The Israel Lobby's Big Problem: People Aren't Afraid to Criticize Israel Anymore

[laststeamtrain]

The Israel Lobby's Big Problem: People Aren't Afraid to Criticize Israel Anymore
By Ira Chernus, AlterNet
Posted on March 27, 2010, Printed on March 27, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146197/

I just ran across a couple of noteworthy quotes from members of AIPAC — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful organization in the much-dreaded “Israel lobby” — which began its annual meeting in Washington on Monday:

“We were never exposed to anti-semitism, but we heard about anti-Israel campaigns in colleges, and next year we are going to college, and we want to have the tools to deal with that,” said a high school senior, one of some 1300 students and youth at the meeting, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Note how effortlessly this kid moves from “anti-semitism” to “anti-Israel.” That’s how AIPAC has always recruited youth: Take Americans who have never experienced anti-semitism personally and make them believe that, even if they haven’t seen any enemies, those enemies are out there, lurking everywhere, disguised as “critics of Israel,” just waiting to pounce on poor, unsuspecting Jews.

But times are changing. Even AIPAC no longer tries to keep up the old fiction that criticizing Israel is, in and of itself, an anti-semitic act. There are too many Israeli Jews, who are obviously loyal to their nation, criticizing their government for that old canard to stick.

So now the right-wingers have come up with a more sophisticated version: “Soft” critics of Israel are OK — those who don’t go too far in their criticism — but “hard” critics of Israel are obviously anti-semites. And of course AIPAC and its right-wing partners in Israel gets to decide what counts as going too far.

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Right-wingers in Jerusalem keep getting more and more outrageous. But the political climate in Washington can no longer be predicted, much less taken for granted. So there’s far less reason than before to stand in dread and awe of AIPAC or the “Israel lobby.” There’s far more reason to think that countervailing pressures from the left can make a real difference, giving the administration the safety belt it needs to act decisively. Perhaps that’s what made Donell Weinkopf — and plenty of other AIPAC members, including its top leadership, I suspect — feel like shit.

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http://www.alternet.org/news/146197/the_israel_lobby%27s_big_problem%3A_people_aren%27t_afraid_to_criticize_israel_anymore

[IndianaGreen]

1. Bibi's rightwing government overplayed its hand, and insulted the Obama Administration

That's two strikes, and with a third one, they'll be out.