Something is stirring at the New York Times. Make no mistake, friends: Four op-eds in four days (a couple of them on-line, appearing in the International Herald Tribune, but picked up by the Times) questioning the pro-Israel line. First George Bisharat, then Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian member of Knesset. Then Roger Cohen praising Trita Parsi's book Treacherous Alliance.
And now Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street, throwing down the gauntlet to American Jews over where they stand visavis Avigdor Lieberman, in a piece that I gather was first in the International Herald Tribune. Let's be clear: Mearsheimer and Walt didn't talk about Jewish "loyalty." And they got hammered. Ben-Ami:
Jewish Americans — who remain deeply loyal to Israel and staunch
defenders of its right to exist — now face conflicting winds blowing on
two continents. An overwhelming majority share the politics and
worldview of President Barack Obama and have rejected the Bush-Cheney
neoconservatism that framed Middle East conflict in simplistic black
and white. They recognize, as the new president said in Ankara this
week, that security requires peace and that peace begins by “learning
to stand in somebody else’s shoes to see through their eyes.”
leaders of the American Jewish community demand unquestioning loyalty
to an Israeli government that has made Avigdor Lieberman its face to
the world. This is a man whose platform called for loyalty oaths, whose
words verge on racism and whose worldview is based on the very
“us-versus-them” mentality so thoroughly discredited over the past
eight years.
