At last, the fat is in the fire. The American press is talking about the Israel lobby. Spirited Chas Freeman has succeeded in getting up the beach, after Walt and Mearsheimer draped their bodies on the barbed wire. Writes a friend: "Check out the the Post today–it is schizophrenic: an unsigned
editorial rips the notion that the 'lobby' had anything to do with
with Freeman's demise. On the opposite page, David Broder takes the bold stand that the 'lobby' destroyed Freeman."
I noticed that editorial. It calls the lobby idea a conspiracy theory, imbalanced, absurd, and says Freeman issued a "tirade." Etc.
Here is one response to the Post. It comes from Chas Freeman himself. And now I am going to tease a piece I've written for the American Conservative (the one magazine that has been comfortable with my writing about the lobby; here's where you subscribe) which will appear in a few days. Freeman told me about his epiphany about Americans' idea of Israel years ago. He was in Abu Dhabi when he saw all over the television and newspapers a grotesque incident on the West Bank captured on a home video, in which Israeli forces dragged a Palestinian from his home and beat the hell out of him and then when he was senseless, shot him in the back of the head.
"I thought, when this hits the US
hell will break loose. Well it didn’t ever hit our press. The self-censorship
extended to a point that it was really dangerous to our society."
And meantime, Freeman was reading amazing Israeli journalists like Uri Avnery, who had no trouble exposing such atrocities, and Haaretz, which he justly describes as one of the greatest newspapers in the world.
That is all you need to know. The Washington Post and other important mainstream organs– out of ideological blindness stemming in good measure from the large number of Israel-inoculated Jews in the media at a time when Israel is our "secular religion" and a "sacred mission" for American Jews (per Dershowitz)– have funked their journalistic mission by protecting Americans from the true, thuggish face of Israel for years. And whether this behavior was conscious, orchestrated, passive, religious, or unconscious, it was an essential component of the lobby's activities. Now, surprise, the Post denies that there is an Israel lobby.
