Freeman's right -- You cannot speak the truth in this country about Israel. If you want to hear it you need to go to Israel, and listen to both the Palestinians and Israelis.

I figured this out a couple years ago when to my astonishment the Israelis allowed me to wander around their national security prisons talking to Hamas and Islamic Jihad inmates. Most were members of suicide bombing networks -- maybe the largest collection of mass murderers in the world. The visits were unsupervised, and I was allowed to roam any block I wanted to. The Israelis weren't even particularly concerned about the conclusions I came away with. Their attitude was here are the raw facts, and let the chips fall where they may. Try calling up our Bureau of Prisons and ask for the same access to the terrorists we have in jail.

But what really struck me was a conversation with the man who designed the barrier that separates the West Bank from Israel. My first question was what you would expect out of an American's mouth: Has the wall stopped terrorism? He didn't bother answering and pointed in the direction of the West Bank: on the other side of that wall, he said, are 400 million angry, desperate people who all want to live here. That is why we are building the barrier.

In other words, according to this man, what Israel has on its hands is a virtually insoluble demographic catastrophe. It is a ground truth that the Israelis have to deal with day to day, rather than our abstracts like democracy, totalitarianism, and weapons of mass destruction.

My real epiphany came when I spent the day on patrol with Israeli Defense Forces commander in Hebron. After our armored jeep was splattered by rotten vegetables, he turned to me and said, My god I hate this. This is not what I joined the army for.

Until we're able to carry on conversations like these, we'll never comprehend the problems of the Arab-Israeli dispute. Or of course contribute to a solution.

Thanks to the NJ editors for the correction. This question sounds more like a search for wisdom. For those interested in reactions to this issue we have additional comments at:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/03/ok-i-posted-on-the-nj-thing.html

This question and especially this forum provides a great opportunity for calmly educating Americans about what their elected leaders think on this issue. This blog's list of contributors includes 3 U.S. Congressmen and one U.S. Senator. I am positive that all contributors to and readers of this blog would benefit from hearing from them about: (a) Why they do or do not go up and genuflect on the stage of each year's AIPAC gathering? (b) If they approve of the Mayor of New York City and Congressman Ackerman going to Israel during the Gaza war to applaud Israel's offensive and thereby ensure that all Muslims know and hate the fact that American leaders are egging Israel on to kill more Muslim civilians? (c) What they think about Rahm Emanuel -- a man who chose the IDF over the U.S, military in wartime -- serving as President Obama's chief of staff and being privy to the nation's most sensitive information? (d) And if they agree with Senator Joseph Liberman that America has a responsibility to use its tax money and the lives of its soldier-children make sure God's promise to Abraham about Israel is kept? Detailed answers to these and other questions would surely give all readers an inside view of how the U.S.-Israel relationship works.

The basic answer to this question is that there is no way to talk frankly about Israel and its relationship to the United States that does not expose the speaker to accusations of tribal hatred and affinity to various fascist and/or medieval groups that have persecuted Jews through the ages.

Ah! Sorry! There is a way to avoid such calumny, and that is to become an unthinking robotlike servant of the non-lobby. The non-lobby is the non-assemblage of political forces which forced Freeman to acknowledge the depth of his "guilty" associations with Saudi and Chinese interests and withdraw from fear of exposure. None of that, of course, had anything to do with Israel, her government, or her many moneyed and politically active supporters in the United States. Perish the thought.

"Gatekeeping" is now a major function in futile "discussions" like this one. It is to be seen in the oh so delicate phrasing of the question itself. It is to be seen much more clearly in two of the responses of the first day of discussion. Boundaries are firmly drawn in those responses. There are implicit warnings of what names will be called if the desired limits on areas on content are exceeded. The desired attitude is expressed clearly. The commenter waits now to see who should be disciplined. How many people will risk a wrecked career or a loss of access to the media by defying such menace?

Those not yet fully domesticated, are invited to the discussion of this NJ question on my blog.

