What could be more fun on a weekend than to listen to a debate about the Israel Lobby, just after the AIPAC conference in Washington where Netanyahu laid down the law about settlements.
This debate on current Israel-US relations could never be seen in the United States, given that we are subject to so much censorship by our mainstream media. But here it is, on Al Jezeera-English. For reference sake, The Israel Project is a lobbyist organization whose focus is to advise on disseminating pro-Israel propaganda in the US (one of its advisors is Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster famous for devising pro-Israel propaganda or “talking points” like “say they’re “disputed not occupied”).
The Zionist lobby, an honest look on Al-Jazeera
27 March 2010
As Loewenstein advises, this kind of debate can only happen on news outlets like Al-Jazeera, not in America. It is a discussion about the Israel lobby, Iran, settlements, and Palestine between John Mearsheimer, the co-author of The Israel Lobby,. Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah, and Israel lobbyist Meagan Buren of The Israel Project.
After the AIPAC conference, Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel where he may have a problem.
Here’s Akiva Eldar in Haaretz:
The messages coming to the White House from Riyadh and Amman, then, were starkly clear: If you don’t rein in your Israeli friends, Tehran won’t be the only Middle East capital where American flags will burn.
Netanyahu had been hoping to buy time until November’s Congressional elections, which coincide with the deadline he set for the settlement freeze. But with America’s strategic interest on the line, Bibi’s favorite political game (playing the Jewish community and Congress against the White House and the State Department) isn’t working anymore. Obama decided his moderate Middle East coalition is more important than Netanyahu’s extremist one. This is a point of no return.
