Philip Weiss
"My initial joy over the Biden insult was not misplaced. The Israeli blunder has catalyzed a new moment in the US-Israel special relationship and maybe, just maybe the beginning of the end. The lead thinktank of the Israel lobby today proclaims that US-Israel relations are "perilous." AIPAC panicked last night. Michael Oren is alarmed.
The Obama administration seemed to relish the opportunity to distance itself from Israel almost as if it had been rehearsing for a break and was only waiting for the provocation. Everyone piled on. Hillary was sharply critical, Joe Biden was critical to Netanyahu’s face, on Saturday there is the General Petraeus leak, and on Sunday David Axelrod is critical on the Sunday talk shows."
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Weiss sounds optimistic but that's alright..If it only encourages some shy persons to speak out more openly, it's all for the better.
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I liked this comment on Mondo:
ReplyDelete"Phil – you are no doubt more knowledgeable of the political atmosphere in Washington…but when I see characters like Oren and Friedman, as well as the Israel Lobby, making a huge fuss over what is going on, I can’t help but feel that the reaction is that of extreme exaggeration. If the American-Israeli shackles (and from an American POV, I indeed see it as shackles) are stressed to ANY degree, these people and groups start crying wolf – they act as if the sea levels are about to rise 500 meters. [i]Anything[/i] short of a completely bound America, with no stress on the ’special relationship’, is an excuse to scream that the sky is falling. For all we know, those shackles could be using high strength steel that won’t yield anytime soon."
And this reply:
ReplyDelete"I won’t purport to speak for Phil, but from my point of view, now is different than other times in the past particularly because of two things:
1. Criticism of Israel isn’t as taboo as it used to be thanks to the showdown between Netanyahu and Obama.
2. The US is reaching a breaking point in that region given the Russia-Iran-China triangle and the loss of Turkey as a key ally thanks to Israel. The US needs the Arab states and constituents in those states on its side to — generally speaking — “push” against that triangle. As of now, Israel stands in the way of the US achieving those goals."
<span><span>Where's anan who pretends Iraq war had nothing to do with Palestine? </span>
ReplyDelete<span>
<span>"When the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs declares war on our president and then says his policy is "to make Israel cough up Palestine," any sensible person says I want nothing to do with these people. And when you remember that it was this very same thinktank that in Colin Powell’s view hatched the idea for the Iraq war, you say, Please get out of my life, now."
From the article posted</span></span></span>
I agree. It is different this time. We have never had this many people speaking out about this. I think even die hard supporters of Israel are shocked at the blatant thumbing of the nose at the U.S. by Israel.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing the Iraq war has to do with Palestine is that Israel and right wing American Jews wanted Saddam gone. Until 9/11 America was happy to "contain" Saddam. So were our ARab "brothers".
ReplyDeleteLiberal America's disgust with the Iraq war compels them to question right wing Jewish policies in general. Apparently liberal Americans were too stupid to question US policy on Israel before the Iraq war. It took a bad President and an unpopular war to make them focus a bit more on Palestine. So you see, the Iraq war was good for Palestine in a way.
Israel does nothing but harm the strategic and political position of the United States.
ReplyDeleteNetanyahu is trading Israeli security for right-wing ideology
ReplyDeletehttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1156260.html