Pretty ballsy piece by Eric in The Nation today. I say ballsy merely in anticipation of the megabytes worth of hate-mail he's bound to receive. Eric is definitely more qualified then me to write on the subject of the American-Jewish relationship with Israel, being both more familiar with the issue and Jewish. But I'm not sure how productive it is to address current and past U.S. policy towards Israel simply by pointing out which powerful Jews support or condemn war. To be sure, he's merely pointing out how much more emotional and complicated the issue is, but it keeps us trapped in the rhetoric of religious loyalty and misguided patriotism, and talking along those lines leads us nowhere. If there's going to be any hope of secularizing the mid-east we first need to secularize the debate.

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