[Download] "Onslaught--Part II: Israel Runs for Cover (Israel-Report)" by The Weekly Middle East Reporter (Beirut, Lebanon) " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Onslaught--Part II: Israel Runs for Cover (Israel-Report)
- Author : The Weekly Middle East Reporter (Beirut, Lebanon)
- Release Date : January 14, 2009
- Genre: Reference,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 60 KB
Description
Israel is reeling from a global furor triggered by allegations that its military committed war crimes during the 22-day invasion of the Gaza Strip last winter. Its deepening sense of international isolation has been compounded by growing pressure from the United States, its longtime strategic ally and protector, to abandon the West Bank to secure peace with the Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's defiance can only further antagonize President Barack Obama's administration. It is perhaps the gravest sign that attitudes about Israel, no longer the tiny nation of Holocaust survivors menacingly outnumbered by savage Arabs but a nuclear-armed occupying power, are undergoing profound change in the way that Americans, and American Jews in particular, now perceive Israel and its policies. Jordanian Palestinian columnist and academic Rami Khoury, a frequent visitor to the United States, noted recently that there is a "slow but steady erosion of the once absolute taboo to speak about the excessive influence of pro-Israeli groups in the United States. Pro-Israeli forces in politics and the mass media can still destroy a public career, especially for a politician, but the stranglehold on discussing this phenomenon is slowly loosening." Khoury, who is currently teaching at the American University of Beirut, cautioned that "this is noteworthy but not decisive until it touches on the conduct of Congress and the White House." Still, he concluded that the "early signs are clear nevertheless. The strict taboos that pro-Israeli zealots and political thugs imposed on the American public are slowly cracking, which can only be in the long-term best interest of the US, Israel and the entire Middle East."