John Judis for President of AIPAC

The New Republic's John Judis, heretofore not known to me as a participant in the Israel Lobby's attempt to dominate Washington, outs himself as a fellow conspirator on The New Republic's website. He did not call for the continued settlement of the West Bank, or for the overthrow of Barack Obama, or for the expulsion of Arabs from Jerusalem. He did something far worse: He criticized Stephen Walt, the neo-Lindberghian Judeocentrist fearmonger who has made it his life's mission to pin the Iraq War, among other wars (in the manner of Mel Gibson, though Gibson was drunk at the time) on the Jooz. In doing so, Walt has become a serial dissembler: Judis points to his recent argument that Tony Blair now acknowledges that Israel pushed the Iraq War on America. Judis:

The real problem is that Walt does not seem to have taken the trouble to have read the transcript of Blair's testimony. If he had, he would have realized that Blair was not talking about how invading Iraq might benefit Israel, but about the conflict then occurring between Israel and the Palestinians. The second intifada had reached a new height with the Passover and Haifa suicide bombings and the beginning of the siege at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and Blair was concerned that the Bush administration was not actively pursuing the peace process. Blair wanted the administration to put the Arab-Israeli issue on a par with the threat of Iraq.

Slipshod, even malicious, renderings of history are par for Walt's course, and I'm glad that John Judis has taken the time to point out this particular calumny.  But I feel for John Judis. I've only met him a couple of times, but suffice it to say, he's not Marty Peretz when it comes to questions about Israel. But now he'll be accused of being part of the Israel Lobby by Stephen Walt, because Stephen Walt's definition of an Israel lobbyist is anyone who criticizes Stephen Walt.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/02/john-judis-for-president-of-aipac/35997/