America is diminished by the stepping down of Charles (“Chas”) Freeman as the Director of the National Intelligence Council, a senior staff position for the Director of National Intelligence. We are even more diminished by the process that brought us to Freeman’s resignation.

I do not know Ambassador Freeman, but I have had the privilege to hear him and read him. I have benefited immensely, I believe, from his insights based on years of experience as an American diplomat. To listen to what he actually has to say is to expand your mind beyond the normal clap-trap that passes for foreign policy analysis in this country, but which amounts to nothing more than domestic American politics bent outside our borders.

Given Freeman’s refusal to pander to the worst sophistry regarding Israel’s behavior toward Palestinians (such as indiscriminant bombing with precision weapons), the onslaught by something we are not supposed to call the “Israel Lobby” was as predictable as the sunrise.

It lobbies on behalf of what people here believe protects Israel’s interests and a close American relationship. What else are we supposed to call it? There is nothing inherently insidious about the existence of a lobby, but some have created such a thicket of political correctness about this term, it is clear they seek to control more than our words.

I fear that the Obama administration thought it was protecting itself from a political firestorm over Freeman’s views by appointing him to a position that did not require Senate confirmation. That Obama permitted Freeman to step down so quickly and easily after the outrage nonetheless broke out shows a tepid, uncertain nature that will not serve the president well as he continues to face the national security wreckage left on his doorstep by the Bush administration and the weaklings in Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, who failed to prevent or reverse the carnage.

The way forward? Almost certainly, the President has been handed lists of “acceptable” candidates for Freeman’s job. Not only should those be rejected out of hand, but an individual should be sought out for this position, and a few others, who has demonstrated a track record of real objectivity in the Middle East, rather than an eagerness to brown nose for correctness on that or any other cluster of issues. After all, isn’t that what intelligence and analysis is supposed to be about?

The intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has often caused my eyes to glaze over, especially when the pundits speak of near-term peace in the Middle East. It is the Ground Hog Day, deja vu-all-over-again issue of international politics. At the same time, it is a tremendously important issue, one that will affect so many other issues in the region. Solve the Israel-Palestinian problem, and it will help you with many other issues, even if they won't disappear overnight. It is also a key issue in domestic politics as democrats and republicans vie with one another to show how pro-Israel their policy was/is/will be. In few if any other bilateral relationships are the epithets thrown with such tremendous speed and often, such tremendous inaccuracy. If you criticize Israel, you can be tarred by various groups as an anti-semite. If you cozy up to the Palestinians or even concern yourself with their material well being, you are called soft of terrorism. President Obama needs to move forward with his eyes open and the clear notion that while Israel is one of our best and most reliable allies, our national interests often coincide, but are not identical. A just and lasting peace in that region is still the goal and that is what we must pursue, evenhandedly, sanely, and yes, with an occasional rebuff to both sides in the issue. Another hint for the new President: the kind of appointees you are looking for are tough, hard headed, intelligent, and diplomatic. And yes, the best of them will be able to say NO to Israel, as Dov Zakheim did on the Lavi, and Larry Eagleburger did during the first Gulf War. This is one issue where you don't need lightning rods like Ambassador Freeman, or people who are not careful about their words or associations. ( Frankly, I would never hire anyone who took money from a Chinese, state-owned oil company. The head of the National Intelligence Council needs to exercise better judgment than that.)

The way the question is framed is reminiscent of the realist-nominalist debates that consumed Christian theologians in the 12th Century. Is there an Israeli lobby bending U.S. foreign policy to its will or is U.S. policy following a natural and predictable course that would have been largely the same with or without the presence of the alleged lobby? In this instance, the term “lobby’ encompasses much more than the public activities of those recognized and self-admitted groups and organizations that have an interest in U.S.-Israeli relations. As the introduction to the question makes clear, with respect to Israel the term “lobby” implies a somewhat shady and nebulous entity that exercises a hidden and coercive power over the U.S. government – a secular Illuminati. At its core, the implication is that the so-called pro-Israel American lobby acts on behalf of interests other than those of the United States; in effect, that it behaves in a traitorous manner.

