Does the world face what some style as Armageddon because American pro-Israel groups still believe out-dated Israeli “public relations“?
According to Ha’aretz chief political columnist AKIVA ELDAR in an October 8, 2007 Democracy Now! interview, while the Israel lobby is “a very important instrument in order to pursue Israel’s policy… they’re a little bit behind the Israeli government and the Israeli people.” He clarifies: “We have seventy out of 120 members of the Knesset who support a two-state solution based on the ’67 lines.”
Then what’s the problem?
Says Eldar, “…if for forty years, you tell the [American] Jewish community that Israel cannot afford to give up the territories, they are important for Israel’s security, just overnight to tell [them], ‘Sorry, we were wrong. Now, we don’t need those territories,’ …It’s very difficult. I think that we are paying the price of having our PR doing a very good job for many years.”
The continuing “Palestinian problem” then, the core problem in the middle east which underpins the others according to The Iraq Study Group, Jimmy Carter and others, may be laid on the doorstep of too-effective Israeli “public relations,” especially as applied to the United States.
So the neocons, AIPAC, their amen corner, and other assorted groups, riding Israel’s coatails on to what some style Armageddon, are clutching a coat the bulk of Israeli society is no longer wearing.
And there’s an underlying anchoring sub-problem: As many Israelis have noted, it’s much easier for Israelis to criticize Israel and the Israeli government than it is for Americans and American Jews — who are likely labeled “anti-semitic” or “self-hating jews” — even have their livelihoods destroyed.
This roadblock to free and open discussion here in the United States endangers not only those men, women, and children living in the middle east, but people throughout the world.
So, the key to mid-east peace is already in the lock. But who in America has the cahones to turn it?