I’m in a little town in Israel near the Lebanon border, full of reporters. They’re flirting, over their expense accounts, as the shells are fired nearby, and the rockets land. At dinner, the restaurant’s dog shoved in under my table,…
A couple years back a publisher who signed my (meager) checks asked me how I could justify being so critical of American policy in the Middle East and Israel when I’d never been to Israel. I’d traveled all over creation,…
I got some great comment on a post I did on the taboo liberal journalists experience when tempted to talk about Israel. Anonymous grapples smartly (if casuistically) on to the point that the lobby has actually worked against Israel’s best…
If you ever needed a reminder of how important the realist intellectuals’ spring assault on the Israel lobby is, today’s Times bore it out. Its polls show that most Americans feel that Israel’s indiscriminate destruction in Lebanon will lead to…
So many of us, leftleaners, were confused through the first week of the Lebanon fighting. It was obvious that Nasrallah was provoking something, wrongly; it is obvious that Iran is not a good actor; those rockets were targeting civilians in…
On truthdig, antiwar activist Tom Hayden offers his experience of being certified by pro-Israel forces, including the Berman machine in Los Angeles, back when he was running for state office: Twenty-five years ago I stared into the eyes of Michael…
Addressing the issue of why liberals don’t speak up about Israel, Kevin Drum, the Political Animal, justifies silence by saying the issues are “complex” and because “posts that display any sense of sympathy for the Palestinians run the risk of…
Bob Herbert had a breathtaking column in the Times today, condemning Israel for going overboard in its (just) retaliation for the Hezbollah strike, and faulting the U.S. for allowing it. “Neither Israel nor the United States can kill enough Muslims…
In a recent column, neocon Daniel Pipes openly questions the loyalties of British Muslims. Polling indicates that a majority of Muslims perceive a conflict between their British and Muslim identities. Two polls show that only a small proportion identifies itself…