Dov Zakheim and Paul Pillar have done a good job of define the Marquis of Queensbury rules for a sensible conversation on U.S. policy options in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute Paul as suggested a set of common assumptions to drive the discussion. His points are entirely valid. But they are not new. Unfortunately, most experts have long come to agree on what has to happen, indeed what will happen, to bring about a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Getting from here to there is the problem. The correct order of the chess moves, the mix of carrots and sticks, the impact of local politics on overall progress and the energy the White House can devoted to this subject all impact on the possibilities for progress.

In the meantime, there is much room for mischief, including charges of bias, etc. While this situation is not to be applauded or encouraged, it is real. Hence, it needs to be addressed. It was suggested to me that I need to take a more judicious stance. With apologies to the staff at National Journal I believe that even after reading the first two responses, what I had to say still stands. The debate on the way forward is inextricably tied to perceptions of interests and motives. More important, much of the discussion is based on flawed logic. Therefore, I must proceed.

Let’s start at the beginning. There a number of points to be made regarding the presumed presence and power of a so-called Israeli lobby. First, there is no evidentiary basis that this lobby, if there really is one, exercises undue or deleterious effects on U.S. policy. Those who speak in hushed tones regarding the power of this lobby have been unable to show how U.S. policy would have been substantially different in the absence of such a lobby. Have U.S.’s interests been harmed due to its stance regarding Israel? At best this is a debatable question. The fact that Israel does not always obey U.S. policy dictates is not evidence of the existence of a so-called Israeli lobby. Nations from France and Germany to Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Japan have, on occasion, challenged U.S. policies. It was the close U.S., relationship with Saudi Arabia that was Usama bin Laden’s explicit reason for 9/11, not our relationship with Israel, as he later claimed. On the basis of U.S. casualties alone, we should question our relationship with Saudi Arabia before we ask about that with Israel. Yet, the existence of a so-called Saudi lobby is all-but taken for granted.

I, for one, am shocked to find out that there is lobbying going on in Washington (with apologies to Captain Renault). The so-called Israeli lobby must be a singular entity to gain so much attention in a town crawling with registered lobbyists. Or, if not, perhaps it is that the so-called Israel lobby is the only one that tries to influence U.S. policy on behalf of a pre-hyphenation nation or people. Guess again. Have the critics forgotten the Irish-American lobby that sought to influence U.S, policy with respect to Northern Ireland and the Irish Republican Army in direct opposition to the interests of America’s closest ally, Great Britain? Or the Greek-American and Armenian-American lobbies that have complicated U.S. relations with its NATO ally, democratic Turkey? What about the Saudi lobby with its bags of money for U.S. universities and non-profits, operated for so many years by Prince Bandar? Remember Michael Moore’s accusation that the Bush Administration and the Bushes personally, pere i fils, were as in the pocket of the Saudis and this is the reason that members of the bin Laden family were allowed to jet out of the United States on 9/12? Or how about a former RAND Corporation analyst, Laurent Murawiecz, who was summarily dismissed from that institution for having dared to assert in a briefing to the Defense Policy Board that Saudi Arabia had too much influence over U.S. policy? Same lobby. Where was Chas Freeman then? If a pro-Israel lobby exists, my response is…So what?

So, perhaps it is a good thing that the so-called Israeli lobby exists, if indeed it does, just to offer a counterweight to the impact on U.S. policy of the lobbies supported by the Saudis, Iranians, Egyptians, Russians, oil companies, and others. With apologies to Voltaire, but if a pro-Israel lobby did not exist, of necessity we would have to create one. But that would only be to create balance with respect to the impact of the other lobbies on U.S. Middle East policy.

Maybe the real complaint of the critics is that the so-called Israel lobby is too successful. Perhaps we should institute handicaps like the NFL has with the salary cap? How about lobbyist free agency so members of the so-called Israel lobby can switch to the Saudi tram for a better pay package. Even then, the Palestinian lobbies would have a very weak, at times even unsavory, client with a cause in many respects difficult to argue on the merits.

