Forget About The Israel Lobby--The Real Problem Is The Angry Jewish Street!

Jeffrey Goldberg reacts to a post by Andrew Sullivan, who praises Daniel Larison ("treads where angels fear to") for bravely discussing the connection between US support for Israel and terrorism.


Writes Goldberg:

How brave it is to stand athwart the Jews and yell "Stop!" We are a dangerous group of people. Just look at what has happened to other critics who have gone where angels fear to tread and criticized Israel. Take, for example, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, the authors of "The Israel Lobby."  Walt, as many of you know, is in hiding in Holland, under round-the-clock protection of the Dutch police, after the chief rabbi of Wellesley, Mass., issued a fatwa calling for his assassination. Mearsheimer, of course, lost his job at the University of Chicago and was physically assaulted by a group of Hadassah ladies in what became known as the "Grapefruit Spoon Attack of 2009." Now he teaches political science at a community college in Hayden Lake, Idaho, under police guard. And Michael Scheuer, the former CIA man who argues that American Jews are traitors to their country, was recently burned in effigy during a riot led by a cell of Reconstructionist rabbis.  All across this country, assaults by Jews on their critics are on the rise. It's gotten so bad you can't even publish a mildly anti-Semitic cartoon without having your office sacked by gangs of extremists from the North American Federation of Temple Youth. It's tough out there for brave truth-tellers these days.

These brave souls can be identified by their sprained elbow--caused by excessively patting themselves on the back for their courage in being the sole person with the guts to say these sorts of things out loud.

Technorati Tag: Israel Lobby.