This week is going to be the Week of Israel, with state visits by Shimon Peres and Binyamin Netanyahu, plus the annual AIPAC conference in Washington DC. There are plenty of articles on Israel appearing in today’s press. I actually think Joe Klein is making sense (more than Alan Keyes, anyway):
My guess is that Bibi’s real agenda is the slow annexation of the west bank via Israeli settlement. He will do anything to slow or avoid doing what has to be done: not just stopping the settlements, but rolling them back. His next step, I’m told, will be to make a show of opening negotiations with the Syrians, knowing that glaciers move faster than the Assad family does when it comes to diplomacy. The Obama Administration has made it clear that it wants the settlements stopped. But it may need to do more than make the sort of perfunctory statements that George W. Bush got away with. The President may risk the ire of America’s Professional Jews–the AIPAC and neoconservative gang–if he gets tougher with Israel. But those Jewish noisemakers, who represent a minority of American Jewish public opinion, will be taking a risk, too, if they oppose this very popular President who won the support of 78% of Jewish-American voters.
That’s pretty much my take on things. But it’s good to see a prominent Jewish columnist say these things in such an unapologetic manner. It’s also hard to absorb that Bibi selected a foreign minister who is a real-life West Bank settler. That’s not diplomacy. That’s a sick joke.