The reality is that no so-called Israel lobby is necessary to impact U.S. Middle East policy because our interests and those of Israel are largely congruent. Whether it is the natural affinity of democracies; our shared political and social modernity; the common opposition to Soviet expansionism during the Cold War; the sharing of intelligence; technology cooperation; equal distance, politically speaking, from the internecine political warfare that consumes the Arab world; a mutual determination to defeat terrorism; or a shared culture…Israel and America are in accord. What is the basis for our strategic relationship with the Arab nations? The answer is one word, oil. Absent oil, Israel alone would continue to hold our interest in the region. If the Obama Administration is successful in weaning the U.S. from its addiction to oil, Israel alone will be of strategic interest to this country. At least that will be the case until democracy and representative
governance takes hold elsewhere in the region.

Those who would spin the tale of the all-powerful Israel lobby often take refugee in the argument that all they are seeking is even-handedness in U.S. policy towards the Palestinian-Israeli question. What is the meaning of the term even-handedness? Should we give equal support and credence to dictatorships, theocracies, and thugocracies as we do to democracies? Should we have a policy of balance when it comes to a friend of more than sixty years and an entity (or two) that did not even exist prior to the late 1960s? Should we be even-handed between advocates of terrorism and their victims? If it means insisting on the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis to live side-by-side within secure and recognized borders, we are even-handed.

But, since when has U.S., policy been even-handed with respect to any significant regional rivalry or dispute when the interests of a longstanding friend and ally are at stake? Were we even-handed on the Korean Peninsula, in the Taiwan Straits, the Falklands or across the Fulda Gap? Are we even-handed now with respect to the security of our NATO allies, South Korea or Japan in the face of Russian, Chinese and North Korean bluster and attempts at intimidation? So far, no. In fact, one of the few times we sought to be even handed in the Middle East and not side with traditional allies, in the 1956 Suez crisis, we were repaid by Nasser’s ever-tighter relationship with the Soviet Union. Why is even-handedness a standard only applied to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?

The advocates of even-handedness would like us to forget the modern history of the Levant and the manner in which our current relationship with Israel evolved. We have come to our current situation because for most of the past sixty years the Arab nations proved themselves to be feckless allies or even adversaries, many willing handmaidens of the Soviet Union. The advocates of even-handedness suggest that a clean slate can be created when nothing is further from the truth. The possibilities of a clean slate were irretrievably lost when the Arab states rejected the 1948 U.N. partition plan – which the U.S. supported. Since then, multiple regional conflicts, uncounted revolutions and civil wars and, oh yes, a little thing called the Cold War shaped U.S. policies in the region and American support for Israel. Ultimately it is a combination of U.S. and Israeli shared experiences, common interests and parallel visions of the future that make even-handedness an impossibility – and rightly so.

The advocates of even-handedness would have the U.S. strategically disinvest in Israel in order to make an investment in whom? The Palestinian Authority? Hamas? While the U.S. should and does favor Palestinian statehood on humanitarian and moral grounds it should not do so at all costs. Simply put, if the price of even-handedness is the creation of a Hamas-run, Iranian-backed, fundamentalist Palestinian state, it is one too high to pay. Not just for Israel, but for the U.S. The costs and benefits to the U.S. of even-handedness in a narrow sense are not equal. Let the Palestinian people create the institutions that would make their future state one in which we can have some confidence and with which we share some essential values and the case for even-handedness would be much stronger.

But let us be ultimate pragmatists and ask the question this way: Is it conceivable that the U.S. has enough to gain from distancing itself from Israel and being even more supportive than it already is of the Palestinian cause? The answer to the question narrowly constituted is no. A Palestinian state, however constituted, can never be the strategic asset that is Israel. Given the internal political struggle among the Palestinian people, the U.S. can gain little and lose much from aligning itself strategically with a Palestinian state. I would note, somewhat parenthetically, that no Palestinian leadership has even thought of striking such a deal with the U.S. No leaders have come to Washington promising to be our ally, or vassal, if only we would favor them over Israel. They cannot even offer us a useful deal. On grounds of narrow self-interest, is the U.S. not better off with a close relationship to the military and technological superpower of the
region?

