Tomorrow John Kerry will hold a hearing on Israel/Palestine in which there will be three Jews representing some diversity, Rob Malley on the left to David Makovsky, neocon. Never forget: Democrats are just about as involved with neocons as the Republicans are, because neocons represent an important segment of Jewish life (and Jews are a key component of the American political establishment).
There is of course just one Palestinian voice on the panel: Ziad Asali of the American Task Force for Palestine. ATFP are "good Palestinians." They support the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, Mahmoud Abbas, the two-state solution. They were represented at J Street last year. But Seham has written on this site that Ziad Asali is at one end of Palestinian opinion. And even the Forward acknowledges in a strong piece on the status of the two-state solution, "public support among Palestinians for the concept of ‘two states for two peoples’ is losing ground to rival approaches, such as a one-state solution that would encompass Jews and Palestinians…"
I don’t know Palestinian opinion. But I would like to see more spokespeople for it in our discourse than the ATFP. The mantra of this site these days is: Freedom means participation in power (from Cicero via Nader). Palestinians have never been able to participate, except on our terms.
