You consistenly raise important issues surrounding Israel. It's kind of crazy that you don't get many more comments. There are a number of topics that TPMers refuse to address. What makes them so uncomfortable?

Whatever the reasons, I would welcome more in-depth discussion of this complex issue. I have a number of friends on the Left who won't discuss Israel. They also won't speak about affirmative action. Both issues involve ethnicity. Both are complicated issues that demand discussion. But an unwillingness to talk, and the quickness to hostility suggests a hardening of attitudes beyond reason-- perhaps the ultimate move to the Right. I add this article to your discussion.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24555096-2703,00.html

MJ,

I'm not Jewish, and have what I presume is the average American's understanding and view of Israel.

On the whole, Israel has been admirable.

But I confess that the attitudes of Likud, and the increasingly hard-line attitudes described in this article (and proven in the reader comments, ironically) toward the land, and the Palestinians, seems so blindingly hypocritical as to render them the laughingstock of Israel's voters.

Yet they are not challenged, they persist, are spreading their poisonous views to the next generation, and Likud might win the next election. Amazing. Sad. Disturbing. I imagine the rest of the world felt the same about us when we elected George Bush (well, I didn't, and neither did you) twice. And they were right. We have our own fear-crazed whackjobs, and they've been running the asylum for a while, now.

It may be understandable for a population that has been under real assault for decades by hostile neighbors, to be ruled by fear and to adopt drastic defensive measures. But the settlers are a different issue, and are actually using hate and nationalistic fantasies to make the situation much, much worse. But I also expected more.

It is incredibly sad to see a people who were victims of one of history's most horrific and murderous persecutions tolerate those of it's own who seemingly have become what they hate, with no sense of irony or self-awareness.

Joseph Joffe, wrote in 2005 in "Foreign Policy," a piece called "A World Without Israel," in which he argues that there was an ongoing effort to delegitimize Israel by both soft and hard means.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2737&referrer=google

I don't feel competent to engage him on his position. But would merely observe the obvious, namely that the terrified Right in Israel -- like their brethren here in the US -- are completely the slaves of their passions, and are acting out of the same base impulses that led to the deaths of 6 million of their grandparents, parents, and neighbors in Germany. They may not be wearing snappy black uniforms with a death's head pin on the collar, but they are spiritually indistinguishable.

Granted, the scale is much different, but the impulses sure look the same from here.

How can Israel survive if it allows this sort of attitude to survive in its midst, when it's very existence was based on the ideal that what happened to the Jews was a crime against all humanity, and that Israel would be an eternal monument against that ever happening again.

The rank hypocrisy will destroy Israel from within, by finally eliminating the main moral argument for its existence, unless it is faced and corrected, I fear.

I rarely comment on articles about Israel, simply because there appears to be no middle ground related to that subject. One has to believe that Israel can do no wrong and is America's greatest ally in the battle against whatever, or that the Palestinians can do no wrong and are innocent victims of European aggression, whose very land and livelihood were stolen.

My own position is that any country that cites "God" a the source of their claim to anything is a danger to humanity. But, I remain convinced that the situation in the Middle East can be greatly improved, but only if America truly is an even handed mediator in the area.

As usual I expect to regret commenting on this.

You folks can pontificate about the evils of Israeli occupation all you want with Mr. Rosenberg for the next four years and three months. My friends and I will be making sure that President Obama pays no more attention to you than President Clinton and Hilary Clinton did, and, by the way, you can be sure too that Michelle Obama won't be kissing Abass' wife if she accuses Israel of poisining little kids.

There are over two hundred liberal Democrats strongly supportive of Israel'as policies, imperfect as they are--still "in the tank" as Mr. Rosenberg would put it--and if you want their names, just look at most of the liberal Democrats in the U.S. house and the U.S. Senate. Not one of them, (except, of course, for President Kucinich) will be joining Mr. Rosenberg in condemning the evils of the occupation. And while some of them are happy to have J Street's endorsement, none of those will condemn the evils of occupation or advocate that billions of dollars of aid be withheld in some silly attempt, a la Bush 41, to force Israel's policies to change.

Now, of course, a couple of you will instantly respond that those politicians to whom I just referred are merely pusillanimous hypocrites who are afraid to jeopardize the flow of campaign contributions from my frinds and me. Nonsense. The reason those candidates don't go around condemning the evils of Israel's occupation is because 95% of the voters in their states and districts don't give an thimble of piss what Israeis do to Palestinians, and of the 5% who even think about I-P issues, more than half think that Arabs are a bunch of fucking terrorists who deserve everything Israel does to make thier lives miserable. So one would have to have the extraordinary political acumen of a President Kucinich to spend any time enunciating Mr. Rosenberg's views.

By all means go right ahead and post to your hearts' content how perceptive Mr. Rosenberg and Professor Walt are. Nobody with any power in Washington D.C. will give a damn.