On the broader parsing of the question, that is could the U.S. gain enough in its relations with Muslim states (and others, I suppose) so as to warrant distancing itself from Israel, I also conclude that the answer must be no. If so, on whom should we rely, if not Israel? The stable and pro-Western regimes of Syria, Iran, or Libya? Perhaps the powerhouses of Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. Just a survey of our options in the region makes it clear that to choose other allies is also to abandon even-handedness. Or should we be even-handed with respect to all disputes in the region? How about the rivalry between Shia and Sunni? Should we be even-handed between revolutionary Iran - the nation that ships EFPs to our enemies in Iraq - and Saudi Arabia? How about being even-handed between Hezbollah and the democratically-elected government of Lebanon? Or the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan? You know, this idea of even-handedness has real promise.

Perhaps the advocacy of even-handedness is simply a cover for a policy designed to create the conditions that would lead to the eventual abandonment of Israel? I have already argued in a previous blog that this would be strategically disastrous for the United States. But to explore the point a little further, could we get a better deal from states such as Iran if we sold Israel down the river? How very Chamberlinesque. Let us ingratiate ourselves with the Grand Ayatollah by throwing Israel at his feet. Just imagine the confidence in U.S. security guarantees this would engender in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Turkey. To the contrary, we have a lever in our dealings with the Arab world (and with Iran) precisely because there is the possibility that we can move Israel. No Israel, no leverage. Whatever favor we might gain in the higher councils of the Arab world or with the Grand Ayatollah would quickly be expended and we would face the need to deal with them afresh on the issues of the day. You can only spend thirty pieces of silver once.

Critics of current U.S. policy have argued that our standing in the Muslim world would be enhanced by a more even-handed policy on the Palestinian-Israeli question. The diplomatic record does not bear out this contention. The U.S. relationship with Egypt has improved and that with Iran worsened while policy towards Israel has remained relative unchanged. Perhaps it is the respect of the so-called “Arab street” that we need to cultivate. Since that “street’ has little influence over the governments of the countries through which it passes it is difficult to understand how its favor would benefit the U.S.

Since this is the second question of less than a dozen to address the issue of U.S.-Israeli relations, you must pardon me for being a little curious as to what lies behind it. Is it, as the National Journal’s blogmeisters aver, merely a response to recent events and the withdrawal of Chas Freeman from consideration for a high intelligence post? Perhaps. But given the spate of recent events involving U.S. relations with Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea; it is a little puzzling that Israel has received so much attention. Poor Chas Freeman was as great a critic of the anti-Beijing lobby as he was of Israel. So, why are they not to blame for his political self-immolation?

Chas Freeman fell victim to his own lack of perspective, not to the efforts of any lobby. Simply look at his assertion that the so-called Israel lobby prevents the subject of the U.S.-Israeli relationship from being openly debated. I seem to recall precisely such a debate taking place between the contending Democratic Party candidates for president just last fall. In recent months I have participated in numerous dialogues, debates, seminars, and blogs on the very subject. In these various public venues, individuals of widely differing political, ethnic, religious, and academic persuasions have freely expressed their opinions, many of them not supportive of Israel’s policies. The question that inspired this week’s blog, Can there be an open discussion and debate on the subject of U.S.-Israeli relations due to the power of the so-called Israel lobby? is nonsense.

If what Freeman meant was that it is not easy to get away with advocating that the U.S. take a position that is not strategically, militarily, politically, or morally in this country’s interest then, unfortunately, he is right. But this just means that Freeman’s problem is purely of his own creation, a result of his extremist views and an inability to marshal the logic and evidence to support them. Let us not turn the decision to exclude a zealot (but not a Zealot) from a position in government of extreme sensitivity into the stuff of conspiracy theories.

