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It is very difficult these days to hold an honest discussion on the situation in Gaza and Palestine.
One is quickly slimed as anti=Semitic if one deviates from the "correct" position on this situation.
For example, several years ago a certain book, "The Israel Lobby" was published by Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard University, and by John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.
As Ezra Klein has observed, "The thesis of The Israel Lobby is simple, and much of it verges on the obvious. It holds that American policy towards Israel is the result of interest group politics. Just as there is a sugar lobby that shapes sugar subsidies and a Cuba lobby that sustains the embargo, there is an "Israel Lobby" that works assiduously to shape our policy towards Israel. And this lobby, like many other lobbies, has been successful. And the resulting policy hasn't been optimal for either America or Israel."
Klein goes on to explain:
"For instance, The New Republic, Jon Chait's magazine, published an acrobatic cover by Jeffrey Goldberg that likened Walt and Mearsheimer to Osama bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Father Coughlin, Charles Lindbergh, Patrick Buchanan, Louis Farrakhan, and David Duke. It is true that Walt's career survived, and even prospered, in the aftermath of this broadside. But it wasn't for lack of trying on the part of Chait and his colleagues. How were they to know that comparing Walt to Osama bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Father Coughlin, Charles Lindbergh, Patrick Buchanan, Louis Farrakhan wouldn't prove particularly injurious to his career?
"Goldberg's article was a particularly weird piece of work, but it fit neatly into the "anti-anti" Israel genre. The thing about criticizing Israel is that you get called an anti-Semite rather a lot. This doesn't happen when you criticize sugar subsidies or come out against the stimulus bill...."
click here find it distressing that free speech and honest inquiry is being muzzled these days by a powerful minority.
I am increasingly distressed by the situation in Gaza and the building tensions in the Middle East.
I do not want my country to be attacked again by some God-possessed fools because some other agenda-obsessed fools refuse to allow the discussion which may possibly bring about a stabilizing situation in an explosive spot in the world.
And I can never forget that the Neo-Cons who brought us to this horrificly dangerous impasse in the world were fierce lobbyists on behalf of Israel.
Damn me as an anti-Semitic if your twisted mind insists.
I simply want peace and stability. Damn me for that if you will.
