It is a bit ponderous, but authoritative and informative for those interested.
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John Lennon And Me In Havana Park He Didn't Have Much To SayHeader Photo
The header photo is of school children bouncing on the branch of a tree over looking the Vinales Vally in Pinar del Rio Cuba.Welcome
As I proceed into my mid-life adventures, of travel and relocation, I intend to regularly post updates of my activities, subject to my ability to access the internet.I also intend to post reminiscences, ruminations and editorial commentary on whatever subject is currently abrading a lesion under my saddle.
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2 Comments
March 28, 2006 at 6:12 pm
Mearsheimer and Walt’s paper (sorry it took a while to read it) goes a bit too far in blaming the “Israel lobby” for everything bad in American “Middle East policy.” The United States has done many stupid things in that region that have nothing to do with Israel (such as overthrowing the elected government in Iran to install the Shah in 1953, and the original Iraq war, which left the country suspended between Saddam’s brutality and the slow starvation of the UN sanctions). I don’t find anything sinister about the efforts of AIPAC, CAMERA, and the other instruments of the so-called Israeli Lobby to generate support for Israel–any more than, say, AARP or the NRA.
It’s President Bush who bears the blame (surely worthy of impeachment) for the bad judgement that he displayed in waging war in Iraq. By adopting wholeheartedly the Sharon government’s agressive policies and its simple definition of terrorism, he has exposed both nations to unacceptable risks. In leaping into war on those grounds, he committed the United States to Israel for good, for the duration of Israel’s struggle with the occupied Arab population.
The hints that he views it as some kind of Christian “Crusade” are frightening (and should be alarming to any Jew who thinks about his motives).
This was an important shift in foreign policy. It should have been debated throroughy. Yet it was not fully debated at the time, because the President is not an articulate man, and because he showed the bad faith to citizens of concealing his intentions from the public–and even from many Administration insiders.
In seeming to place Israel’s needs foremost in this matter, he transformed the relationship between Isral and the United States from one of allies to a more risk one, in which we have become Israel’s surrogate.
Anti-semitism is alive. It gets into every discussion of this topic, and many other topics. B’nai B’rith and other civil rights groups have serious work to do. And Israel must be defended. But American interests do not extend to upholding Israeli policies blindly.
March 28, 2006 at 6:53 pm
Very interesting El Macho.
Have you read the Daniel Levy piece in Heraatz I later linked to? He agrees with you that Mearsheimer and Walt go a bit too far in blaming the Israel Lobby but agrees with many of their conclusions.
Anti-semitism is indeed alive. Look at all of those in the USA, including Ann Coulter who for some reason is widely published, who refer to Arabs as “rag heads” and otherwise deride them based upon their ethnicity and religion.