Since the National Journal does not employ fools as reporters and editors, I believe that the answer to the questions, Why this topic and why now? is that the National Journal sensed that something was in the wind. Perhaps, opponents of the U.S. strategic relationship with Israel had hoped to use the start of a new administration as the basis for recasting U.S.’s policy. As Rahm Emmanuel so rightly noted with respect to other issues, a crisis should not be wasted. So, rather than having an open and honest debate about U.S. policy in the Middle East and where America’s strategic interests lie, let us circumvent such a reasonable and reasoning approach by creating a contra-temps in which the so-called Israel lobby can be found to be unduly influencing U.S. policy. If such a cause celeb can be created, then it obviates the need for the aforementioned debate because by definition, current U.S., policy – and indirectly the commitment of then-candidate Obama to the security of Israel – is tainted and could be rendered null and void.

Finally, I must observe that the arguments regarding the existence and influence of an all-powerful Israel lobby fall short in so many ways, so obviously, that in the end it is hard not to conclude that other motives are behind the effort to invest this chimera with such power over U.S. policy.

This is a good question, but the discussion will be feckless if it avoids what the moderator refers to as intimations that may be "ugly." Well, friends, ugly is here and it has been here for decades. There is indeed an identifiable fifth column of pro-Israel U.S. citizens -- I have described them here and elsewhere as Israel-Firsters -- who have consciously made Israel's survival and protection their first priority, and who see worth in America only to the extent that its resources and manpower can be exploited to protect and further the interests of Israel in its religious war-to-the-death with the Arabs. These are disloyal citizens in much the same sense that the Civil War's disloyal northern "Copperheads" sought to help the Confederates destroy the Union. The Israel-Firsters help Israel suborn U.S. citizens to spy for Israel; they use their fortunes and political action organizations to buy U.S. politicians with campaign donations; and most of all they use their ready access to the media to disguise their own disloyalty by denigrating as anti-Semites or appeasers fellow citizens who dare to challenge them. The Israel-Firsters are unquestionably enemies of America’s republican experiment and will have to be destroyed as the Copperheads were destroyed -- by the people, after a full public deabte, at the ballot box.

The broader question the moderators have posed -- “what is the way forward?” -- I will not attempt to tackle. My general view of the needed approach toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be summarized in two propositions. First, a two-state solution, (despite some commentators having already sounded its death-knell) must remain the goal, because all the alternatives are either infeasible or too destructive of the interests of Israelis, of Palestinians, or of regional peace. Second, vigorous and direct involvement of the United States is essential in achieving that goal, as demonstrated by the lack of results when such involvement is lacking.

On behalf of the more modest objective of promoting a “rational discussion,” I offer the following seven observations. Think of them partly as suggested ground rules for discussion, and partly as propositions on which I would hope discussants on different sides of the larger issue could agree.

First, disagreement with policies of a state (or policies toward the state) is not the same as prejudice against people who live in that state. To discern some similarities with prejudicially based views does not mean the views one is discerning are themselves based on ethnic prejudice. Criticism of policies of Arab states (or of the leaders of the stateless Palestinians) is not to be equated with prejudice against Arabs or Muslims, even though such prejudice is quite evident, including among many Americans. Criticism of policies of Israel is not to be equated with anti-Semitic (or to be more precise, anti-Jewish; Arabs are Semites too) sentiment, even though anti-Semitism unfortunately is still very much alive and in some places even growing. Criticism of policies of China is not to be equated with prejudice against people of East Asian ethnicity, even though such prejudice has been very much in evidence in some ugly chapters of American history. And so forth.

As with any other ad hominem argument, to hurl a charge of ethnic prejudice at someone on the other side of a policy discussion generates only heat, not light. It suggests the hurler’s own substantive case is weak. And to affix the label of ethnic prejudice where it does not apply risks devaluing laudable efforts to expose it and combat it where the label does apply.

