I wholeheartedly agree with you about the narrow range of discourse surrounding Israel in the US, as opposed to Israel proper. One need only look at last night's sickening display by Tim Russert, where he neatly tied opposition to anti-semitism with blind support of Israel.

However, I do take issue with one point made in Obama's speech. While you didn't necessarily agree, it is important to note that there the differences between Likud and Labor are mostly cosmetic. I lived and worked in Palestine from 2000 to 2002 and I can tell you that Labor is not a viable alternative to Likud; in some ways the party is worse. Likud (and Kadima, to a lesser extent) seem to get most of the approbrium from the left here, while Labor is viewed as somehow more pro-peace.

Likud is obviously more extreme in rhetoric, but I would draw your attention to the Oslo years--invented and stewarded by Labor. Settlement population during those years, when Israel was supposedly preparing to return land to Palestinians, doubled from 1992-2000, and settlement building increased at a furious pace. Movement restrictions created by checkpoints and cantonization created by Israel-only roads decimated the already feeble Palestinian economy. In short, Labor's 'peace' strategies and negotiations are usually smokescreens to continue placing Israeli populations in the West Bank, consolidate current settlements, and institutionalize the apartheid structure of the territories. There is no reason to single-out Likud and no reason to take Labor at its word when it claims to want "negotiations".

Do you live in Israel?

Obviously, the fact that the most Israelis believe X doesn't make X the right policy. But it should at least preclude X from being deemed the "anti-Israel" view. That's the point.

I don't live in Israel, but I travel there at least once a year. But I agree with your central point: it's silly to call someone "anti-Israel" or, worse, "anti-Semitic" just because they propose a certain policy. Misguided, perhaps, but not "anti-..."

Israel is one of the arguments or props for our continued military strategic goals in the Middle East.

If Israel truly pursues peace, military initiatives get dinged - kind of like what happened when the march to war with Iran got dinged when the NIE concluded Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.

It is yet another subversion of debate. The debate simplisticly and inaccurately becomes: being against military solutions is anti-Israel, being for Israel means being for military solutions.

The Obama statement, "the U.S. pro-Israel community is a little more protective or concerned about opening up that conversation", while diplomatic and a step in the right direction, it is also quite the understatement and I am not sure recognizes the forces behind keeping the debate closed.

Now just imagine if topics like this were explored as substantively in some sort of nationally televised format with the candidates.

Like, I don't know, maybe a debate?

But it was interesting to learn that Obama both "rejects and denounces" Farrakhan. Thanks, Tim Russert!

Here's yet another case where polls prove absolutely nothing except the stupidity and sheeple-ness of so many people.

-- Sol Invictus

Looking at history, is it usually the best idea to make huge government decisions, based solely on what the people think is the best way to do things?

-- kufir77

You have just confirmed the neocon belief that an oligarchy of Very Important and All-Knowing rulers is the way to go.

It is just mind-boggling that you think that people who have been living in close proximity with this situation would be so uninformed. If you look at more recent polls here in the US you will see that even the 'sheeple' have eyes and brains, however slowly they may choose to engage them.

The Arabs will never defeat us by throwing stones. Our answer will be a nationalist Zionist solution. For every stone throwing - we'll establish ten settlements. If there will be - and there will be - a hundred settlements between Nablus and Jerusalem, no stones will be thrown. If that shall be the case, the Arabs could only run around like cockroaches in a bottle, like drugged cockroaches inside a bottle.

           Rafael Eitan, former IDF Chief of Staff, 13 April 1983

This situation is not the same as that between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. No matter what you thought of the Soviets or of communism, you knew you were at least dealing with a rational actor. That's why the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction worked.

The difference here is the same as between the European and Pacific theaters in WWII. In Europe, the Germans were, if nothing else, rational actors, and after a certain point they saw the uselessness of continuing the fight and surrendered. (The die-hard Nazis fled or committed suicide.)

In the Pacific, the Japanese would fight almost to the last man. To them it was a religious duty to the emperor to fight and die; surrender was a dishonor. You could not just beat them at the fight; you had to crush them until nothing was left. That's why the Pacific theater was much bloodier than the European. (The Russian front is an entirely different story.)

To Hamas, it is a religious duty to destroy Israel. Same is true for Hezbollah and Iran. MAD would not work in this instance, since they considered it glorious martyrdom to die fighting for their religion. They may "negotiate" to buy time or space, but in the end it will still come down to a fight to the finish.

In short, it's naive to negotiate with the likes of Hamas. It wasn't naive to negotiate with the Soviets.

Actually, it concluded that Iran has suspended development. Big difference. What's "suspended" can easily be restarted.

"There are very few issues in mainstream American political discourse with a narrower range of mandated orthodoxies than those which relate to Israel."

The only issue that comes close and maybe surpasses this one is dealing with Cuba.

One thing that I have always failed to understand is how much we underestimate our ability to have a positive influence on the world merely by engaging with it. Imagine where we would be with Cuba if we simply allowed for normal trade and travel? Castro and his crowd would have been thrown out decades ago.