Fighting Back Against the Neocons

Steve Clemons is having none of the usual anti-anti-Semite code being flung at him because he actually shares the Obama administration's approach to Israel, but wants a change in tactics:

I would like to know from Jennifer Rubin and from her editor -- and from the Chairman of the Board of the Washington Post -- what I have ever said, what I have ever written, what I have ever organized that deserves the characterization I received from Jennifer Rubin today at the Washington Post. What does she consider makes me an Israel-basher?

I think the answer is that any criticism of Israel is evidence, in the paranoid neocon mind, of anti-Semitism.

There will be no apology, I suspect. If the WaPo had to remove every insinuation that a criticism of Israel is "bashing" or "pummeling", or rotted in bigotry, their Israel coverage on the opnion side would largely disappear.

Of course, the issue beneath this is whether the Obama administration should use a UN resolution on settlements to abandon the US's long deference to Israel's national security interests. Given the intransigence of Netanyahu and the near-fascism of Avigdor Lieberman, I'd say the US should at the very least abstain.

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