Akiva Eldar, in Haaretz, says that Israel is losing the Diaspora, for good reason:
A Jewish student at Princeton feels greater affinity to his Muslim classmates than to Effi Eitam, Netanyahu’s public-relations messenger to U.S. university campuses who is calling for the eviction of Arab MKs from the Knesset. A Jewish lawyer in Los Angeles doesn’t see which justice serves as the basis for throwing a Palestinian family, refugees from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Katamon, out of their home in Sheikh Jarrah, only to put in their place settlers from the extreme right. The Jewish lecturer in Boston finds it hard to explain to his children why Israelis prevented his colleague, Prof. Noam Chomsky, from speaking at Bir Zeit University.
A couple years ago I criticized Noam Chomsky for a lecture he gave at Columbia and you wouldn’t believe how much stick I got. I think I retracted for days on end. And yes, I think he’s dead wrong in his materialist view of the special relationship, ignoring religion, which was a prime motor in his own life, and thereby trying to believe the lobby doesn’t exist. Big deal. People love Chomsky. A great leader in his 80s is a great leader. An octagenarian widower, getting on a boat that might be attacked by Israeli gunboats, would you do that? Go Noam go.
