I veer here between celebrating the sea-change in the American political discourse and saying that the Israel lobby runs Washington. Today's a good day. Here is my abundant evidence of the sea-change:
–Obama's Chas Freeman pick for National Intelligence Council;
–Obama's George Mitchell pick as Israel/Palestine envoy;
–Hillary Clinton's affirmation of the urgency of aid to Gaza;
–Dennis Ross was hardly given the men's room key at the State Department;
–Warming signs in Iran-U.S. relationship;
–Hampshire College divestment; NYU occupation; indications that BDS movement is spreading from Europe;
–Israel Policy Forum and J Street, establishment organizations, continue to take a stand in opposition to the conservative lobby, occasionally with the company of Brit Tzedek and Americans for Peace Now (which some day may show the fortitude to resign from AIPAC board);
–Steve Walt, author of the Israel Lobby, who was repeatedly smeared as an antisemite, has pitched his camp on the third rail; he has a blog at Foreign Policy where he assails the lobby and is giving lectures at Washington-based schools on the subject;
–Gaza sent a lot of Jews running for the exits, and anti-Zionists openly identified themselves as such at demos;
–Avigdor Lieberman ditto;
–Marty Peretz and Alan Dershowitz, both 70, are increasingly given to smashmouth rhetoric on the importance of Israel that is very "boy cries wolf." Everyone who criticizes Israel is an antisemite. Young Jewish writers, many on the blogosphere, are ignoring these warnings and criticizing Israel;
–John Kerry visited Gaza and carried a letter from Hamas…unwittingly?…
–The Iraq war's positive blowback in States: the understanding that terrorism is a response to occupation/political disfranchisement and those who used it had to be included in Baghdad's ruling coalition;
–Iraq war's positive blowback in States: neocons are in the roach motel;
–A growing place for Muslims to stand in U.S., from Colin Powell's attack on anti-Muslim feeling in his Obama endorsement, to Chief Justice Roberts's repeated pronunciation of the name "Hussein," to the embrace of Slumdog.
And in the sequel? Netanyahu removes all illusions about the two-state solution, more and more American Jews come out against Jim Crow for Palestine, Obama criticizes Netanyahu with Larry Summers and Rahm Emanuel standing behind him.