Second, issues of U.S. policy toward this part of the Middle East are not a matter of deciding that one side is better than the other, or more like us than the other, or of determining whether Israel is on balance more of an asset than a liability. This was my objection to an earlier question posed in this forum, which asked for such a balance sheet. U.S. policymakers are not drawing up balance sheets. They have to take positions on specific issues and to manage relations with Middle Eastern countries in specific ways. Where one side or the other comes out on any balance sheet of things we like or don’t like about that side is not the policy-relevant question.

One sometimes hears that Israel is a democracy, and therefore the United States needs to support Israel. The policy issues at hand have nothing to do with Israeli democracy. The method by which a political system arrives at policies is not the same as the wisdom of the policies themselves. There are no policy options in Washington regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would endanger Israelis’ ability to continue to enjoy their largely democratic way of life. The issues concern things where Israel is at its least democratic, regarding the occupied territories (any occupation is inherently undemocratic). The main effects on democracy of different policy options regarding this conflict involve the prospects for the emergence of a stable Palestinian democracy. That an Israeli government was democratically elected is not a reason to avoid questioning its policies and practices, or questioning the U.S. position on those policies and practices. And the fact that Hamas won a democratic election is not a reason to avoid challenging its policies and practices either.

Third, the interests of even the closest allies differ. This is true, for example, of the United States and Canada, which are locked in as close an embrace as almost any pair of countries but still have divergent and openly debated interests on matters ranging from imports of softwood lumber to sovereignty over Arctic sea-lanes. It is true as well of the U.S. relationship with Britain, although the extent of the divergence there sometimes is masked by the British being so anxious to preserve the special relationship that they do some things that would not otherwise be in their own interest (such as joining the Iraq War). Similarly, the interests of the United States and Israel diverge in significant ways -- because they are in different regions, because the United States is a superpower and Israel is not, because the state of Israel is defined partly in religious terms and the United States is not, and for other reasons. To point this out is not to deny that there are other U.S. and Israeli interests that converge, or to argue that the convergent ones are not more important than the divergent ones. But to pretend that the divergent ones do not exist or are unimportant is to impede rational discussion and to make policy debates uninformed.

Fourth, even the closest allies exert pressure on each other in an effort to change their policies. We do it to the Canadians all the time. We have done it to the British in some major ways (such as opposing the Suez War of 1956) without lasting damage to the special relationship. The Israelis certainly do it to the United States.

Fifth, sometimes such pressure, as painful as it may be at the time, works to the long-term advantage of the nation being pressured. This is especially true if the nation in question has shown itself politically incapable of working its way off a destructive path. Extreme examples would be the overthrow of the regimes in Nazi Germany and imperial Japan in World War II, opening the way for far better lives for Germans and Japanese in prosperous liberal democracies. The situation in today’s Middle East is not comparable, of course, but the politics on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, left to their own devices, give grounds for nothing but pessimism about a continued destructive impasse.

Sixth, no single viewpoint associated with a particular nation should be equated with the interests of that nation. The moderators correctly point out the range of organizations in Washington that identify with Israel. The more diversity there is in that regard the better, in the interest of increasing the thoroughness of debate on policies involving Israel. The advent of something like J-Street is thus to be welcomed. The problem is that policy debate in Washington still does not fully reflect any such broad range. Instead, one subset of that range -- one set of views -- tends falsely to get equated with Israeli interests. Similarly, no single expression of views from the Palestinian side -- whether from Hamas, from Abu Mazin, or from stone-throwers in Nablus -- should be equated with Palestinian interests.

Seventh, what the United States needs to produce is policy, not empathy. The task is not just a matter of feeling someone’s pain; there is plenty of pain to feel all around. During the recent war in Gaza one often heard the rhetorical question from Israelis, “What would you do if terrorists kept firing rockets at your citizens?” Palestinians in Gaza could, of course, ask similarly, “What would you do if someone blockaded your homeland, invaded it while killing hundreds of innocent people, and you had no way to strike back except to fire rockets?” The answers to such questions, of course, are more military offensives and more rockets. Understanding the emotions that underlie the protagonists’ actions is necessary but hardly sufficient to move them to a more peaceful path.

