Israel today condemns Iran’s Islamic state, but Israel was its secret partner in the 1980s, selling billions of dollars in weapons and quietly lobbying the U.S. government on Iran’s behalf. Now, Iran says a return to those warmer relations is possible, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
The hardline Zionist positions of AIPAC have given rise to a more moderate pro-Israel lobby called J Street, which deviates from some right-wing Israeli policies by favoring negotiations with Iran, for instance. But J Street still makes excuses for Israel’s repression of the Palestinians, write Abba A. Solomon and Norman Solomon.
From the Archive: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as “a Jewish state” and thus accept the Zionist narrative of the Diaspora may doom the latest peace talks. But the Diaspora narrative also represents bad history, as Mideast scholar Morgan Strong reported in 2009.
In the face of sustained injustice, there is an understandable desire to detect hopeful signs of change, small victories that boost the spirits of those fighting to make things better. But those shimmers of hope can often prove to be mirages in the harsh geopolitical desert of the Middle East, warns Lawrence Davidson.