Remember Joel B. Pollak? We watched his irresistible rise as a student at Harvard Law School and an acolyte of Dershowitz, proselytizing the Palestinians. And attacking Arabic textbooks. The Washington Post–surprise–gave him a platform.
Now he’s running for Congress in Illinois. Harvard Law School paper picks up the news, and says it’s about Israel.
But here Pollak is, just before he announced, two weeks ago attacking the great incumbent Jan Schakowsky over… health care!
Is that what he really cares about? I don’t think so. I think that’s pure subterfuge.
At Harvard, in a talk with Dershowitz, the Harvard Crimson reported yesterday, Pollak says that Jewish Americans have to take Obama on on settlements and the Cairo speech. “Many Jewish-Americans voted for Obama, and now they suspect they were victims of a bait and switch.” Here he is defending the Gaza slaughter and attacking Israel’s "enemies."
Dershowitz was on Pollak’s left on this issue! Supporting Obama. I believe this unpleasant character will be in our public life, and the pages of the Washington Post, for a long time to come, like it or not. And the question is: Why? That is a question about Jewish identity, and power politics.