I would be delighted if American leaders would express some of these points openly. Mr. Obama and his speechwriters have shown their ability to find graceful and acceptable ways to address comparably sensitive topics, from racism in America to stem-cell research. But I am not holding my breath. Before the election I predicted that a much greater and more energetic U.S. role in Arab-Israeli affairs might not be possible unless whoever was elected in 2008 got reelected in 2012 and then, freed from ever having to run for office again, could throw himself into the task without regard to the inhibiting taboos and political baggage. Since then I have seen little reason to be any more optimistic about the near term.

Let me begin by addressing the assertion that “U.S. policy towards Israel has been frozen for years, if not decades.” It is simply not true. As the Washington Post, supposedly no friend of Israel (according to many of its advocates), editorialized on Thursday, March 12: “Israel’s ‘ruling faction’… in the past few years alone has seen the U.S. government promote a Palestinian election that it opposed; refuse it weapons it might have used for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities; and adopt a policy of direct negotiations with a regime that denies the Holocaust and that promises to wipe Israel off the map.” To that list might be added: the evolution of a policy that got Andrew Young fired for talking to the PLO to one that recognized the PLO and supports a Palestinian state. And there have been lesser policies that Israel bitterly opposed such as the Reagan Administration’s sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s, and the cancellation of the Lavi aircraft (an effort that I personally led) a few years later.

It is not, therefore, a matter of American policy being frozen, but rather a matter of debating in a rational way whether American policy should move further in the direction of positions that a significant portion of Israelis, and many Americans, oppose.

There is a simple answer to the question of having a rational discussion about American policy towards Israel: stop personalizing it. Stop talking about the proclivities of particular groups, or for that matter, particular individuals. Such talk, about a subject that inherently involves the incendiary mix of politics, religion and history, can never lead to anything but bitterness and vituperation.

Take, for example, the accusation that American policy regarding Israel is driven by people whose loyalty is dual, and therefore suspect. Even when not named, the inference is clearly to Jews. Yet it is well-known that the majority, perhaps the overwhelming majority, of Evangelicals, unstintingly support the State of Israel, many of them taking a harder line on the withdrawal from the Occupied Territories than both the majority of Israelis and the majority of Jewish Americans. Since Evangelicals outnumber the Jewish American community by at least an order of magnitude, it is arguable that more Evangelicals are hard line on the issue of withdrawal than are Jews. Yet, other than their loyalty to the Bible, to what do Evangelicals have any loyalty other than to America? Attacking Jews for supposedly harboring dual loyalties is therefore not only is misplaced, it is the kind of slur that inhibits rational debate.

Jews will react to this, and other innuendos with an emotion that overshadows all else. However much the Holocaust may have become a yawn, or boring to some, for Jewish Americans whose parents, or grandparents, or relatives perished even as the world closed its doors to Jewish refugees from Europe, the Holocaust is a grim reminder that “mere” anti-Semitic words and publications that colored Central European politics at the turn of the twentieth century led to genocide a few decades later. Any attack on Jews as an entity will evoke an overreaction every time.

There likewise can be no rational debate if it involves attacks on individuals, regardless of what side of the debate they are on. Who, after all, are the so-called “Arabists?” Are they supporters of Egypt and Jordan, who have peace treaties with Israel? Or of the several of the Gulf and North African Arab states, who have economic relations with Israel? The term is a slur, as is the broad-brush use of the term “neo-Con” with which to tar any Jew supporting, or worse, serving in, the Bush Administration. Both sets of slurs appear with increasing frequency in the blogosphere, and they render rational debate virtually impossible.

So, to sum up a long entry: don’t generalize, about US policy in the Middle East; about groups supporting or opposing that policy; or about individuals that may or may not have taken a policy position, but who, for a variety of reasons, are assumed to have done so. Once the generalizations end, rational debate can begin.