I’m easily amazed. Maclean’s Magazine has published a
huge piece headlined "Why Israel Can’t Survive" as a Jewish state if it wants to be democratic.
(Chris Varley , who pointed the piece out to me, notes, that Maclean’s is Time-magazine like, and "home to cranks like Barbara Amiel and Mark Steyn, and
edited by Ken Whyte [very mainstream, formerly of the National Post], so publishes the usual agit-prop.") Christopher Hitchens in Slate is saying the same thing: Israel can’t survive as a Jewish state.
And I notice that Maclean’s has a
respectful interview with John Mearsheimer here too.
I’m sure the Israel lobby is watching this as closely as I am. The conventional wisdom is solidifying. What was once radical when Tony Judt proposed it five years ago is now a real option. Some day soon the Times and Washington Post will fall into line, and from there the networks, and then, finally, the politicians will question apartheid policies in the West Bank. Mearsheimer will then be embraced, because he is for a 2-state solution.
Why is this happening? You can blame Iraq, you can blame the bankruptcy of the peace process. But I say it’s the zeitgeist. The times are changing; the left and its answers are coming in. And the Obama effect is going to change the air we breathe. I remember when a questioner at NYU challenged Judt, How can you oppose a Jewish state when we see the primacy of tribe at every hand…. Well, that feels like a long time ago; and we will soon have a postracial president.
