was obsequious to terrorists and hostile to Israel.
Perhaps, but it is at least equally plausible to view the intemperance of their language as evidence of panic. The days of right-ruled American Jewish debate appear to be numbered, and with good reason.
No other nation on earth, save perhaps Israel, treats the Middle Eastern conflict as the United States does, with the Palestinians viewed exclusively as the irrational attackers and Israel as aggrieved innocents.
Yet, however costly and controversial, the policies continue almost unchanged from administration to administration, and Congress to Congress, dominated by the hardline positions of Aipac.
