The historic piece on the Israel lobby in the London Review of Books in March continues to reverberate. The latest LRB contains a dispute between the paper’s authors, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, and the former executive director of the…
One of the things I love about blogging is you can’t talk down to your readers, they’re as smart as you are (smarter!). I’ve gotten more comment about a post I did a few days ago on my impressions from…
Three weeks ago, Tony Judt, a professor of European studies at N.Y.U., published a devastating piece in the Israeli daily Haaretz. Titled “The Country That Wouldn’t Grow Up,” it argued that Israel’s contempt for world opinion of its actions had…
A few months ago I went to Syria as a tourist, to visit my wife’s cousin, who is teaching in Damascus. I had a very good time (in stark contrast to an unpleasant trip to Morocco) and since then I’ve…
One of the great sticking points in the peace process in Israel/Palestine is the issue of the “right of return.” The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 (what the Palestinians call the “Nakba,” or disaster) resulted in over…
Is USA Today emerging as an idealistic voice? It broke the big story on wiretapping citizens. Now Jimmy Carter, once again distinguishing himself as a moral voice, says that Israeli Prime Minister Olmert’s plans for fences deep inside the occupied…
Florida Rabbi Bruce Warshal takes on Jewish neocons in the St. Louis Jewish Light, in an article accepting the truth of much of Mearsheimer-Walt’s Israel lobby paper. Here’s the money quote: 400 rabbis, including myself, signed a letter sponsored by…
What if George Bush were to say tomorrow that our motivation for going into Iraq was to secure oil wealth for the west and to protect Israel—might that reverse his slide in the polls? A splendid post on Syria Comment,…
When Brandeis shut down an exhibit of Palestinian art last week, the organizer promptly found a new home for it across town at MIT. Then this week a group of Brandeis faculty started a petition drive to have the exhibit…